Mark Shuttleworth engages new MIT $100 laptop initiative

"Those who can afford it, please help the poor", Mark Shuttleworth said yesterday. The Ubuntu Linux founder has engaged a new initiative to distribute the MIT $100 laptop among the poor countries

The initiative consists on distributing the laptop in first-world countries and make the buyers pay a little bit more for each unit sold. Mark realised that, even though the laptop was designed for poor children in poor countries, it could become the Gadget of the Year and many people would be willing to pay for one of them. "$50 means nothing for the buyers, but it is a lot for those who have nothing. We are used to see music stars donating $1 for each disc they sell, but how about donating 50% the price?", he said when referring to the initiative

"You get it, they get it". This is going to be the slogan for the campaign, which consists on the following: The laptop will be available on February, 2006, at a price of $150. The Ubuntu Foundation will pay an extra $50 to make a total plus of $100, enough to sponsor a laptop for a poor child. "The Ubuntu Foundation has started many projects to help Software Libre, like bounties or just the Ubuntu Linux distribution. Why not take advantage of the Christmas consumer tide? Half sponsored by users and half by the Foundation, we believe that final users can make a big difference for these laptops to reach poor countries.", Shuttheworth said.

"We know that the laptop will be running Redhat Linux, but we are friends here, not rivals. The point is that those children will have a laptop that they couldn't have afforded otherwise. Anyway, the people at the Fedora Foundation are very nice and willing to initiate online donation pages for the project", Shuttleworth stated. There is no detailed information on which countries will get involved in this campaign, but Mark is thinking of South Africa, where he was born.

At the moment there is no way of buying the laptop individuately, but there is a list for users that would like to get further information or pre-register for a laptop

Que s�, hombre, que s�... �es la broma del d�a de los inocentes!