The $100 laptop has become the $150 laptop, and it’s not quite a laptop by western standards. But students in a variety of developing countries are going to get their first taste of computing this summer thanks to Nicholas Negroponte’s “laptop for every child” project. Nicholas is a good friend of mine and long time collaborator — and someone with an uncanny ability to understand where digital media is going on the one hand and a strong sense of social justice on the other. Perfect combination. Amongst a variety of contributors (volunteer and corporate) alike, the Linux project stands out as the most important for coming anywhere close to the price point. What’s also interesting is where the points of resistance are coming from:

“India’s government originally expressed interest but backed out. Even though Brazil plans to take part, it is hedging its bets by evaluating $400 “Classmate PCs” from Intel Corp. Brazil’s government is a big fan of open-source software as a cost-saver, but at least in initial tests, officials have said those Classmate PCs just might run Windows.”

This will simultaneously be a great test for open source Linux technology and international politics – as it’s hard to see how any developing nation or government could justify using anything but Linux.