This from engadget today: "Rumor is that Nicholas Negroponte is going to transition the OLPC XO entirely to Windows XP to spur sales soon."
Why would an XO have to run XP? Could it run dual OSs? Infighting and Bender not bending over... but resigning instead makes me think the child-centered Sugar design will never get a real test. Seymour Papert, please get well and talk sense into OLPC!
On we go... another article is here - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/24/olpc_windows_bender/ - a few points about the changeover/blend. I can only wonder what it will mean. The end of OLPC? I can't imagine a for profit company like behemoth Microsoft will really do anything humanitarian. So, if we do get OS changes, what about he Linux base already in place? How will the XO have to change to run massive XP? Add a hard drive? That adds cost, maintenance, etc etc etc....bloat the filesystem.... hmmm. I can only wonder.
There is an EXCELLENT long essay by Ivan Krstic, who recently resigned from OLPC, about the Windows and open source issues at the project - and the points he makes are extremely good ones. His complaint is not about lack of loyalty to an open-source operating system, but instead about the lack of focus on EDUCATON ITSELF. His reason for resigning was not the collaboration with Microsoft, but rather the lack of focus on educational goals as the purpose for that collaboration.
I posted a comment there, and learned a lot not just from the essay but from the other comments - anybody interested in OLPC, its history, its future, will find much of interest here.