Previously we spoke with Michael Rueger and Steve Hunter. From Michael we found out about the perspective of writing and supporting open source software. From Steve we found out what it is like being a consumer of open source software. Today we talk with Bert Freudenberg. From Bert we hope to learn what it is like being a Smalltalk programmer contributing to open source.
As you may now, the XO laptops produced by the One Laptop Per Child project include a Squeak/Etoys image in the base software. The OLPC developers decided to hide the Smalltalk development enviroment and highlight the Etoys subsystem, since that’s the part that matters in a kids machine such as the XO.
But the power of a full-fledged Smalltalk system is still there, and you can help. As Bert Freudenberg writes to the Squeak Beginners mailing list:
So everybody interested in making the “Smalltalk experience” on the OLPC machine an enjoyable one, please help. The VPRI group focuses on etoys and system integration, but you are invited to contribute. And, in case this has not been clear, you do *not* need an OLPC prototype to run this. It’s Squeak, after all.
More info on how to run the OLPC version of Squeak and Etoys on your system may be found here.
Update: changed a misleading statement.
Don’t say you didn’t see this coming. The question now: Is there a world wide market for OLPC? Quanta announced plans to market the OLPC computer worldwide for $200. It doesn’t take long to realize that the argument for less is more has legs. I found myself nodding in agreement listening to Nicholas Negroponte talk about feature creep; having overly bloated software that takes forever to load, uses up a huge amount of resources but only provides marginal improvement from the same software that was available years ago. I’m not sure I’ve gained much from this insight, because now I feel the pain even more acutely when I open a pdf file!
I remember my first LARGE hard drive. It was big in physical size and capacity. It was 40 megs! (it had to be partitioned to 2 20meg drives because the computer couldn’t address more then 20megs). I saw a 4 gig card the other day that was the size of a postage stamp. The amount of memory available today is astounding, a bit more then 640k. With all this new capacity imagine what we could have done with a simple software model.
Does this mean that OLPC will take over the world? I would say no. I believe the focus that Mr. Negroponte has is correct in its original vision. Having a solid, durable, networked computer that has low power consumption and a way to generate power in places that don’t have available electricity will mean a lot in developing countries.
Will these features be welcomed in developed countries. Yes possibly, but more likely the release of OLPC will spur competition and drive down the prices of other computers. What I believe will be the biggest change that could come out of this development is the demand for Open Source software out of the box. Imagine how much a computer today would cost if all the software installed was free. The problem of course is manufacture profits.
Having a single OLPC model, which includes hardware and software, will help since it significantly reduces the manufacturing costs. How low can profits go before companies will not be able to afford to produce these computers. Having OLPC’s high standards for longevity will help also because one way to reduce the need for profits is to decrease longevity and depend on frequent replacement orders or replacement parts.
These features of OLPC will hopefully make their way into consumers demands for inexpensive computers. I believe though that the limits placed on OLPC to achieve some of the availability, longevity, and networking goals will be too great for developed countries, and by simply offering Open Source version companies may be able to compete in price. OLPC achieves networking by selling at least a million units in an area to achieve the mesh network connections necessary to make it usable. The system really needs backup and the ability to download new software which is currently provided by local servers in schools or where ever possible. This architecture is truly inspired, and a huge benefit for countries where access to technology is extremely limited.
By the way I hope I’m wrong and OLPC is a huge success in developed countries. There is one possible scenario that will make OLPC a huge success in developed countries. If OLPC is marketed as a toy for children, it is within the price range of toys today and much more powerful, it could be very popular. In any case I’m sure that it will change things for the better. Within a year I’m sure there will be many $200 laptop choices available to you. Maybe all of the new models will include Squeak and EToys!
Ron Teitelbaum
Ron is the Squeak News Team Leader. He is also President and Principal Software Engineer at US Medical Record Specialists.
Grit Schuster writes:
Plopp, the cool 3D painting tool is now ready for downloading at www.planet-plopp.com!
Plopp is the first painting tool for kids where you can paint 3D objects very easily! Just paint in 2D and Plopp will transform your paintings into 3D objects! Friendly and helpful Plipp will assist you. If you can do without help (and Plipp), try one of the versions for “professionals”. There are a number of different themes available, each coming with extra templates. Current available themes are Classic, Space, On the Farm, Horse-Riding, Wild West, Knight Castle and Aqua for grown-ups.
All Plopp versions are available for Windows 98,2000, and XP (Vista coming soon), Mac OS X 10.2 and greater. Without a serial number the Windows and Mac versions of Plopp run in demo mode so you can give painting with Plopp a try. With one purchased serial number you can run as many themes as you like as full version!
Plopp Classic is also available for Ubuntu Linux for free! Try it! (And send me comments, please.)
