Walter Bender resigns from OLPC Foundation

The OLPC Foundation is busy restructuring its organization to better handle the market and goals. PCWorld is reporting that Walter Bender, former President of Software and Content, has resigned. His position has been removed and is no longer filled.

Walter has posted a farewell message on the laptop.org list-serv.

After more than two years without a break at One Laptop per Child, I have decided to take some time to reflect on how I can best contribute going forward to the goal of giving children around the world opportunities for a quality learning experience. The OLPC Association is making headway getting laptops into the hands of children and it is encouraging to see that other non-profit and for-profit organizations are following suit. My personal interest is in helping build a community of developers, educators, and learners dedicated to advancing the quality of free and open source software for learning and the sharing of pedagogical approaches in this community by adopting the spirit and methodology of the open-source movement

While my goal is to create a complementary effort to broaden the reach of the software and pedagogy--a free and open framework in support of "learning learning", I hope to continue working with the great team at OLPC as well as the various groups that have formed around the world in support of one-laptop-per-child deployments.

Thank you for all of your support over the past two years and for all the feedback and encouragement you have given me.

regards.

-walter

Despite all the rumor and speculation, I personally believe this is business-as-usual as a non-profit reorganizes to streamline its process and staff. As Negroponte put it, they were performing impossible things under tight schedules to get the OLPC produced. There is bound to be shakeups like in any company. Now that the laptop is out, reorganization is possible. I do not subscribe to the rumor that the OLPC will become a "Windows Only" laptop. Sugar and the applications created is too far entrenched to be removed and will always be an option, most likely the default option, for the OLPC laptop. However, Windows XP *WILL BE* an option for the laptop, should a country choose to use it. Negroponte is providing more options and configurations for the OLPC laptop. Meanwhile, Linux and the Sugar environment needs to step up its game to make it a more compelling solution than Windows XP. In my opinion, it currently is.