On Wednesday 19 December 2007 14:48, Allen S. Rout wrote:

> It seems a curious myopia to me: On the one side, they are explicitly

That curious myopia is called "Socialism". 

Instead of selling them at the 1-for-2 price of $400, they could sell them for 
$200 each with an open toolset that lets me port anything I want to it. 
They'd sell so many that in six months the street price would be $129.95 and 
their donors could send that many more units to the children. 

Actually, that raises an interesting prediction to post on one of the 
prediction markets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_market).  What 
will be the value of an OLPC Laptop on eBay on 1 June 2008? (that will have 
to be rephrased to turn it into a marketable prediction, e.g. "The average 
winning bid for an OLPC laptop on eBay for the four weeks beginning 15 May 
2008 will be less than $200."

- Bob