Bill Gates recently made fun of MIT’s $100 laptop program at a forum with government leaders of the Americas: Bill Gates mocks MIT’s $100 laptop project.
Gates has been accused, and indeed found guilty, of some pretty dubious dealings, but this time he has hit an all time low. His snide criticism of the $100 laptop program is not only crass, but entirely wrong. Gates specifically pokes fun at the notion of a “shared computer” and emphasizes the true cost burdens of providing computers; applications, network connectivity, and support.
1. MIT’s program is titled “One laptop per child”. The computer is not intended to be shared.
2. The laptop will use open source software (n.b. not Microsoft), which is free of cost.
3. The laptops will have built-in mesh networking, allowing users to experience network environments even where Internet is not available, or to share a connection when it is available.
4. The open source software community has established a very effective community based support structure, free of charge (n.b. not requiring prohibitively expensive Microsoft Certification), which still manages to befuddle proprietary companies.
Meanwhile $600-$1000 Origami/Ultra-mobile computers, which no one seems able to figure out what are supposed to accomplish, that will only run on proprietary software (and this from a company that refused to support right-to-left script in its software) are a better idea?