February 6th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
Wade Roush writes about the OLPC XO for Xconomy.com in The XO Laptop: It’s the Software, Stupid.
“On YouTube, there is an 11-minute video of the veterinarian-assisted birth of a calf on a farm in Villa Cardal, Uruguay, a small town in a dairy-rich region four hours north of the capital, Montevideo… But what makes this particular video remarkable is that it was shot by a fourth-year student at Villa Cardal’s Public School 24, using the built-in camera and recording software on the student’s XO Laptop, within weeks of the machine’s arrival at the school last year.”
The OLPC project predicted students would use their XOs for numerous creative purposes and did not expect to know everything they would devise. This could be one of the first shining examples of how quickly the students will use their new tools to participate in the global cultural interchange on the internet.
It has been a key tenet that OLPC is a learning project, not a hardware project. “Almost every piece of software on the XO is designed to advance the constructivist belief that learning occurs most efficiently when it’s active, social, and exploratory, with constant feedback between instructors and learners and between learners themselves.”
Another tenet is the centrality of open source, in both hardware and software used by the project. “Virtually everything on the laptop, right down to the hardware drivers, is open-source–so that it can be shared and so that, ultimately, responsibility for maintaining the platform can be transferred from the foundation itself to the community of educators, students, and developers using the XO. “In open-source you strive to push everything upstream, because as soon as it’s upstream, it’s not your problem anymore, it’s the community’s problem,” says Bender. “That’s a great place to be. And we are trying to push as much upstream as possible, because we won’t be successful otherwise.”
In other words, they are not delivering a product, they are seeding the creation of a self-sustaining community of learners. This is the key to economic development just as it is to successful education. And it is going to have a huge cumulative impact on global well-being.
Posted in Free Culture, GNU/Linux, OLPC, Open Source | Comments Off on XO Laptop: It’s the Software
February 5th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
In KDE 4.0’s cross-platform strategy, Mac OS X plays a key role. The KDE TechBase keeps track of KDE on Mac OS X projects here.
While 4.1 will bring the final release for OS X, there are plenty of things to play with now. I’m particularly interested in KStars, the KDE PIM, and KOffice itself.
I’ve long been a proponent of OpenOffice, but I don’t see KOffice as a threat to OOo. Rather, I think the two are complementary, each with a different primary focus, and yet also helping each other by forming a strong argument for ODF. With ODF, there’s no need to fight for sole software hegemony, since we’ll still be compatible with everyone else regardless of our personal application preferences. As OOo and KOffice grow, they bring more users to the ODF file standard. And as ODF grows, it lets more people freely choose OOo, KOffice, or one of the many other compatible programs.
If a politician were discussing this issue, they’d call it “growing the pie,” not just changing the relative sizes of its slices. That’s good for all the communities involved!
Posted in Mac, ODF, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | 1 Comment »
February 4th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
The Economist.com discusses using Linux to rehabilitate old computers for donating to students. The author has found many school students have no access to a computer at home: “A quarter of the children in your correspondent’s class had nothing at home to research their projects on–not even a parent’s or older sibling’s computer. And it showed in the classroom.”
And his suggestion is to wipe the Microsoft junk off your donation and replace it with a capable and lightweight operating system instead: Linux.
“Apart from being able to run easily on clunky old machines, the great thing about Linux is the way thousands of the world’s most professional programmers have volunteered their spare time to improving the breed–with nothing to gain save personal satisfaction and the respect of their peers. Thanks to their efforts, there’s recently been a flood of slick desktop versions of the rugged open-source operating system.”
After sampling several Linux distros, gOS catches the author’s eye:
“Spurred on by Everex, a PC maker in Fremont, California, the gOS distribution encases the rock-solid Ubuntu 7.10 in an exceptionally rich graphical shell known as E17 from an outfit called Enlightenment. For sheer beauty and intuitiveness, the gOS interface out-Macs even Apple’s superb OS X.
“But the real magic behind gOS is its use of Google Apps, the search company’s free online alternative to Microsoft Office. Computer pundits have talked endlessly about “software as a service”—using software applications that reside permanently on the internet rather than on your local hard-drive—but nothing much has come of it. Suddenly, out of the blue, gOS has made it a reality.
