“Not long ago, OLPC undertook a drastic internal restructuring coupled with what, despite official claims to the contrary, is a radical change in its goals and vision,” wrote Krstic. “I cannot subscribe to the organization’s new aims or structure in good faith, nor can I reconcile them with my personal ethic. Having exhausted other options, three weeks ago I resigned my post at OLPC.”

Writing in his personal blog, Krstic said that he considered the OLPC project a “second home,” and his coworkers “another family.”

“I learned what it meant to believe in a mission so much that nights and days blur together, and the prospect of success keeps you going even when your brain begins to defocus and your body craves sleep with desperation.”

Krstic said he was responsible for “everything from advising firmware development to debugging … I designed OLPC’s entire back-end server infrastructure, created its staggered software build process, came up with Bitfrost … and had the incredible pleasure of personally deploying our very first laptops and bootstrapping the second deployment.”

The security chief’s last straw came with OLPC president Walter Bender’s forced demotion:  “adding insult to injury, I was asked to stop working with [Bender], without a doubt one of the most stunningly thoughtful and competent people I’ve ever worked with.” wrote Krstic. Instead, he reported to a manager “with no technical or engineering background,” who the project “put in charge of all OLPC technology.”

Krstic’s departure is just the latest in a string of misfortunes for Nicholas Negroponte’s OLPC project, which in the past year has been beset with supply and relationship issues: the project’s November 2007 “Give 1 Get 1” initiative, which sold 83,500 laptops commercially at a price of $400 – one laptop for a buyer and one for a poor child – fell flat when the project encountered fulfillment and shipping issues.

At around the same time, the partnership between OLPC and Intel – which has always been a stormy affair – dissolved once again with the company deciding to pursue its competing “Classmate PC” instead.

With domestic buyers outraged, business relationships crumbling, key staff leaving, and bulk laptop sales that most describe as “sluggish,” many wonder if OLPC’s floundering is a temporary growing pain, or something more permanent.

To that end, Negroponte says he is working hard at turning OLPC around – earlier this month, Negroponte announced to BusinessWeek that he was looking for a new CEO to take the helm: “I am not a CEO … management, administration, and details are my weaknesses. I'm much better at the vision, big-picture side of the house,” said Negroponte. He expects his headhunters to find someone by April or May, but he is having a hard time finding candidates who would “view the world as a mission, not a market.” Many potential candidates, he said, come from the PC industry – and Negroponte would much rather have someone who has a leadership profile similar to former UN secretary-general Koffi Annan.

The restructuring that Krstic left OLPC for refers to Negroponte’s initiative to transform the project into a company that would conduct itself “more like Microsoft,” as OLPC’s current form runs itself “almost like a terrorist group, doing almost impossible things.” He would like OLPC to offload its development and support operations to specialized companies better equipped for OLPC’s challenges, like Red Hat or Microsoft.

“In the end, we should not be in the hardware or software business. We should be in the learning business,” said Negroponte.

Krstic writes that he still believes in the idea behind OLPC, even though he objects to the company’s new direction:  “My belief in the mission is in no way compromised … It’s been an outstanding experience, and I truly wish OLPC the best in its future endeavors.”