Jobs offered OS X free for Negraponte's $100 laptop

We all know how much Jobs likes the education market, so according to the Wall Street Journal he did a very magnanimous thing and offered OS X up to Nicholas Negroponte for his $100 laptop for developing nations. But not even bothering to discount the vast technical difficulties with getting OS X to run on this kind of machine, Negroponte and his team apparently canned the whole idea because OS X is a closed-source OS, and they believed it fundamental to their system to use only totally open, completely modifiable software. Yep, this all sounds about right to us. Jobs gets positive PR, Negroponte & Co. get to up their cred; win-win all around!

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

[Arthur Barnhouse @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

"We all know how much Jobs likes the education market, so according to the Wall Street journal he did a very magnanimous thing and offered OS X"

magnanimous, perhaps, but he stood to gain a hell of a lot from it, too. Imgaine if huge volumes of third-world nations used OS X as their standard OS. The market-share he could gain in internationally would be huge.

[hobgoblin @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

two words for jobs: get lost...

[Insider @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Yes, Jobs got a rare facial. Possibly because they wanted open source (yeah) and possibly because Apple didn't pony up when the (red) hat was passed around to fund this thing. Negroponte is nothing if not a master fundraiser (some would say snake oil salesman but that's for another day).

http://independentsources.com/2005/11/14/steve-jobs-gets-a-rare-facial/

[popeye @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

I'm sure Billy-boy done did the same now ya hear...

[Baz @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Im I the only one who thinks that the $100 could be better spent on inoculating these children against childhood diseases and anti parasite drugs and food and clean water. Great I have a laptop and can check webMD to see what disease is causing these strange bumps allover my body, oh look mumps - a totally preventable disease if given a vaccine.

[Ethan @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Anyone else thinking (as I am) that this sounds like a case of "he knew the answer would be no"? I think Jobs knew exactly what he was doing when he made this offer, and the fact that it was declined will not be bad PR as some have suggested. No one expects OSX to be open-source, so being turned down for that reason isn't much of an insult. Rather, this is the sort of thing that Apple can do because both outcomes are good: if the $100 group says yes, lots of kids learn OSX from a young age, grow up to buy OSX; if they say no, Apple looks like a friendly philantropist who just wants to help.

Only the zealots in the OS war see this as an Apple defeat. The public sees it as a case of Apple being unfairly insulted by a bunch of open-source zealots. Take your pick.

[Jayson Elliot @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Consider the actual person you're talking about before you bloviate. There is more than one possible motive for a single action.

Of course more than one group benefits from something like free OS X for this project. It's not only Apple that thinks that's true:
http://news.com.com/A+billion+PC+users+on+the+way/2100-1003_3-5290988.html
(Steve Ballmer calls it "opportunities in emerging markets")

Of course, Microsoft also tried to pay off its court-imposed penalties by giving free copies of Windows to schools...

Ultimately, though, you've got to look at Steve Jobs as a human being. This is the same guy who studied literature and poetry at Reed College, who spent time at an ashram in India, and had to sell his VW bus to finance the Apple I.
His wife is a volunteer tutor for high school students (just like his old partner and friend Woz).

Bill Gates went from prep school to pirating CPM and selling it as DOS, then wrote the famous "Open Letter to Hobbyists" where he called hobbyist programmers pirates.

http://www.blinkenlights.com/classiccmp/gateswhine.html

That's the same time that Steve Jobs was hanging around the Homebrew Computer Club, where he and Steve Wozniak were part of a community, the same one that John Draper, Bob Lash, Lee Felsenstein and others were a part of.

I think Negroponte might be missing an opportunity in passing up OS X for an open source (Linux) OS.
The core OS (Darwin) is already open source - Negroponte should have considered that, and tried to work with Apple to see if there could be some way to make it fit his project.

[Ethan @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Jayson: you're being pretty unfair to both players (Jobs and Gates).

