Today's Lesson: Do Not F**k with the Negroponte Brothers

[Cyrus_the_virus]

In light of the bush-league behavior of Intel in undercutting OLPC's education project with the meritless "Classmate PC", I read this morning with schadenfreude that the New York State attorney general is going after Intel ...

"Cuomo Subpoenas Intel Over Antitrust Accusations" | Nicholas Confessore | The New York Times | 11 Jan 2008

While the inquiry does not overtly pertain to the recent behavior of Intel toward OLPC and the article does not mention OLPC at all, and while AMD has been pursuing lawsuits against Intel for anti-competitive practices in other locales for several years now, the chance seems remote to me that this new heat on the gorilla chip-maker is not directly connected to Intel's bullying of John Negroponte's little brother, Nicholas.

Read More at Source

I'm sorry if the title seems offensive to anyone but can't help it as the original article has the same title.

 

[praka123]

WTF?monopolies(M$ and intel) are fearing FOSS and Linux and do their FUD work with their influences in ruling parties.

 

[DigitalDude]

^^^^

naah why Intel fears the FOSS and linux ?? cos they manufacture opensource hardware ??

anyway negroponte's ambitions are good but I dont like his personality

_

 

[Cyrus_the_virus]

^^^^

naah why Intel fears the FOSS and linux ?? cos they manufacture opensource hardware ??

anyway negroponte's ambitions are good but I dont like his personality

_

Read the entire article, and you will get your answer to the question.

 

[phreak0ut]

Could anyone summarize it please? Tired of reading long posts.

 

[DigitalDude]

tldr

 

[Cyrus_the_virus]

tldr

lazy bums..

here's the summary:

Clearly what has taken place is that Gates and Intel have together determined that OLPC -- which could eventually embed GNU/Linux in a global ecosystem of a billion or two billion computers for young people -- must not fly and must be halted at all costs. This is why Intel's salesforce is out in the field cajoling, threatening any OLPC-buying national education departments not to purchase OLPC. What is so surprising is that they have apparently been successful, even though Intel's alternative, the "Classmate," offers not comparable technology and no comparable value.

"... OLPC even went so far as to help Intel improve its competitive offering by incorporating the unique features of our XO laptop. However, Intel didn't meet our cost, power or environmental specifications. In contrast, we have a very fruitful collaboration with AMD."

Mary Lou Jepsen: Where to start: Classmate is more expensive, consumes 10 times the power, has 1/3 the wifi range, and can't be used outside. Also, the Classmate doesn't use neighboring laptops to extend the reach of the internet via hopping (mesh-networking) like the XO does. So not only is the XO cheaper than the Classmate, the XO requires less infrastructre expenditure for electricity and for internet access.

In Peru we can run off of solar during the day and handcrank at night for an additional $25 or so per student – this is one-time expense – the solar panel and the crank will last 10 or perhaps 20 years. Just try running electricity cables up and down the Peruvian Andes for that cost while making sure it's environmentally clean energy. The Classmate isn't as durable as the XO, and its screen is about 30% smaller, the batteries are the type that can explode and only last 1-2 years and can't be removed by the user and harm the environment. The batteries are expensive to replace: $30-40 per replacement. The XO batteries last for 5 years and cost less than $10 to replace. Finally, the XO is the greenest laptop ever made, the Classmate isn't – this matters a great deal when one proposes to put millions of them in the developing world.

These are the main points.. now don't tell TLDR!!

 

[DigitalDude]

hehe ty

 

[i_am_crack]

by the way what that TLDR means? and ty?

oh.. I am so lame

eBro

 

[Pat]

TLDR --> Too Long,Dint Read

 

[hailgautam]

WTF?monopolies(M$ and intel) are fearing FOSS and Linux and do their FUD work with their influences in ruling parties.

Intel and MS are fearing for the same reason they are allowing piracy upto some extent in developing nations.

if they allow FOSS or Linux to grow in any format - will mean they end-up with a generation that is hooked up to FOSS and Linux and they loose the customer base that is growing up. These kids when grow up feel right at home with Linux as most of the developed nations feel with Windows and resist change, any cost - here it is null though.


That is why you see so many people hooked-upto windows and had to purchase their expensive win-os though linux provides them very credible alternative.