The $100 laptop for children in developing countries has been an interesting journey. Kicking off this year, there is the XO machine using Novel software - a version of Linux - for the One Laptop Per Child project.

Through mass production, the computers should reach the $150 mark and will begin distribution in Thailand and Libya.

Nicholas Negroponte started the project two years ago within the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab before taking it off the leash and starting the non-profit One Laptop organization.

“In fact, one of the saddest but most common conditions in elementary school computer labs [when they exist in the developing world], is the children are being trained to use Word, Excel and PowerPoint,” Negroponte wrote in an e-mail interview to CNN. “I consider that criminal, because children should be making things, communicating, exploring, sharing, not running office automation tools.”

“I have to laugh when people refer to XO as a weak or crippled machine and how kids should get a ‘real’ one,” Negroponte wrote. “Trust me, I will give up my real one very soon and use only XO. It will be far better, in many new and important ways.”

The computers focus more on interaction with other nearby students rather than keeping the users working independently.

The operating system was specifically developed for the project, producing a much simpler and children-intuitive system than Microsoft and Apple computers.

The project itself has gotten at least $29 million in funding from companies including Google Inc., News Corp. and Red Hat.

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.

Read [CNN]