Every element of the XO's software is open-source and malleable: Its creators hope that kids in Mongolia and Peru will someday program their own applications for the devices and even modify its source code to improve its operating system.
Precisely where the art resides, and who are the artists, are questions without definitive answers in the case of Newstweek, especially since the open-source plans allow anyone to modify everything, from the headlines to the capabilities of the device.
Microsoft, he says, makes a large amount of source code available under a so-called shared-source licence, which grants users downstream a limited set of rights to modify and use the code.