Negreponte's laptop goes Linux
An article in today's New York Timeson the contentious relationship between Microsoft and Nicholas Negreponte. Plans for his $100 laptop do not include Windows, and it seems like open source is the reason:
"..months of discussions with Microsoft and Apple Computer about using their operating system software for his computer had been fruitless...the laptops would use a version of Linux, the open-source operating system. Microsoft had encouraged Mr. Negroponte to consider using..Windows CE...and had been prepared to make an open-source version...available.
Steven P. Jobs...had also offered a free version of his company's OS X operating system, but Mr. Negroponte rejected that idea because the software was largely not open-source, meaning users could not get free access to software and its source code, which they could then modify.
Mr. Negroponte said...that he had resolved to use Linux not because it was free but because of its quality and maintainability.
"I chose open-source because it's better," he said. "I have 100 million programmers I can rely on."
"..months of discussions with Microsoft and Apple Computer about using their operating system software for his computer had been fruitless...the laptops would use a version of Linux, the open-source operating system. Microsoft had encouraged Mr. Negroponte to consider using..Windows CE...and had been prepared to make an open-source version...available.
Steven P. Jobs...had also offered a free version of his company's OS X operating system, but Mr. Negroponte rejected that idea because the software was largely not open-source, meaning users could not get free access to software and its source code, which they could then modify.
Mr. Negroponte said...that he had resolved to use Linux not because it was free but because of its quality and maintainability.
"I chose open-source because it's better," he said. "I have 100 million programmers I can rely on."
posted by Samir Chopra at 6:26 PM
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