Free Knowledge Culture Calendar/January 28

Today in 2005 the non-profit educational project One Laptop per Child was started. Towards their eponymic constructionist-learning vision, they notably designed their utility-focused $100 Laptop. With extraordinary effort put to the engineering and putting user need above profit, they achieved revolutionary pricing, durability, environmental friendliness, openness, repairability, power consumption, and many other ground-breaking innovations. For many, radical openness seemed a logical part of the concept: openly documented hardware, easy disassembly, free software, ..., to allow users to dive in as deep as they like and tinker with every part, as so illustratively embodied by the “View Source” button. When Open Source was eliminated from the mission statement because Microsoft suddenly wanted Windows on the OLPC, many left the project disillusioned. Commercial companies scrambled to bring competing products to market, i.e. the entire Netbook category. With failing partnerships and delays, they had to settle for lower volumes and thus a higher price, and abandoned the project after one or two models. Success ratings were mixed.