There's plenty of open source software that resembles XP. Why not use that? Indeed, the initial version of OLPC was designed specifically to be below the specif

There's plenty of open source software that resembles XP. Why not use that? Indeed, the initial version of OLPC was designed specifically to be below the specification to run XP and now Microsoft has a small team hacking up the stock version of XP so that it will run in a smaller space and with less processing power. Even then, as I understand, an XP install requires an additional 1GB memory stick. This increases price, decreases the number of children who benefit, decreases the "de-facto" aspect and allows proprietary interests to jeopardise the initiative. All this is for the benefit of cautious beaucrats who can easily find other reasons against purchase.