If that was at all a way to generate public awareness of mac osx, it's at least a pretty cool way to do it.

Educated people have a hard time using Linux already. People with little education and no computer experience will most likely find it crippling at first. Mac OS X would have been the way to go. Sometimes computer geeks forget that the rest of the world is not computer geeks.

A lot of people who start with a $100 computer will want more later down the road and having them "Mac" users will make it difficult to move to a PC. Rather a good idea, especially if it includes restrictions to avoid transferring the OS to a PC.

If Apple really offered them free copies, the reaction by MIT was stupid, to say the least...OS X is currently the best OS alternative out there, notably because of important developments in universal access features, language choices and ease of use...not to mention the fact that OS X is UNIX-based and blessed with thousands of high-quality freeware/open source programs...

And if licensing was supposedly free, MIT (and beneficiary countries) would have little to lose...pathetic.

Wake up, Negroponte!

The best operating system on the planet and they get it handed to them on a silver plater for free by Steve Jobs himself and then don't except it?
Bunch of idiots if you ask me.

Starting on OS X or random flavor of Linux would in no way impede your use of Windows in the Future. If these laptops used OS X people would learn to use the Apple key..and later replace it with control. No matter what there will be a learning curve involved. Al though I would have loved to see OS X on these low cost notebooks it would tie the project to a commercial company, and go against the principle of the project. But please refrain from making stupid commments about the OS X operating system. It obviously clear you haven't used it if you think a system designed with that OS would limit you in the future.

I am not surprised that MIT has rejected Steve Jobs' donation. MIT has a building named after Bill Gates and gets a lot of funding from Gates Foundation. Though Darwin is Open Source they have no choice but to reject it, as they will be jeopardizing the flow of money from Bill Gates. The $100 MIT Computer is a stunt. The Indian Institute of Science has already developed a low cost computer called "Simputer" with simple and natural user interfaces based on sight, touch and audio. <www.simputer.org> <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3578309.stm>. The commercial version can be obtained from Amida <http://www.amidasimputer.com/>.

The BBC has a

I want to believe it was Steve trying to be helpful, but maybe it was just a marketing gimic. Still, if OS X can run on an AMD CPU, that does demonstrate that it's a much more versital and flexible OS than any of us had thought.

In MIT's defense, sticking with Red Hat gives them not only an open source OS, but also a richer environment of open source applications as well. It's the long term licensing costs that could kill this project and open source should help lessen that toll.

Its hard to turn a crank when you're starving.

Come on, people, be reasonable.

Mac OS X would be the best choice for the end-user, but let's be honest. This project needs to be able to make changes to the OS themselves, not be dependent on a commercial vendor, even one that is altruistically-minded.

Linux is the best choice when a system developer needs complete access to how the OS behaves and the ability to change that at will. Mac OS X is the best choice for an end-user when they are choosing what commerical product to buy.

Well, Guest, by your logic we shouldn't bother providing any education (or housing, for that matter). I mean, who needs the ability to read and write or a roof over their heads when there are other people starving?

Geez. That was a brilliant example of the "find the worst problem and argue that must be solved completely before we work on anything else" logical fallacy. We can work on more than one problem at a time, and we should.

While I agree that we should work on solving the problem of poverty (getting clean water and food to starving children), MIT doesn't specialize in that. There are plenty of organizations that work hard to solve this world poverty problem. If MIT wants to contribute in their way, I commend them for it. All those who cry about wasted efforts in this area, I ask, what are YOU doing to contribute?

...that's what I thought.

While some of it is still proprietary, the important parts are all open source. No, the real reason they were declined is that the people working on this are all RedHat junkies, and want to give props to their favorite flavor.

And at the end of the day, it's still about the Benjamins. You think they're doing the work for free? No, only the cost of the computer itself will be $100. The guys at the top of the organization will all make a ton off this endeavor. That $54 million won't be buying 540,000 computers.

The decision not to take Apple up on its offer was largely because RedHat helped fund the project initially. It's ironic, really, as Apple was the first computer company to patent a hand crank for a laptop, in the early 90's (for the Newton, most speculate).

>The best operating system on the planet and they get it handed >to them on a silver plater for free by Steve Jobs himself and then don't except it?
>Bunch of idiots if you ask me.

One who doesn't know the difference between "except" and "accept" needs to be careful making comments about idiots...

... as plenty of studies have shown that lack of education is what leads to large families in places like sub-Saharan Africa, and the low uptake of innoculations and the like. Education will lead to a more sustainable family size and better health.

Wall Street Journal 11-14-05
Mr. Negroponte, after meeting with Mr. Gates, now says, "The machine will run anything, including Windows."

I think that MIT's reasoning is more on the fact that the laptop's hardware is too slow to run OSX.

Quote

Guest wrote:
One who doesn't know the difference between "except" and "accept" needs to be careful making comments about idiots...

This site is as clueless as many of its posters. The author of this article doesn't even know the difference between "siting" and "citing."

re. The cycle of poverty starts with lack of education...

You just have to look at the starving underclass in America and many so called 1st world countries to see that.

Quote

Guest wrote:

Quote

Guest wrote:
One who doesn't know the difference between "except" and "accept" needs to be careful making comments about idiots...

This site is as clueless as many of its posters. The author of this article doesn't even know the difference between "siting" and "citing."

You both are stupid.

The decision seems reasonable to me. Darwin is open source, but OS X is not, so major parts of the OS would remain proprietary. Also, Linux is more widespread than Darwin, so many more programs are available without porting. In any event, it is another example of excessive Mac zealotry to call the decision idiotic. Calm down people.

Linux is the best choice in an open market such as this. Sure OSX is a great OS but it will always be controlled by Apple. Just like if they went with Windows CE, it will be controlled by Microsoft. Look at the specs 128MB Ram, 1GB Flash Ram, 500MHz CPU, 8" LCD, not exactly something that will run OSX nicely. I know most of my OSX loads are 1.5-2GB so much for the 1GB Flash RAM. It would run OS 9 (if OS9 exists for x86) or Widnows 98 or possibly 2000 but why leave it in the dark ages, so Linux will probably be the best solution.

I just wonder if they would be available in the USA so that our k-12 schools can buy them. They would be great substitutes to kids carrying home text books and save school districts tons of money of having dedicated computer labs. Even if they sold them to us for $250 each it would still be a bargain to everything else on the market.