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The One Laptop Per Child organization's "Give One, Get One" program has hit a few snags in recent weeks, as donors are apparently having trouble getting their end of the bargain to come together.

The program offered fans of the XO laptop a chance to donate $400 and send one of the laptops to a needy child and one to themselves.

There were enough XO laptops for this Nigerian classroom.

(Credit: Ahmad Dan-Hamidu)

Harry McCracken, editor in chief of PC World, is still waiting for his XO laptop. He was one of the first to participate in the promotion, donating $400 to the OLPC on November 12.

Originally, the OLPC told McCracken that he'd have his XO by Christmas, but that got pushed into January, and now representatives tell him he "might have good news in February."

PC World did a more in-depth story on the problems the OLPC is having fulfilling the second part of the "Give One, Get One" program. An OLPC representative said the organization is prioritizing shipments of XO laptops to needy countries, which probably makes sense. But the laptops are in short supply, and issues with addressing and order tracking have compounded the problems.

Peter Glaskowsky of the CNET Blog Network received his XO laptop before New Year's Day, so some shipments are apparently making it through, but the whole affair is another example of the OLPC's rough start to its charitable venture.

The price of the XO laptop has risen steadily, the mass production of the device has been delayed, and founder Nick Negroponte has engaged in a very public spat with Intel over the right of OLPC members to market their own low-cost laptops to the world's developing nations.

Lesson learned: Just because something can run two operating systems doesn't mean it's a "dual-boot" system.

Microsoft put the kibosh on talk of a dual-boot XO laptop after OLPC chairman and founder Nick Negroponte told IDG News Service Wednesday that the two organizations are working on such a project. "While we have investigated the possibility in the past, Microsoft is not developing dual-boot Windows XP support for One Laptop Per Child's XO laptop," a Microsoft representative said in a statement Thursday.

While that might appear to be a flat-out denial, in a way, it depends on what your definition of "dual-boot" is, to paraphrase Slick Willie.

The OLPC and Microsoft are working on an XO laptop that would ship with the Linux operating environment designed by the OLPC, but that could "securely reflash" over to a Windows environment stored on an SD card and back, according to Walter Bender of the OLPC. If Negroponte wasn't misquoted calling it a "dual-boot system," then he misspoke, Bender said, also noting he wasn't there during the interview in question.

So what does that mean? That plan wouldn't seem to result in a dual-boot system in the strictest sense, using Apple's Boot Camp technology as the example. But Microsoft's plan for the XO was always to have Windows boot off a 2GB flash memory card, since it needs more than the 1GB of flash memory that ships with the XO in order to run even a stripped-down version of Windows and Office.

While that's a little different from a "dual-boot system," it is a method that will allow Linux and Windows to run the same laptop, which is perhaps where Negroponte's confusion began.

However, Microsoft hinted that in the future, Negroponte might not be the best spokesman for anything about the XO related to the software giant. When it comes to the progress of the Windows-based XO, "Microsoft recommends contacting the company directly for any further updates," it said in a statement.

Apparently Nick Negroponte is willing to work with some huge powerful corporations whose interests compete with his own.

Negroponte told IDG News Service Wednesday that the OLPC project is working with Microsoft on a version of the XO laptop that would be capable of booting either Linux--the current OS--or Windows. It appears the two organizations are shooting for something like Apple's Boot Camp: not true virtualization, but the ability to boot either operating system depending on the applications you'd need to run.

Nigerian students check out their XO laptops, which might soon run Windows and Linux.

(Credit: Khaled Hassounah)

This could help the OLPC address some of the reasons why a few governments have spurned its XO laptop in favor of Intel's Classmate, which runs either Linux or Windows, but not in dual-boot fashion. While the XO's design is certainly innovative compared to many of the other options out there, the support model is not. XO customers are essentially responsible for supporting the product themselves, and some governments haven't wanted to snap up an unproven technology product with the additional support burden.

Microsoft and the OLPC have been talking for months about getting Windows to run on the XO laptop, but until now the discussion had appeared to indicate that project would result in two different XOs, a Linux one and a Windows one. A dual-boot XO is an entirely different prospect altogether, one that might require additional processing power, storage, memory, or all three.