Quote: "Ultimately, though, you've got to look at Steve Jobs as a human being. This is the same guy who studied literature and poetry at Reed College, who spent time at an ashram in India, and had to sell his VW bus to finance the Apple I. His wife is a volunteer tutor for high school students (just like his old partner and friend Woz)."

First, he's really not the same guy who sold his VW to fund Apple. When he became fabulously wealthy in those first few years of the 80s, the money changed his spending habits quite a bit. He's not in the position to dole out huge quantites of Apple's money to "donate" OSX to this project simply for the good of humanity; be real sure he's making a careful business move here. I'm not saying it's evil, I'm just not saying this is some friendly hippy you're talking about. Also, Woz is an awesomely selfless (and very different) person, and I don't know much about Jobs' wife, but she ain't him.

Quote: "Bill Gates went from prep school to pirating CPM and selling it as DOS, then wrote the famous "Open Letter to Hobbyists" where he called hobbyist programmers pirates."

Both guys are ruthless businessmen, and Jobs did as much pirating in his early days as Gates, but Gates is the one donating huge quantites of raw cash to charity, now. When MS offers to donate Windows to kids, I see that as a business move, not philantropy, and I hold Apple/Jobs to the same standard; however, the only benefit MS or Gates gets out of donating raw cash is good PR - that's philantropy.

[Jacob Varghese @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

I wonder if it would be worth it for Apple, Intel, and friends to create another organization that did the same thing?
One that could even be supported by international brand advertising? Coca-Cola, Nokia, Motorola... it's possible.

[Jacob Varghese @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

There are many ways to improve this if Apple+Intel got involved. Maybe a more portable large handheld would be the answer. Maybe they should only target areas that have power and not worry about the crank mechanism. This can be done.

[Jayson Elliot @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Ethan -
I'll agree that I'm being a bit unfair to Bill Gates, he has become a good philanthropist lately.

My point is that we don't really know either man's private life well, and have to go off of the available evidence when looking for motives. I think there are still echoes of those two youngsters in the billionaires today. My reason for bringing up Steve's wife, as well as Woz, was that the people around us in our lives help to shape our own views on the world.

You're right, he's surely making a good business move here, but it's not trivial to offer free Mac OS X for a computer which will be sold in the millions.

No, Steve Jobs is no longer the acid-dropping wanderer he once was; but I think it's good to know more about his past before making uninformed comments like hobgoblin's.

I'm glad to see your argument, though - so nice to get a level of real discussion and not the usual drivel that comes out whenever MS or Apple end up in a story.

Oh heck, one last barely on-topic comment: Steve Jobs' piracy was making blue boxes so a few kids could steal long distance phone calls. Bill Gates yoinked an entire operating system.
Anyhoo...

[Jeremy Dunck @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

@#5:
Regarding $100 worth of aid instead of computer: maybe, but it's not as obvious as you seem to suggest.

The U.S. gave $3.4B to Africa in 2004 (leaving aside our unfair trade practices which keep Africa dependent on foreign assistance). [1]

There are just under 1B people in Africa[2], so that's about $3.50 per person per year (unevenly distributed, of course).

So $100 represents nearly 30 years of benefits to the recipient. But there will be spill-over benefit (villages share cell phones communally; I'd be very surprised if the same didn't happen with these).

Medicine can keep the kids alive, but only education and trade reform will help in the long term. The world is currently making the minimum payments on it's debt to Africa. Think of the laptop as a small payment towards principal.

The health problems in Africa can not be solved with medicine alone: ignorance and poverty contribute heavily.

(AIDS is a whole 'nother ball of wax. Check out "AIDS / HIV" here for an inspirational/depressing kick in the pants:
http://thepartyparty.com/

...I love rx's stuff.
)

In the worst case, the laptop is still an asset; it'd certainly trade for a goat or black market medicine in a pinch.

(That's assuming that gangs don't steal the laptops; hell, we have people getting mugged for ipods -here-, where they represent less than 50 hours of labor. I hope smart people are thinking about this problem.)

