Well we all saw it coming, Microsoft is using FUD against the One Laptop Per Child scheme. You can read the article written by our old friend John Dvorak Here. Mr Dvorak seems to be under the impression that everyone in Africa lives in mudhuts and is starving. This is simply not the case, the OLPC scheme is not intended to help those that are starving, it is intended to help educate the children so that future generations may avoid starving. Sending food over only makes them all the more dependant, especially as the local warlords will happily take a large percentage of all that is received.

Mr Dvorak asserts that $100 could almost feed a village for a year, that is absolutely ridiculous, the villages are not exactly small, and as the old saying goes it is better to teach a man to fish. I think it is a shame that such a well meaning project has been on the end of a MSN smear, but we all saw it coming.

Intersting though don't you think that despite this, MS was saying fairly recently that their phone idea was far better than the OLPC sheme. I dare say we would be hearing a very different tune if it were Windows on there rather than Red Hat.

The monopolists are showing again that they have very little moral fibre.