Updated — OLPC Still Open Source, Project Insists

Updated at 1:12PM PDT --
Nicholas Negroponte's update on the status of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project illustrates yet again Microsoft's ability to muscle into every niche of computing in every developing marketplace, no matter how small.

According to the Associated Press, Negroponte announced that his One Laptop Per Child project's XO machine will cost $175 (still a bargain) and that the tiny laptop will be capable of running Windows.

After all of the open-source evangelizing, a partnership with Red Hat to develop the Linux-based Sugar operating system and the practice of keeping proprietary software vendors at arm's length -- Did Negroponte cave?

OLPC spokesman Kyle Austin says the wire services got it wrong. In response to a request from Microsoft, the project gave Redmond some early demo models of the XO to play with -- but that was over a year ago. "Their developers are toying with it," Austin told Wired News editor Kevin Poulsen.

OLPC hasn't changed the XO's design to support Windows, and has no formal partnership with Microsoft, he says.

Michael Gartenberg's backstage report of the developments offers further insight:

Negroponte was unable to say what version of Windows it was, mentioned that to run Windows would require the use of the SD card reader and it was clear to me that Negroponte had as much interest in Windows on this machine as Steve Ballmer has to in Linux apps working on Vista.

Is Microsoft plagued by nightly fever dreams of thousands of kids in developing countries running Linux? Otherwise, why go through all the trouble? Because that's the way Microsoft does business. Cover your bases, work with vendors when you have to and make sure you don't blow any opportunities to get Windows onto desktops.

Exhibit B: Microsoft's decision last week to make a $3 package of Windows and Office software available exclusively to developing nations. Take a hit on profit, but get Windows out there.

In the end, it feels wrong to criticize Microsoft for what are, on the surface at least, altruistic aims. But now that the two major projects hoping to bring PC technology and the internet to kids in the developing world -- the OLPC and Intel's Classmate PC -- will both be able to run Windows, what of the affordable computing movement's rabid open-source evangelism?

More importantly, if given the choice between Sugar and Windows, what will the XO's customers choose?

[photo: AP]

Wired News editor Kevin Poulsen contributed to this report.