Mixed Signals
Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise
Wednesday 14 May 2008, 10:46 AM
OLPC meltdown - or, the side-effects of working closely with Nickneg.
Long, anguished essays often result when people find themselves in the position of once having worked with Nicholas Negroponte. This one is a classic of the genre and, true to the spirit of sensible software development, contains much that has been and will be extensively reusable - such as the phrase "The project was a spectacular flop due to mismanagement and personality conflicts." (not, as it happens, referring to OLPC. He has stronger language reserved for that).
But it would be doing Krstić a grave mis-service to pull too many quotes, no matter how quotable he is. He's making a plea that should be heard by everyone who thinks and cares about computing in general - especially, of course, those who think advanced technology has a role to play in bringing education to the disadvantaged, but by no means exclusively.
Ditch the preconceptions, he says, about open source and Windows. Create an organisation devoted to open learning, that's agnostic about hows but very strong on the why, and committed to all the pieces of the jigsaw from software design through to content and the practicalities of deployment and support.
For if you forget why you're doing something - or, worse, do it in a certain way because you've been divinely issued with infallible insight that this is Right while ignoring the difficult bits, then you will end up dans le merde. When there are a billion kids out there needing your help, this is more than just giving naysayers another opportunity for schadenfreude. And the principles and thinking behind his arguments apply across the board.
I can't do justice to the depth, passion and sheer articulated frustration in Krstić's polemic without writing 4500 words myself, and he's done that already. Do go and read it, think about what he's saying and why.
Along the way, you'll learn more about Negroponte than you ever wanted to know. As the ex-management team from OLPC will sadly attest, you won't be alone in that.
PreviousComments on this post
Fascinating. Bring back the educational computer par excellence - the BBC Micro :-)
Fascinating reading. Excellent information and examples of human ego, hidden agendas, and the lack of clearly stated goals.
So much of the argument seems to me to be out of context. If the stated goal of the project was EDUCATION, and by far the largest part of the target was "underprivileged" or "third world" or however you want to describe them, students, then how can anyone say that they MUST be provided only with "open source" software, all the way from the operating system up?
First, if the alternative to providing open source is to provide nothing at all (i.e. the entire project fails), that is a very serious step back, isn't it? Especially when dealing with education of children, are we not in the position where something is better than nothing?
Second, if one truly believes that open source software is "better", and if education really does enlighten and open the mind, then does it not follow that even if the students are provided with the dreaded "closed/proprietary/non-free" software to being with, they will learn that open source is better, and they will eventually seek out such software? Or do we believe that there is only one "true path", and if children (or anyone, for that matter) are allowed to start on the "wrong" path, they are permanently and irretrievably lost?
It seems to me that what is really going on here is politics, in the broadest sense of the word, not technology.
I think open source is an excellent fit for education - theoretically. And practically, if there were decent tools to allow teachers and other interested parties to create software without having to become Unix wizards, then it would be even better.
I'm a strong believer that there should be no secrets in education, but plenty of options: the best way to learn is to become enthusiastic and be given access to everything you might need - and then to be left to get on with it. An entire generation of UK IT expertise was created by micros in the bedroom and poking around in other people's code.
However, if the best way to get someone connected is to give them a laptop running Windows and IE, then by Turing do it and be happy.
As for the OLPC project - it won't be long before the truth of what happened and why comes out. The bodies are still warm...
I am just saddened by the way this seems to be disintegrating. There was so much potential. However I disagree with the comment about just giving them Windows and IE. That is the way to train 'consumers' not thinkers, and do-ers.
