Via muti.co.za, I just came across this disheartening news report in InfoWorld about a new direction that the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) programme seems to be heading. The picture (thank you nirak @ flickr) expresses my fears but if you have been following the OLPC story over the last several years you will want to also read this article.

The folks at olpcnews.com have also been reporting on the issue and tend to have more (and more current) information than anyone else. Check out this olpcnews.com article about the speech by OLPC founder Negroponte about OLPC and XP, in which he is quoted as saying:

"Eventually Windows might be the sole operating system, and Sugar would be educational software running on top of it."

Sugar is the very nifty kid-oriented operating system that currently runs on the laptops, and which is available as freely distributable open source software. My own children (3 and 6 years old) have XO laptops (which we purchased for them in December through the OLPC "give one get one" scheme, now ended) and greatly enjoy exploring computing on them. I am hoping they will be able to grow with the Sugar operating system and continue to have access to an open and dynamic computing environment.

It is interesting and hopefui, therefore, to have Negroponte reassure us, also on olpcnews.com, that Sugar is not at all dead with the XP news. He writes:

What is in front of us is an opportunity for big change. Sugar is at the core of it. To pretend otherwise would be a joke. That said, Sugar needs to be disentangled. I keep using the omelet analogy, claiming it needs to be a fried egg, with distinct yoke and white, rather than having the UI, collaborative tools, power management and radios merge into one amorphous blob. Otherwise, it is impossible to debug and will be limited to the small, albeit growing, world of the XO hardware platform.

Readers in African civil society that are interested in the topic: head on over to laptop.org to learn about the laptops and download the live cd to try on your own PC, and keep an eye on the olpcnews.com site to cut through to the facts as the story evolves.