Windows XO: A New Child-Centric OLPC Development Process

1 Apr 2008

With the departure of Andres Salomon, One Laptop Per Child is hiring a new Sugar programmer:

As you may have already noticed, some days ago (so not an April fools' hoax) appeared a new job posting in the main laptop.org site: User Interface Developer for Sugar. So, if you would like to become part of the core Sugar team and help to deliver a new platform for education, please apply!

What Tomeu Vizoso left out of his note is the change in the platform and software development strategy for OLPC. As a way to beat Microsoft at its own game, Sugar will soon be re-named:

Windows XO Operating System

Windows XO: A Child-Centric Operating Platform for Learning, Expression and Exploration

Better yet, OLPC is re-aligning its developers to be as child-centric as the name suggests. Windows XO will be developed using an innovative One Child Per Programmer (OCPP) process - each developer will be paired with a child from the developing world.

These children will lead the software development process, from use case to bug fix, and in high-profile Activities, approve every line of Python code. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates was quoted as saying:

"I applaud OLPC's change in strategy. We've been practicing child driven development at Microsoft for years, as evidenced by Steve Ballmer's temper tantrums, and expect Windows XO to be as reliable as our own operating systems"

One Laptop Per Child representatives were not available for comment, citing a need to imagine what they would do if they were Nicholas Negroponte for a day.

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12 Comments

My favorite part was the "temper tantrums." Classy!

K-Naus | April 1, 2008 11:41 AM |

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> We've been practicing child driven development at Microsoft for years

i knew it..

pepe | April 1, 2008 11:43 AM |

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Thanks for using my picture/illustration. :)

Karin Dalziel | April 1, 2008 11:43 AM |

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Excellent! I took it seriously all the way through "One Child Per Programmer"! Then I remembered the date, and the Gates quote set me straight. It worked perfectly!

Lee Felsenstein | April 1, 2008 1:20 PM |

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Please give credit to the OLPC News DC Meetup crew. After a few beers, Christoph, Tony, and Mike were on a roll with ideas for today.

Wayan | April 1, 2008 2:29 PM |

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Wayan, you forgot the controversial application of the Ballmer Peak http://xkcd.com/323/ conditions to bring about improvements to the python code with the OBPC (One Beer Per Child) program. I hear it's in early pilots with countries having lax alcohol laws.

Jon | April 1, 2008 3:00 PM |

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I'd like to see someone get Windows 3.1 on the XO. That would be BAD ASS.

ThePete | April 1, 2008 8:02 PM |

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Well done Wayan! I love the way you packaged the whole thing... :-)

BTW, the credit for "One Child Per Programmer (OCPP)" actually goes to Andreas from OLPC Austria.

ChristophD | April 1, 2008 8:37 PM |

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At last this forum is starting to make sense.

Irvin | April 1, 2008 9:12 PM |

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Is Andres Salomon really leaving the project? Is there any detail out there as to reasons for his departure?

Alexandre Enkerli | April 2, 2008 10:03 AM |

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Sadly, Andres Salomon's departure was not part of the joke. I learned about it from Ivan's blog post: http://radian.org/notebook/hire-andres

Wayan | April 2, 2008 10:53 AM |

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Windows XO is just superb....

stela | April 22, 2008 1:24 AM |

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