[TOS] Playpower.org: Open Source Games for Radically Affordable Computers

Frank Hecker hecker at mozillafoundation.org
Thu Jul 30 16:00:39 UTC 2009


2009/7/30 Greg DeKoenigsberg <gdk at redhat.com>:
> SO AWESOME.  OMG OMG OMG.

I agree with Greg, this could be a really amazing disruptive
innovation in the context for which it's intended, low-cost enough to
reach an extremely large group of "non-consumers" of educational
technology, and potentially very generative in terms of the
applications it could support.

I guess the key question for me (which Greg's questions alluded to) is
how that potential generativity could be made actual, in the same way
that the combination of cheap x86 PCs + the Linux kernel + the
GNU/etc. toolset + the Internet drove the original free software/open
source movement. Ideally you'd like to be able to attract developers
from as close to the intended user base as possible. If the device
capabilities and likely deployment environment are not capable enough
to support that (e.g., lack of net connectivity), then it would be
good to have something as close to that as possible. For example, how
realistic is the scenario of someone being able to go to an Internet
cafe, do development online (e.g., using a net-accessible development
environment and emulator), be able to test the resulting software on a
real device, and then be able to get it widely distributed to others?

To echo Greg again, I'd love to hear more about this. (I've read the
paper on the playpower.org site, and it really doesn't address my
questions above.) My main concern is that I think that for this to
realize its promise and be as successful as the original FOSS
movement, this needs to be able to give rise to a decentralized /
bottom-up ecosystem of developers, as opposed to being primarily
driven by one or a few centers of developer expertise.

Frank

-- 
Frank Hecker



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