Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of the OLPC, made the announcement that future generations of the One Laptop Per Child laptop would feature a dual-boot system capable of launching both Linux and Windows. “The version that’s up and running of Windows on the XO is very fast, it's very, very successful,” Negroponte said. “We're working very hard to do both.” Will it be as successful, widely accepted, and as fast as Linux has been? It's too early to tell, but speculation would lead us to believe that as light-weight a version of Windows this may or may not be, from prior experience with Linux, Windows will probably still have some catching up to do.

After talks with Intel to produce cheap hardware, which could be used with the OLPC, fell through, Negroponte was happy to find Microsoft willing to work with the project. “We at OLPC have been disappointed that Intel did not deliver on any of the promises they made when they joined OLPC; while we were hopeful for a positive, collaborative relationship, it never materialized,” Negroponte said in a statement.

One can't help but feel a sense of pessimism when Microsoft contributes to a project such as this. The OLPC has the noblest of intentions. Does one of the world's richest corporations, a corporation constantly under scrutiny for its ethical and business practices, fit into the scheme of this idealistic venture on the part of Negroponte and the OLPC? Previously, Microsoft had the efforts of Bill Gates and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to put a softer, kinder face on the corporation, but with Gates' recent departure, can Microsoft pull off the expression of charity in the pit of so much negative press? And how will the Open Source community react knowing that the OLPC's open, Fedora-based operating system will now be sitting side-by-side with the Microsoft juggernaut?

Then again, perhaps we can breathe a sigh of relief. Will people really choose Windows, when given the true choice between Windows and Linux, without growing up inundated with Microsoft Windows every where, on every PC, in every store, without even being able to afford the overpriced Windows-only software that forces so many people to shy away from the open source world?  And if overwhelmingly, given the choice, people choose Linux anyway, will this not hurt Microsoft much more than if they'd never dove into this project at all?

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