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jasonOriginally published at Lemmingworks. You can comment here or there.
Found this on Slashdot. It is not really shocking, but rather funny. MS doesn’t seem to be able to do anything right. There have been allegations of bribes and political pressure, competing products and the like. And now this. Trying to control a country through controlling the software it can and cannot use is an act of aggression, IMHO. Giving free copies of software to children as a way of getting them used to a system they’ll have to pay for forever when they grow up could be seen as tantamount to the issues of marketing of infant formula in Africa (see
Press: The milk of human kindness — Yamey 322 (7277): 57 — BMJ).
Microsoft wants One Laptop Per Child system to run Windows XP
In a move sure to provoke controversy, Microsoft wants the designers of the XO laptop, available through a non-profit initiative called One Laptop Per Child, to add a port through which the storage capacity required by Windows XP can be added to the system.
The XO currently runs on a Red Hat Linux operating system. Making the laptop compatible with XP would give students in poor countries access to “tens of thousands of existing educational applications written for Windows,” said James Utzschneider, a Microsoft general manager, in a blog post Wednesday.
Utzschneider says a shrunken version of Windows XP could potentially run on 2 Gbytes of flash memory. The XO, however, can only hold 1 Gbyte. As a result, Microsoft wants the XO’s designers to add a slot through which more memory can be added via a secure digital (SD) card, Utzschneider said.
“We asked the OLPC to add a slot for an internal SD card that will provide the 2 Gbytes of extra memory,” Utzschneider wrote. It was not immediately clear if the OLPC has responded to Microsoft’s request.
Don’t forget that Nigera went for the Intel box (which can run XP) (Nigeria shuns One Laptop Per Child), though Intel’s now joined the OLPC.
Don’t take my words as any ‘truth’. I’ve done no original research on this, and I’m biased on behalf of the OLPC because of what appears to be a more open-source perspective (among other reasons). The information I’m getting is from the media, and I’m just sharing it. 
