One laptop per child
Posted by Rube | 4 June, 2006
The One Laptop Per Child Project promises to put an underpowered, ideology-driven computer into the hands of every child. Which certainly sounds noble, if I'm anyone to judge such things.
There are 2 billion children in the world; getting a laptop to each and every one of them is going to cost $200,000,000,000.00, assuming the cost of development and production are not being subsidized to reach the $100 price. Applying the first law of Rubean Mechanics, I'd like to ask a few questions to the people running this project.
Who's going to pay for this thing, and who's going to profit from it?
So, is this thing also going to be available for middle-class American kids, or is it another misguided "White Man's Burden" attempt at European colonial guilt alleviation?
Is it going to be an open-source hardware design, with schematics etc. available to whomever wants to build it, or is it a government money-grab for a small consortium of 'well-intentioned' hardware and software players?