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Open Source Africa
Toucan Sam writes, "This could be of some interest to those who see the Linux community as being reserved for the first world exclusively." This doesn't just apply to Africa, but it's good to see that some people are thinking internationally.
... populated by the Europeans and Africans?
Anyway, the Portugese, Dutch and British occupations were ages ago. How do you think that has any connection to the amount of silicon and fibre-optic in these countries? What about China, which was never occupied? The connection you make is spurious.
Doesn't seem too difficult to me. Or do you mean how Tux ended up being the Linux mascot? In which case I'm not sure anyone really understands why.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
This is great news. I was lying awake last night, wondering how I could contribute towards the effort of helping a bunch of half-naked dudes with plates in their lips and holding spears get online. I can now relax with the knowledge that Linux will help get them there.
leeh-nucks? sounds like linnecks to me
At least when it happens in african countries, it's not because most of the fellow countrymen don't give a shit and vote for tax cuts.
So we're supposed to let the Feds take even more of the money we earned to support some drug addict and their bastard children?? I don't mind helping people that have something truely disastrous happen to them, but I refuse to support anyone who doesn't make the effort to be responsible for themselves and their offspring. Far too many people and their communities don't give a shit about the education of their children and blame all their problems on others when it all boils down to their own ignorance and laziness. Where has LBJ's 'War on Poverty' gotten us? Just more poor people who are dependent on the Federal & State governments (ie and the politicians who promise more handouts). Too many feel that they have the right to use the Safety Net as a hammock.
I'm so sick of all this 'we need to help these people..blah..blah ..blah'. If they can't get off their asses to help themselves, then they don't deserve ANY help. I say fuck 'em. Let the military use the burnt out inner cities for testing grounds for biological/chemical/nuclear weapons. The crime rate will plummet, we will get rid of millions of parasites, test new urban warfare technology, and clear out land for productive use.
America leads the world in "inequality" because we have more wealthy people. Perhaps you should move to a nation with more "equality" where nearly *everyone* is poor.
By the way, the single greatest health problem faced by poor people in the US is obesity, not TB or drug use. Historically, this is certainly an unusual condition for any nation's poor.
You know your site has gone mainstream when even ignorant rednecks start to log on.
For the record Civilization itself is a function of international communication and cross cultural mixing. In other words nobody got civilized by living alone.
To put that in perspective Europeans still lived in caves when Africans were building the pyramids. It was around the same time that the Chines were inventing Paper and Gunpowder. It's simply stupid arrogance to think that Europe invented everything or that civilization is a creation of any single race. In fact we would all be in the dark ages if people didn't link up.
You see the specific wealth and power of individual nations is transient at best. There was a time when Babylon was unstoppable. At another point Rome ruled the world. The Mongols also had a turn at bat, as did England. Today it's America, In 200 years it will probably be what is today a 3rd world country.
My bet is on India. South Africa also has a shot if they can get apartheid out of the mindset.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
Yeah, those poor african people, hey. They're in almost as bad conditions as the underclass in the USA, the "richest country in the world".
No, the underclass in the US has it much better. They have cars, TVs, telephones, etc. The african governments aren't paying them to sit on their asses and breed either. Because of all this 'Digital Divide' crap, they may be getting free PCs and internet soon too. It's so funny. I hear people bitching and moaning about how because life was so terrible for their ancestors that life is still terrible for them. Ok, if the US is such a shitty place, then go back to your fucking 'homeland'. I'm sure there are several people there who would gladly trade places with you.
You know your site has gone mainstream when even ignorant rednecks start to log on.
For the record Civilization itself is a function of international communication and cross cultural mixing. In other words nobody got civilized by living alone.
To put that in perspective Europeans still lived in caves when Africans were building the pyramids. It was around the same time that the Chines were inventing Paper and Gunpowder. It's simply stupid arrogance to think that Europe invented everything or that civilization is a creation of any single race. In fact we would all be in the dark ages if people didn't link up.
You see the specific wealth and power of individual nations is transient at best. There was a time when Babylon was unstoppable. At another point Rome ruled the world. The Mongols also had a turn at bat, as did England. Today it's America, In 200 years it will probably be what is today a 3rd world country.
My bet is on India. South Africa also has a shot if they can get apartheid out of the mindset.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
I would agree. South Africa is considered by the WTO and most of the world as being a fully industrized (not developing) country (eg., they have nuclear power, nuclear weapons, etc.) I live in South Africa. I have to disagree with this statement. This country is really NOT comparable to 1st world countries, for a few reasons:
(a) South Africans don't know when they're being ripped off!
I knew someone who hadn't bought a computer before, but needed two, for her kids to do their school projects and her husband and son to do their CAD applications. (They work for a design firm). Now, she was so adamant about buying a PIII, she didn't even consider the price difference between them and the AMD's, Celerons, etc!!!
(b) Lack of proper education.