[1]
http://www.brookings.edu/views/articles/rice/20050627.htm

[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African_countries_by_population

[BHowdy @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

"Medicine can keep the kids alive, but only education and trade reform will help in the long term. The world is currently making the minimum payments on it's debt to Africa. Think of the laptop as a small payment towards principal."

LOL

[hobgoblin @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

there are two fundamentaly diffrent things between the donations that gates have done in the past and jobs suggested.

gates have given cash from his personal fortune. cash have only a direct effect unles there are special conditions for them being accepted.

giving away a os on the other hand, specificaly one that potentialy will end up in the hands of millions of kids are a diffrent story. training kids in the use of osx is no better then training them in the use of windows. both are proprietatry os's that will sooner or later bring money into the pot of the company that own the copyright of it.

linux on the other hand are stringless, just like the money gates have been giving away. a nation that builds their future electronic world on top of linux are fully in control and does not send the hard earned money of the nation out of it.

my comment wasnt uninformed, i just boiled it down to the essence. why say many words when few can say just the same?

[mike @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Jobs gets positive PR, Negroponte & Co. get to up their cred; win-win all around!

--

Except the poor kids who would have loved to .. you know.. get a nice OS X laptop for $100

[gadgetphreak gadget site @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

just another step to jobs' eveentual world takeover

[Kakaze @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

To me, this group turning down Apple in favour of the not-ready-for-prime-time Linux is only bad for them.

Why give them a well documented, well supported, consistent OS, when you can give them an OS that has dubious documentation and support and is completely inconsistent from one version to the next?

Linux isn't good enough for the�by the standards of the third world countries this project is aimed at�well educated American consumer, what makes them think these barely educated kids in the heart of the Congo will be able to use it?

[Eli @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Imagine trying to run OS X on that laptop...

[Kakaze @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

To me, this group turning down Apple in favour of the not-ready-for-prime-time Linux is only bad for them.

Why give them a well documented, well supported, consistent OS, when you can give them an OS that has dubious documentation and support and is completely inconsistent from one version to the next?

Linux isn't good enough for the�by the standards of the third world countries this project is aimed at�well educated American consumer, what makes them think these barely educated kids in the heart of the Congo will be able to use it?

[Kakaze @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Uh...I don't know why that came out twice...

[Sean @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Kakaze: Anyone who owns a TiVo uses linux every day... and surely doesn't have any of the problems you're talking about.

This is a packaged deal. The developers will customize linux heavily specifically for this laptop.

They aren't going to be playing games on a $100 laptop, they aren't going to be editing movies.. they're going to use it for email and the web. The designers specifically said that they couldn't customize OSX enough for their purposes. This laptop will have a custom UI like TiVo does.

OSX would run like a dog on this laptop anyway.

[Elmo @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Ethan

The only reason Gates donated so much money to charity is because other uber-rich told him to do so. And all he did was start the Marla and Bill Gates Foundation and then donate his money to that entity. That man does not know the meaning of the word philanthropy.

[Orbberius @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Elmo, does it physically hurt to be that stupid? Blink once for yes, twice for no.

[Elmo @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Orbberius

Get out more. Warren Buffet publically scolded Gates for not giving to charitable causes. Then Bill went and founded the Bill and Marla Gates Foundation giving it an endowment of 40 bill. Look it up.

[TreoToday.net @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

I think there must be another reason for turning down Mac OS X. After all, Mac OS X is built on BSD, so technology-wise it has more or less the same base as Red Hat. And Darwin (the Unix part of Mac OS X) has been open source since pretty much the beginning.

[Kakaze @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Sean: You can't honestly compare the Linux in a Tivo to the Linux used as a true computer operating system.

In a Tivo it's dumbed down to do one thing and one thing only, but on a computer you need to be able to do many more things at once.

They can't reduce the interface of a computer down to something as simple as a set top box and expect it to be useful.