“Rumblings of discontent within the One Laptop per Child (OLPC)
project erupted to the surface last week with the resignation of
chief software architect, Walter Bender. A split has formed between
those, like Bender, who see the project as primarily educational,
and OLPC leader Nicholas Negroponte, who wants to push as many
laptops into the hands of as many children as possible, even if it
means getting into bed with Microsoft. Or so it’s been
characterized.“But having looked at both sides, I think what it essentially
boils down to is that geeks really, really don’t like Microsoft.
There would be trouble within the organization if Negroponte merely
batted his eyelashes towards Redmond, never mind actively blessing
Microsoft’s development of a version of XP that will run on the
XO…”