Meanwhile, in Brazil, Linux is becoming very popular. Why? Well, one reason is that the Windows license on a home PC costs something like 10% of per capita income. That's not for the computer, just the software license. Several major Linux distributions are free. And that would make even more of a difference in the even poorer countries which are being targeted by the One Laptop Per Child project.

Which explains why, after a shakeup, OLPC leadership is now talking up a Windows port. Gotta get those kids hooked early. If they get the notion that it's permissible, or even desirable, to tinker with the system at every level to solve third-world problems that no first-world denizen would never anticipate, why, then... they'd never learn to appreciate the advantages of Windows.

Whatever they are...