That Microsoft tie-up has seemed like a betrayal to many XO supporters who have been deeply invested in the development of Sugar. Last month, OLPC President Walter Bender left the organization to found Sugar Labs, which will attempt to bring the XO’s original operating system to other machines. Another OLPC employee, former Security Director Ivan Krstic, posted an angry manifesto on his blog last week, criticizing Negroponte and accusing him of compromising the XO’s original mission in his zeal to sell more machines.
“I quit when Nicholas told me—and not just me—that learning was never part of the mission,” Krstic wrote. “The mission was, in his mind, always getting as many laptops as possible out there.”
Negroponte fired back at those critics in Tuesday’s presentation. “One person idiotically said that ‘Nicholas isn’t interested in learning,’ or something like that,” he said. “It really puzzled me, because this is an education project, it’s not a laptop project. I don’t think I can say it more often.”