Check out the tutorial videos, the wiideos, and
cool Plopp paintings!
The Croquet Consortium has released version 1.0 of Croquet, the 3-D virtual environment based on Squeak.
Nonprofit ‘Croquet Consortium’ Releases Open-Source Software Toolkit to Promote Collaborative 3-D Virtual Environments
DURHAM, N.C. – March 27, 2007 – A nonprofit consortium of academic and corporate partners today announced the release of a free software toolkit for developers to use in creating 3-D “virtual environments.”
“We’re seeking to enable the creation of a rich series of interconnected ‘Croquet worlds’ where people can engage in productive collaborative interactions in support of learning and commerce – worlds that can be created, maintained and continually modified without the constraints of proprietary computer code,” said Julian Lombardi, assistant vice president of Duke’s Office of Information Technology.
The Croquet Consortium’s new “3-D Virtual Environments Software Developer’s Kit” (Croquet SDK 1.0) will promote collaboration among far-flung research teams working on everything from cancer cells to hurricanes, as well as active learning among students and their instructors. These networked 3-D teams from research, education and industry will be able to work together across a variety of computer platforms and devices, from laptops to cell phones.
“This will change the way people think about software and computation, from today’s device-oriented perspective to a perspective of computation as a persistent, pervasive service,” said Patrick Scaglia, vice president and chief technology officer of HP’s Imaging and Printing Group.
Croquet 3-D virtual environments can support live discussion among worldwide collaborators who come together in “real time” within a 3-D virtual space. They may view, manipulate and revise documents, dynamic visualizations or large amounts of data from sources such as laboratories or supercomputing centers.
Added Greg Nuyens, chief executive officer of Qwaq Inc., “we have found Croquet to be a compelling platform technology for developing very large scale, richly featured and interlinked virtual environments. With the release of the Croquet SDK, we are excited about the new possibilities for using Croquet in our products and see benefits for developers everywhere.”
For example, public health officials and epidemiologists across a country could use the Croquet environment to track the spread of an infectious disease by sharing a dynamically changing display of infection data. Similarly, architects and engineers could collaborate on a building design, or chemists and biologists could prototype different chemical compositions for a new drug.
The free kit provides developers with a flexible tool to create virtual spaces with built-in networked telephony and a “late-binding object-oriented” programming language that allows multiple users to jointly create, animate or modify 3-D objects and dynamic simulations. Developers can also import and share resources, such as 2-D web applications or multimedia content, from their own systems. Working together across multiple locations, they can change simulations while they are running and work together to create new applications – all in “real time.”
The kit can be downloaded from the consortium’s website, http://croquetconsortium.org.
The newly formed Croquet Consortium is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to developing and promoting the widespread adoption of open-source, Croquet technologies for research, education and industry. Its institutional supporters include Duke University, the University of Minnesota, HP, 3dSolve Inc. and Qwaq Inc. Croquet was initiated by Alan Kay – winner of the Kyoto Prize and the Turing and Draper awards – working in collaboration with David A. Smith, Andreas Raab, David P. Reed, Mark P. McCahill and Lombardi.
We have lift off. Columbia College Chicago and Viewpoints Research Institute today announced the dates and location for SqueakFest ’07.
SqueakFest ’07 will be held at
August 1, 2 & 3
Please mark your calendars and help spread the word about this exciting event for educators, parents, community and technical leaders, and developers. There will be hands on workshops, key note presentations, panel discussions and more. Come learn, share you experiences, and show off your Squeak Etoys projects. There are also plans for a special OLPC track where you can learn more about this worthwhile initiative.
Check back for more information as this exciting event takes shape www.squeakland.org. Please save the date!
As the sun rose somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, the dark fading away, and the cold of over a month starting to thaw, on the west coast of North America it is still dark and John M. McIntosh has only a deep and tired yawn as thanks and a simple form of celebration marking the release of Sophie RC3*.
It is fitting that midnight should toll during this new release. The clock chimes to mark the occasion of new timeline commands; the ability to play movies connected and controlled by time itself, when time itself rests to zero for a new day. A new day indeed: the future of electronic books.
Sophie is free and open source software built on Squeak. You can get your own copy of Sophie and start creating your own electronic books now. Check out this new video of what Sophie can do.
Could you use Sophie to write really cool new electronic books? Sure. How about develop a new interactive brochure for your company? Yeah! How about delivering real engaging content to your potential voter base? Hmmm…
How would you use Sophie?
(*available soon watch for RC3)
It’s much harder to get lost in a virtual world. Qwaq poked its head out of hiding today and released its first product: A virtual forum that enables collaborators to interact in real time. It’s not hard to imagine what an impact this new technology will have on business collaboration. (more…)
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