When I was in high school, they were teaching TURBO PASCAL ON MS DOS 5.0 !!!! Even then it was outdated, but I'm truly shocked to hear that some schools in SA are still teaching it!!!!!!!! They should be teaching real technology: Zope, Python, Perl, Java, Linux, BSD, Cisco, Cyclades, FORTRAN, NT, Solaris, Tru 64 UNIX, OpenVMS, HP/UX, IRIX, Corel Certificate Maker, and C/C++.
(c)People who don't tolerate anything.
South Africans just don't accept anything accept the traditional, Afrikaans way of life. (Or Zulu, Xhosa, whatever the case may be). It seems the only ethnic group of the numerous ethnic groups here in SA that is even slightly broad-minded is mine - the English. Not that the other groups aren't nice people, they just don't like deviating from tradition.
-C.Villopillil
no sig
WTF does inequality have to do with anything? The US has the richest poor people of any country on the planet.
And if we are in the 'first world', where are the 'second world' countries?
I've wondered about the etymology of these terms forever. And I've never found anyone that knows.
--
A year and a half ago I vivsited my daughter, a peace corps volunteer in Ghana West Africa. At the American Club in Accra I ran into another PCV who was trying to introduce computers to Ghana. He was trying to get donations of used i386 mothrboards and cards (to avoid most duty.) He only wanted to run Linux and establish a radio internet network. The hard wired phone lines in Ghana are not reliable outside Accra, if installed, cellphone charges are not cheap. Whe you can live in a country for seven dollars a day for food lodging transportation and clothing learning Linux on discarded hardware is a viable route.
One of the great problems that we have had in recent years is capital dependence. Developing countries - or for that matter developing communiteis in the United States - have had to bargain themselves down in order to "attract business"
Reportedly, for example, state legislators in Maryland and Virginia are being sold on UCITA because they belief their adopting it will attract Silicon Valley-type businesses to their states. More typically, states and localities simply give tax breaks and other preferences.
Particularly in the so-called Third World, this capital dependency is accute. The recent Asian financial crisis resulted when capital stampeded out of their countries. We often read about how the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is applying doses of "financial medicine" to various countries in order to "restore investor confidence" in them. We rarely read about how investors are disciplined in order to "restore labor confidence" or anything like that.
In other words, we all dance to capital's tune.
Software and information technology are central to capital development because re-engineering plays a vital role in the modern economy. Information technology makes all these restructuings and downsizings that we read about feasible. For example, Ivar Jacobson's _The Object Advantage: Business Process Reengineering with Object Technology_ explores this on the micro scale.
So software - or business software at least - functions as encapsulated capital. Open source software therefore functions as the free transfer of capital.
This free transfer, in turn, reduces the need of either developing communities or developing countries to bargain themselves down in order to obtian capital. They can generate their own, thank you very much.
Still, on a slightly lighter note, here is some stuff on the other problem that Africa faces beyond software and hardware costs which is connectivity. If you don't have a pipe then your computing options are extremely limited. If you look at The Project for Information Access and Connectivity (especially the Internet Status at Feasibility Study Universities table) you will see that most large universities are still trying to get by on a 64k (or worse) internet connection. Not totally optimal.
However, there does seem to be quite a strong move to address this problem, namely the Africa One submarine fibre optic cable project. This is a 30,000 km fibre-optic ring that will encircle the continent "by the year 2000" (I don't know of the current status although it is seems that Lucent is now involved) with 32 main pipes from the ring into coastal landing points.
Once this system is in place and local governments (hopefully) see the benefits of extending the pipes in-land then we should see a massive increase in the African Internet population and yes I am pretty sure that Linux will be one of the technologies that makes this possible.
The only Good System is a Sound System
The exchange rate of the South African Rand to the U.S. $ is about 6:1
So? the eschange rate of the italien lira to the South African Rand is what? 250:1 ? That doesn't mean anything.
I think you missed the point. There are computers in Africa, believe it or not. It's not entirely unpopulated. S. Africa for example. They feel the same pressures over there regarding this issue, I would imagine. Enough to create the need for open source, apparently.
I would agree.   South Africa is considered by the WTO and most of the world as being a fully industrized (not developing) country (eg., they have nuclear power, nuclear weapons, etc.), no different than most European countries.  I would expect that majority of the use of Linux would occur there first and spread via the OAU to major cities in places like Zimbawe, Egypt, Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal, Ethiopia,and Kenya.   For example, TUCOWS (a major Linux distributor), has locations in South Africa, Zimbawe, Ivory Coast, Mozambique, Kenya, and Egypt.   And if you go to this link, you will note that there are *9* South African Linux Users groups listed and here you will see that there are 4 LUGs in Egypt.   There are Linux references (link and "counter") for Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Togo, et. al.   I also expect that they are also already big users of the *BSDs right now.
