Josh Grosse wrote:
quoted text
>...
> 1.    The decision to push for WXP to replace Linux was due to pressure from
> prospective buyers of the XO laptop, which was slowing sales.  "'The people
> who buy the machines are not the children who use them, but government
> officials in most cases,' said Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the nonprofit
> group. 'And those people are much more comfortable with {explitive deleted}.'"
> ...

My contact with directors and high level managers, the occasional CxO,
etc. suggests that they are usually just more familiar with the brand
name rather than any specific interface.  Or, perhaps more commonly,
they have signed onto some kind of ideology or myth which is flagged to
the outside world by continued use of that brand.  Most common seems to
be bit of that last combined with a heavy dose of personal financial
investments and/or close relatives with personal financial investments
in that brand.

As far as the technology goes, most are unlikely to (as a user) notice
much of a difference between a nicely configured and painted OpenBSD
setup with Xfce or an even leaner, but decorative, DE.  In the case of
OLPC it is Sugar on Linux.

Either way, they probably would not notice without someone telling them
to notice, except that over time they might notice the better
performance and excellent uptime.

It's hard to say about Negroponte just now, without having met him, but
from a distance it seems he's knuckling under and compromising the
learning advantages in exchange for marginally increased acceptance in a
technopolitical ideology that's rapidly waning.

YMMV.

Regards,
-Lars