Red Hat announced on Tuesday, January 31st that it would be joining to OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) initiative as a corporate partner. Red Hat plans on donating an undisclosed sum of money toward theproject. Red Hat looks forward to contributing more to the purpose, but won’t necessarily be providing the operating system for the $100-laptops developed by MIT. The laptops are designed to helpschoolchildren in developing countries where internet and computers are not directly available.
Red Hat won’t comment on what other contributions they’ll be making to the OLPC, but rumors are floating about that software and other open-source utilities will be worked on in partnership with RedHat. The laptop is set to run a trimmed-down version of Linux however, so it makes sense that Red Hat would contribute toward that goal. Laptops won’t begin production until at least 5 million unitshave been ordered and paid for by governments in advance. The projected date for that goal is early 2007.