“Unquestionably, gOS is the operating system for the YouTube generation. Like the Mac, you just switch it on and start uploading videos, downloading tunes and doing other good things with the click of a mouse.”
For situations where online office applications are not ideal, the author matter-of-factly mentions OpenOffice as the pre-installed desktop office suite on gOS machines (casually expressing what many mainstream publications have not yet recognized: its complete suitability as a replacement for heavy, expensive MS Office). He doesn’t even explain OpenOffice.org, confident that everyone already knows what it is!
Posted in GNU/Linux, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on gOS Catches The Economist’s Eye
February 1st, 2008 Benjamin Horst
Computerworld Australia reports on a rollout of 23,000 computers in schools in the Philippines.
“Providing high school students with PCs is seen as a first step to preparing them for a technology-literate future, but in the Philippines many schools cannot afford to provide computing facilities so after a successful deployment of 13,000 Fedora Linux systems from a government grant, plans are underway to roll out another 10,000 based on Ubuntu.”
Cost may be the primary reason for this migration, but just like France’s Gendarmerie, the Philippines will reap many other benefits from the adoption of Linux and open source.
“(IT Consultant) Gonzalez believes the project has helped begin a mindset revolution for accepting the power of free software: ‘People in the government now understand Linux can do so much for so little outlay,’ he said. ‘In a brand new computer 50 percent goes to the operating system and office suite, so how many people can afford that?'”
Adopting Linux at an early stage of its computer and internet growth will allow the Philippines a much easier migration path. Instead of replacing existing infrastructure, they will start fresh, using open source, and the population will be trained on it from the beginning.
Posted in GNU/Linux, Open Source | Comments Off on 23,000 Linux Computers in Philippine Schools
January 31st, 2008 Benjamin Horst
Yahoo News reports that France’s Gendarmerie will migrate its 70,000 computers from Windows to Ubuntu Linux.
The Gendarmerie has been gradually and methodically moving to open source since 2005, when it replaced 70,000 copies of Microsoft Office with OpenOffice.org. In 2006, it adopted Firefox and Thunderbird, and now it plans to complete the migration with Ubuntu Linux.
“The gendarmerie’s 70,000 desktops currently use Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system. But these will progressively change over to the Linux system distributed by Ubuntu, explained Colonel Nicolas Geraud, deputy director of the gendarmerie’s IT department.
“We will introduce Linux every time we have to replace a desktop computer,” he said, “so this year we expect to change 5,000-8,000 to Ubuntu and then 12,000-15,000 over the next four years so that every desktop uses the Linux operating system by 2013-2014.”
Cost is the third in their list of reasons for making the move to open source, but it really does add up. “The move away from licensed products is saving the gendarmerie about seven million euros (10.3 million dollars) a year for all its PCs.”
It’s clear that open source is making rapid progress in Europe, and government investment is starting a virtuous cycle that will increase the pace of its adoption. While Firefox is still the highly visible success story, it can be seen as a proxy for the OpenOffice.org and Linux adoptions that are following along but are often harder to track.
Posted in GNU/Linux, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on 70,000 Ubuntu Linux PC Rollout in France
January 30th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
XiTi Monitor provides the latest statistics for web browser usage share: Firefox continues to gain in Europe and everywhere else in the world.
While just a slight rise in the past few months, it reverses the slowdown in growth from the previous quarter. It was also enough to add another country to the 40% or higher club, which now includes Finland, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Slovenia. (Several other countries are close to reaching this plateau as well.)
XiTi reports, “After a period of stabilization from June to September 2007, Mozilla Firefox’s visit share, for the average of European countries of the XiTi perimeter, is again growing at the end of the year. Thus, over a one year vision, it gains 5 points in order to reach 28% in December 2007.”
Posted in Free Culture, Open Source | Comments Off on XiTi Monitor: Firefox Usage Grows Again
January 29th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
The OpenOffice.org Marketing Project has recently launched a Marketing Blog Planet to follow the varied activities of project members around the world. This should provide a good new focal point for people interested in following the project’s diverse efforts, and encourage more to get involved where they can!
