

Seeking his own XO clarity

When I posted that Walter Bender is the former President of Software and Content for One Laptop Per Child, I thought he had just moved to Deployment. Now I've heard an even more shocking development:

Walter Bender resigned from OLPC!

Apparently, rumor has it that Nicholas Negroponte is close to abandoning Sugar and Linux in favor of Microsoft XP, to spur sales of the XO laptop. Negroponte thinks that many more laptops need to be sold and a partnership with Microsoft is the way to achieve that goal.

Walter Bender disagreed with this near-total abandonment of the original mission - constructionism as children learning learning to create life-long exploration and collaboration through open information and communication technologies. And so he walked away from OLPC the organization for one laptop per child, the global movement.

Personally, I think I'm going into shock for a bit. As I've made clear, I feel that XP on the XO is the end of OLPC as an education project. If OLPC falls to the Dark Side, I may just join Walter Bender in resignation.

Updated: Walter resigned around April 14th, according to his own staffing edits on the wiki. And we now have a statement from Walter Bender on his resignation from OLPC

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