'If our effort stimulates others to bring low-cost devices, it's positive as well,' Evans said. But 'there [is] a fine line' between well-intentioned projects and those with 'more protectionist' intentions, he added.

Even so, Red Hat hopes to see an economic upside from its involvement. Because of the laptop's limited storage, the OLPC hopes that schools and educational ministries in the seven nations will build wireless networks and Web servers to deliver textbook material, school lessons and software through the Internet. For the servers hosting that content, Red Hat hopes to convince the relevant institutions to choose its commercially supported versions of Linux, said Evans.