[p2p-research] Thanks for: Suggestions wanted for education to p2p practices and attitude

[Paul D. Fernhout]

Michel Bauwens wrote:
>> But thanks to Moore's law, it's been left behind by the proliferation
>> of even cheaper Web-connected cell phones.
 >
> cell phones are great for daily life, but cannot replace computers for
> learning ... 

Well, when it is all you have, a smartphone is better than nothing. They are 
getting more and more impressive.

>rather than cellphones, it's the netbook trend that OLPC itself
> spawned which creates other alternatives to it, 

People say this, even the OLPC project, but I don't believe it. There were 
small light computers before the OLPC. HP was especially good at this. There 
was the Newton. There were WinCE devices (clamshells). There was the palm. 
Palm even had a netbook design it scrapped. There was the original Tandy 
Model 100.

 From 1995:
  "HP OmniGo 100 Handheld Organizer Offers Quick, Easy Access to Personal 
Information"
  http://www.thocp.net/hardware/hp_omnigo100.htm
  http://images.google.com/images?q=HP%20OmniGo%20100

There was the Cybiko toy.

So, it's hard to say OLPC invented this category.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netbook
"The origins of the netbook can be traced to the Network Computer (NC) 
concept of the mid-1990s. More recently, Psion's now-discontinued netBook 
line, the OLPC XO-1 (initially called 100 US$ laptop) and the Palm Foleo 
were all small, portable, network-enabled computers.[8][9][10] The generic 
use of the term "netbook", however, began in 2007 when Asus unveiled the 
ASUS Eee PC. "

 > but it's special
> child-friendly design still has a few unique characteristics going for it,

Beyond ruggedness, which I agree is important, I don't see what is 
especially child-friendly about the OLPC or the software compared to a 
specially configured version of GNU/Linux running Gnome. People have been 
locking down GNU/Linux systems for a long time. Regular GNU/Linux has more 
educational software for it than the OLPC.
   http://edubuntu.org/
"Edubuntu is an educational operating system that is a part of the Ubuntu 
family. It aims to make Ubuntu, the popular Linux-based operating system, a 
great choice for the computing needs of children, students, parents, 
teachers, and schools. "

(By the way, in this thread, there are at least two Pauls on the list, Paul 
Hartzog being the other one.)

--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/