The news comes less than a week after the bitter divorce between the OLPC and Intel over Intel's Classmate PC. The OLPC wants Intel to stop selling in the same markets in which the OLPC--equipped with an AMD processor--is being promoted.

Microsoft has also derided the OLPC in the past, preferring to focus on its Windows Starter Edition product or an entirely different notion of bringing computing to the developing world on cell phones. Just this week at CES, Bill Gates said "OLPC hasn't done that well. We're in literally over 100 countries with special versions of Windows, including Starter Edition. OLPC is nowhere compared to where we are on this thing."

Who knows whether this is another marriage doomed from the start, but give Negroponte credit for recognizing the need for Windows on the XO. Like it or not, it's a Windows-dominated world, and pretending that developing nations won't want access to the huge library of Windows applications out there isn't really serving their needs.

And a dual-boot solution is an elegant way of supporting both operating systems without forcing one or the other on the user. I wonder if a dual-boot XO would require beefier hardware, and therefore nudge that cost up a little more, but it's unclear right now what type of performance requirements we'd be looking at with this version of Windows.

Nick Negroponte, founder and chairman of the One Laptop Per Child project, came out swinging at Intel on Friday, one day after the chipmaker decided to leave the group.

The OLPC's goal of bringing low-cost technology to children in developing countries apparently conflicts with Intel's goal of running a business. Even though the two agreed to put aside their differences in July, it's pretty clear that they never actually became friends.

"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 distributed by the OLPC on Friday.

Intel cited "fundamental differences" in describing its exit from the group Thursday; this appears to be the classic "creative musical differences" breakup.

Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of the OLPC

(Credit: OLPC)

Quite simply, Negroponte wanted Intel to stop selling its Classmate laptop in regions where he was trying to sell the XO laptop. "Intel continued to disparage the XO laptop in developing nations that had already decided to partner with OLPC (Uruguay and Peru), with countries that were in the midst of choosing a laptop solution (Brazil and Nigeria), and even small and remote places (Mongolia)," Negroponte said.

Intel has never been shy about its desire to sell the Classmate PC as one of many possible products for the developing world, and that seems to have offended Negroponte. "As we said in the past, we view the children as a mission; Intel views them as a market."

But Negroponte also said Intel's version of the XO laptop just wasn't that good. "The best Intel could offer in regards to an "Intel inside" XO laptop was one that would be more expensive and consume more power--exactly the opposite direction of OLPC's stated mandate and vision," Negroponte said.

An Intel representative declined to comment on the cost or power consumption of any chips slated for the XO laptop, which currently uses a Geode processor made by Intel rival Advanced Micro Devices.

And so it goes. It's always heartening to see two organizations disparage each other over who has the more appropriate vision for saving the world through technology--which assumes, of course, that notion is even possible.

Few would argue that it's a bad idea to connect students in impoverished lands to the outside world, but should they use custom laptops designed specifically for their needs, running open-source software and free from the Microsoft monopoly? Should they have access to the same technology that's available at Best Buy, but at a more reasonable price? Would all this time and effort be better spent on technology infrastructure in some of these nations?

Negroponte seems to think that because he's running a nonprofit with a "mission," he's entitled to a lock on the developing world and that the XO laptop is the only thing that can bridge the digital divide. That, of course, is preposterous; competition between firms is what improves products and brings down costs over time, and to expect Intel and other companies to just pass on burgeoning demand for computers in developing countries is pretty naive.

But I agree with Charlie Demerjian over at The Inquirer: the tone of this squabble is beneath Intel. Negroponte's project is well-intentioned, and the XO isn't a terrible product. Sure, he doesn't seem to really understand how to run a business venture, and he seems to have a bit of a messianic complex, but he really is trying to improve the lives of poor children.

The developing world needs more than one laptop. The folks at the OLPC do not have a divine right to sell laptops to poor cities and towns, and Intel isn't winning a lot of PR points by slamming a nonprofit.

And maybe, just maybe, some enterprising engineer in one of those developing countries might actually come up with their own idea for a laptop best suited for the needs of their people.

What are Intel and the OLPC going to do then, belittle the first homegrown laptop designer in Mongolia? Perhaps the best way to help developing countries get in on the technology revolution is to teach them how to design--not merely assemble--their own products, rather than coming to them from lofty perches in Cambridge and Santa Clara saying, "Don't worry, we know best."