Negroponte: 'It's the Wikipedia equivalent (of hardware)': NOT.

Andy Carvin reports on Negroponte and his $100 laptop thing. I can sum my response up in one word: Hype. From that, I can derive the phrase trade subsidy. And from that, I can derive developing nations will always be developing nations.

We wouldn't want to shake things up at all with open hardware. Oh no, that would shift power structures. That's what's been holding back the Simputer and similar initiatives. At the WSIS Latin America Caucus regional meeting, someone dinged one of Negroponte's representatives (why is his name more prominent than MIT's in these announcements?) about why the Simputer wasn't looked at as a base. The response was that they couldn't get one. Hmm.

I have one. I'm more resourceful than MIT. Imagine that. No, that's too far fetched, so you start looking for the real answer. Why would they not use it? Hmm. There's a point to ponder. I have an answer, of course.

Further, if you go to Simputer.org, you can download the plans to build one. And the operating system? Linux. No problem. So... why didn't MIT use open hardware as the baseline? It boils down, I think, to power structures. Control. MIT can control it's device, and it couldn't get funding for the '$100 laptop' unless it was owned by the funders/MIT.

Sorry Negroponte, no sale here. You say by lack of acknowledgement of other initiatives that your $100 laptop is a gift horse that shouldn't be looked in the mouth. I say it's a white elephant whose dropping should be examined.

If this is the Wikipedia equivalent of hardware, open your hardware or use open hardware so that anyone can modify it... NOW. The lesson? Negroponte doesn't want to work with people outside of his structure, or if he did he's probably on a leash from funding agencies that control him. Personally, I'd be ducking behind the name of the media lab instead of 'Negroponte' everywhere...

Next up, Negroponte to reinvent wheel because he wants knobby things outside of the wheel. So he'll build his own wheel just to do that.