One Laptop Per Child Talks

On Thursday, April 26, One Laptop Per Child held a three-hour analyst meeting at their headquarters in Cambridge, MA. The OLPC Leadership spoke on several key aspects of the Children's Machine XO architecture and the program's overall production strategy.

OLPC Talks received exclusive audio tapes of the meeting, transcribed below. Please reference OLPC Talks if you use any quotes or information from the transcripts.

Christopher Blizzard presenting

Christopher Blizzard, Lead Developer, RedHat - One Laptop Per Child

So... That stuff is already out there...

Another thing I will say is that we've benefited from the work of other corporations who are in the open source program like Nokia, work on the N800 and the N770, originally, we've reaped tremendous benefit from that and we're able to keep a patch at that, so Nokia and Redhat and through PC are working on entirely different products but we're benefiting from each other's work because we're working in an open source platform

We're talking a little about how Linux usually does updates and Windows usually does updates, and Mac usually does updates. Linux usually has a one-size-fits all, if you want to do an update you usually get everything from an upstream distribution you get it from hard drive. We're taking huge pattern and we're trying to create a very simple small core operating system. This hundred megabytes, if you wanted to do that you have to make a choice – which means we can't include 3 different wizard libraries, we include one, we don't include 3 different office programs, we include – none, to give you an idea.

We're going to try to maintain a very small core, we'll do updates as single bundles, sort of the way the Mac does, if you've used a Mac and you've updated the software on it, it basically says “You haven't updated, available, would you like to install?” And that's it. So software installation will actually be done by the user in their directory at the user level, in bundles, we're going to do RPMs, Systems, mostly because we want to make sure the platform stays small and people are able to build on top of it as a stable system.

Questioner: “Is RedHat itself doing the updates or you using some RedHat network?

Christopher Blizzard: We will be doing the updates, yes.

Questioner2: The structure of it, you compare it to the Mac, and this is my understanding of how the mac does it, obviously in Linux it's very centralized and there's a very central core of the operating system that does that, is that still the case here or you going to rely on individual applications to know when they need to be updated themselves?

Christopher Blizzard: We're dealing with operating system updates, not necessarily application updates, although they'll deal with that separately, so applications are going to be separate from the operating system in terms of the schedule of how they are updated.

Questioner2: So there's no light weight equivalent of the “Yum” here?

Christopher Blizzard: No, we're not going to take that approach. I call that a very “al-le-carte” approach to software, you know you pick the pieces you want, and make a stew or something, sometimes it tastes good sometimes it doesn't, we're trying to have something that is very simple, I will say that I think the tendencies that those tools have to create operating systems that are capable of doubling in size. I talked about making choices, making choices are very hard, those tools tend to let people not make the choice...

Questioner2: Presumably, though you could restrict that to a particular depository, you could take Yum and say you only have access to these 10 things that you can put on the machine...

Christopher Blizzard: And we might actually end up doing that as part of the updated strategy. But what I will say is that we're trying to keep that small focus.

Questioner: So this is available for anybody for download over the Internet?

Christopher Blizzard: Right now.

Questioner: And what is it called, how do you get it?

Christopher Blizzard: There's literally a directory listing. If you go to the wiki, wiki.org/go/software/ you can get a copy of this.

Questioner: And it's called?

Walter Bender: There is a link from the homepage

Christopher Blizzard: Go there and you can find it.

Questioner3: How will the user install the updates? How will they be prompted?

Christopher Blizzard: We're going to have to ask a question which is basically if you want to install the update or not. I don't know. It's a good question we have to follow, we could do it in such a way the user doesn't even need to be asked. I could be a police decision based on… [inaudible]

Unidentified RedHat Representative: there's a book out on the market, been out for several months now and called “Mavericks at Work” and there's one phrase in that book that really captures my imagination, i think it really epitomizes what the open source world is all about, and I think it certainly has the potential to capture what this movement is all about, that Nobody is as smart as everybody. So let me just say in closing what can I convey to this group that really underscores the way of people at RedHat look at this project, and here it is, it's a Ghandi quote: Frist they ignore you, then they fight at you, and then you win. And I think there are folks that have been involved in the process...

So all I can say is the men and women that work for RedHat all over the world, for the 4 and half years I have been there, I've never seen them as excited about working on any project as on this. You know part of business, we got to make ends meet, and we got to do some things to satisfy Wall Street but when all's said and done the test that matters most is when you do it front of the mirror and nothing affects people anymore excited to be a part of a project that touches millions of children all over the world. Thank you very much.

Gustav Amiramos- AMD: Good Afternoon. I think you can change the heading on the slide... I'm with AMD, my name is Gustav Amiramos (sic) and I've had responsibility of what we call the hydrocarbons. So I've had some first hand experience as to how computation, access to the Internet, education has an impact on people around the world. I'll try to be brief, they have a flight to catch.

(inaudible)

In our mission, our vision ... a global population, all world PCs play in a forum, I don't know... back in 2004,

Mainly I feel very strongly for the impact it has on education, impact it has on very strong social issues, health, and almost anything. Most importantly the impact it has on empowering a population to look at the world around them to have the initiative.

I think it was January 2005 when you launched the PC constant with, it was in 2005 that Nicholas... it was that same room.

To me it's a great pleasure and a great honor to be working, they have the passion, commitment and the desire to ensure that their children when they are grown have a fair shot. When Nicholas Murtha approached with the concept of the XO PC...

And I think so far Nicholas pulled through to demonstrate our abilities and our capabilities. So again, why are involved in the PC? Some of the comments I made earlier, the PC falls absolutely... it helps education, it helps health, it helps people around the world get connected, that is one of the mantras that we will continue to drive at AMD. For us it's extremely important to drive this particular initiative because of the impacts that it has and the lasting impacts that it will continue to have around the world.

The XO laptops, smaller geoprocessor it makes a tremendous combination, you saw some of the demonstrations from a hardware standpoint, from a software standpoint that every PC has to be able to truly afford, relatively low cost, in order to be able to provide education and the tools necessary for the children who don't have much better.

But you know it's more than just a device, to me one of the most critical that this PC has brought is that the power of bringing together corporations such as Redhat such as AMD...