This is pretty exciting — in 2006, BBC World created a documentary about free software being used in developing countries. It was a 2-part series and it is now available online for anyone to see!

Stories from The Codebreakers include computer and Internet access for school children in Africa, reaching the poor in Brazil, tortoise breeding programmes in the Galapagos, connecting villages in Spain, and disaster management in Sri Lanka. The documentary also includes interviews from key figures around the world.

You can read about the documentary, see an APDIP page about the documentary, or watch the movie online: full-screen and streaming.

The One-Laptop-Per-Child project is being threatened by corporatism’s ugly head. OLPC is a non-profit which is attempting to bridge the digital divide by creating an extremely inexpensive laptop designed for children — the idea being that the generation of tomorrow will have to be computer literate and to prevent a sharp worsening of the gulf between have’s and have-not’s, OLPC seeks to make computer literacy possible for children all over the world.

Well, the bad news started recently when OLPC was sued for $20 million by Lancor Analysis Corp., a firm based in Nigeria. Apparently, they claim that OLPC stole their idea for multi-language keyboard.

Then, it was discovered that Intel was secretly pushing the Peruvian government to drop their order for OLPC computers and instead purchase an Intel competitor laptop. Intel is supposed to be a part of the OLPC project! When Nicholas Negroponte complained about this, Intel’s response was simple: they withdrew their support from the OLPC project. You can read about it in this NYT article: Intel Quits Effort to Get Computers to Children.

Update: Nicholas Negroponte has spoken to Fortune magazine about his views on Intel’s move.

What can be said about this? Can you all get a heart?