After
previously slamming the MIT One Laptop Per Child
(OLPC) Initiative it appears that Microsoft have done a U-turn and are coming to an arrangement to get their Windows CE (the one that is the underlying technology for Windows Mobile 5) or XP operating systems onto the device in place of the open source Linux solution.
According to
vnunet.com:
Microsoft wants to make its Windows operating system available on the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) notebook computers, OLPC chairman Nicholas Negroponte said at the NetEvents conference in Hong Kong on Saturday.
"I have known [Microsoft chairman] Bill Gates his entire adult life. We talk, we meet one-on-one, we discuss this project," said Negroponte, vnunet.com can reveal.
"We put in an SD slot in the machine just for Bill. We didn't need it but the OLPC machines are at Microsoft right now, getting Windows put on them."
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However many are not convinced of Microsoft's sudden change of heart with UK's Green Party suggesting that it is a form of "unacceptable bribery".
According to Computing magazine's
website:
The UK's Green Party has accused Microsoft of "unacceptable bribery" in trying to run Windows on the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project.
"Open source tools are a way to let the global south develop their own knowledge economies," Siān Berry, principal speaker for the Green Party, told vnunet.com in an email.
"Microsoft wants to restrict the greatest profits in the knowledge economy to already established software corporations like itself.
"By installing its programs on these laptops Microsoft hopes to create market domination and vendor lock in. That is unacceptable bribery.
"It would be a massive missed opportunity not to extend software freedom to students in the global south."
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