Posted in OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on OpenOffice Marketing Planet
January 28th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
Open source proponents have long theorized that extremely inexpensive PCs running Linux would eventually undercut the lowest possible price for Windows systems. That price may turn out to be $199, as there are now three Linux machines available at that point.
ZDNet discusses the available options in “Five reasons not to fear a $200 Linux PC.”
“At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month, small form-factor PC maker Shuttle debuted its $199 KPC… Then last week, Mirus and Linspire collaborated on the Mirus Linux PC, which is now for sale at Sears.com. It’s $299 (although an included $100 rebate brings it to $199), and is preloaded with Freespire 2.0, an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution… But the beginning of the low-cost computer trend actually started last fall. The Everex gPC showed up on the shelves of Wal-Mart for $198.”
ZDNet explains that as more applications go online, the operating system shrinks in importance, and the web browser grows. Thus for normal home computer users, Linux serves just as well as Windows, at a far better price. The current surge in extremely inexpensive Linux PCs is just the start, and we should expect to see many more for sale in the near future.
Posted in GNU/Linux, Open Source | Comments Off on $199-Linux PC Roundup
January 25th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
Since the KDE 4 Release Event, it’s been a week full of KDE news and reporting, both for me and across the web.
In that vein, Ars Technica provides some news on the KDE 4.0 release as well. They also seem pretty excited about the cross-platform capabilities it introduced.
Author Ryan Paul writes, “The open-source KDE desktop environment is making the jump across platforms with broad support for Windows and Mac OS X. The core KDE desktop programs, the KOffice suite, and the Amarok music player are actively being ported.”
While he encountered minor issues testing KDE applications on Windows, most were just user interface glitches, and Paul is enthusiastic about what a cross-platform KDE will bring to the world:
“Broad support for Windows and Mac OS X is an ambitious goal, but the KDE development community appears to have made a very good start in that direction. Many of the new abstraction layers in KDE 4 are geared towards increasing portability and reducing dependence on platform-specific mechanisms. KDE definitely enriches the Windows and Mac OS X software ecosystems and will likely be welcomed by many.”
For Mac users, Paul provides a few helpful links which I’ll simply quote here: “For additional details about the Mac OS X port, check out this recent blog entry written by Reed. The binaries can be obtained via BitTorrent from the KDE TechBase page for the Mac OS X port.”
Posted in GNU/Linux, Mac, Open Source | Comments Off on Ars on Cross-Platform KDE 4.0
January 24th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
At the KDE 4.0 Release Event last week, Inge Wallin presented KOffice 2.0, a major forthcoming upgrade to the suite that leverages numerous KDE 4 technologies.
KOffice is the broadest office suite available today, with 11 components at present. It includes project management, vector and raster graphics programs, desktop database, word processor, slideshow and spreadsheet tools, and a handful of others. New components including a mind map tool are also being added.
KOffice adopted ODF even before OpenOffice.org supported it, and OpenDocument Format has since become KOffice’s native file format.
One of KDE 4.0’s biggest additions is the ability to run on Mac OS X and Windows, as well as Linux. Thus, KOffice 2.0 will be available on Linux, Mac and Windows when it’s released. (Alphas are already available for testing users now.)
Some other cool features coming with KOffice 2.0 include:
- Integrated into KDE; can be embedded in Konqueror browser.
- Each application is scriptable. The codebase is modular, allow for extensions to be built as complementary pieces to the core KOffice code.
- Sophisticated color management supports CMYK color space, and mixing colors in different color spaces (not for 2.0, but soon afterward).
- Like other KDE 4 applications, KOffice 2.0 offers more features with a smaller footprint in terms of system resources needed.
It’s great to see the explosion of ODF-capable suites hitting the marketplace. Soon, users will be able to choose between OpenOffice.org, KOffice, and IBM Lotus Symphony on any one of the big three OS platforms. All of these suites have strong feature sets, and all are free of cost or open source.
These new contenders are going to bring major changes to a market that has been stagnant far too long!
Posted in GNU/Linux, ODF, Open Source | Comments Off on KOffice Notes