Note that with many of those countries, you have 2 classes - the very wealthy, who have access to everything including the net, and the poor.   The continent is not what Hollywood or the National Geographic has portrayed it as being.   Once the colonial puppets are finally booted out and the continent stablizes a bit, you'll have a near 1 billion person potential market there, and a number of large businesses have already considered this fact and are opening up shop there.
-- Win2k: "It's not so much that it's only 65,000 bugs, it's just that they stopped at 65,535 to prevent an overflow."
maybe we should give the Africans some HOT GRITS to ease their computing woes.
So there is a pretty good chance that antarctica could be called whealthiest of all continents! :)
What you are saying is redundant.
There are many penguin colonnies near the Cape
either way Linus T. doesn't give a dead rat's ass which way you pronounce it. Idiotic pronounciation wars.
Yeah, if the world was not flat, then you would be wrong... Wait, you are!
"Brazil (populated by the Portugese), South Africa (populated by the Dutch) and India (occupied by the British for decades) are all large consumers of computing technology and are relatively well-integrated into the Internet."
It seems to me you have missed some of those NG specials (or had you switched to Jerry Springer instead?). See how much influence the British have in the shaping of the technological economy in India and then come back talk to us. And WRT to the Afrikaaner in SA , if they had their way SA would be just one huge plantation/gold mine operated by black slave labor. Quite progressive that, eh?
Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
Microsoft Jumpstarts Subsaharan Africa
Seattle, WA (UIP)
In a startling business move with profound geopolitial ramifications, Microsoft founder, Bill Gates, today announced a moratorium on the enforcement of Microsoft's copyrights within Subsaharan Africa for at least the next 10 years. "The struggling nations of Subsaharan Africa need to leapfrog into the global internet economy and bypass the stages of economic development that have, historically, destroyed indigenous cultures and their ecologies." said Mr. Gates as his wife, former President Bill Clinton, Craig McCaw, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, South African President Nelson Mandella and Zulu historian Credo Muthwa looked on. He continued, "The wanton rape of the environment and tribal societies is perhaps beyond hope elsewhere in the world, but Africa still possesses much of the deepest heritage of mankind. It is not too late to protect it from modernization. Postmodern economies can leapfrog and preempt such destruction."
Craig McCaw also announced, "We are pleased to announce unlimited access to Iridium/Teledesic internet satellites within Subsaharan Africa for the duration of Mr. Gate's moratorium. Our satellite infrastructure is underutilized in the Southern Hemisphere generally, and Subsaharan Africa in particular. This will be a small investment with tremendous global benefits."
Mr. Gates announced additional endowments from the his private foundation to provide ground stations for McCaw's internet satellites and thin client PC's with access to computer-based training for African school districts. In a move labeled by many pundits as "eccentric" Gates targeted his largest endowment, $1 billion to The Bonobo Protection Fund. The Bonobo Protection fund will install an enormous array of cameras and microphones throughout the entire ecological range of the Bonobos in the Congo and Zaire. Real time unedited multimedia feeds of Bonobo social dynamics will become available around the world on the internet. These raw data streams are expected to make their way into academic institutions, but also the entertainment industry. Bids are already coming in from various internet pay per view channels on the theory that natural Bonobo social behavior will serve a viewing public that has come to expect primitive primate behavior on everything from talk shows to political debate. The profits of "Bonobo TV" are expected to pay for policing of the habitat as well as maintaining the array of sensors. The policing will be aided by the video cameras which are expected to provide unprecedented security for the Bonobo habitat against intrusion by careless or hostile humans.
Seastead this.
..."in developing countries - there the time is just not as valuable"
First off, I'd like to thank you for your usage of "developing nation". It's just as bad as calling it a third world country. It is ironic that the banner on the page I'm tying this is for IBM "moving at the speed of e-business", for that is exactly my point. The speed of e-business does not vary based upon your time zone, nationality, or geographic location. To say that tech people in the reigons of Africa, Eastern Europe, or Latin America have more time to spend installing linux is ludicrous. To say that, as I believe AC has said, time is not as valuble in any country besides "developed" nations is also ridiculous. There are 24 hours in each person's day around the world, and each minute is as valuable to one person as the next.
We cannot write off other nations or give them second rate or our discarded products because we believe they have the time to fiddle with them. If the USA's seemingly infinite tech structure can't deal with 486s and Linux, what makes one think that they will be welcomed in another country? An old computer is not necessarily better than no computer at all. This has been pointed out to be by people at schools who don't want old hardware donations from the company I work at. It's better to buy new equipment to teach people on, and it's worth every penny in support hassles.
Over 50% of the world's population has never made a phone call. Should we make a direct leap onto the internet for them? I would imagine that a graphical Linux on capable, stripped down for cost hardware would be an excellent en masse computing solution. Linux, a Celeron, 32mb RAM, 3gb HD, small graphics card is all it takes. Shipping 486s all over the place is not the solution.
Time is what you make of it, not what other people tell you it's worth!
"In individuals, insanity is rare, but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule." -Nietzsche
You really are an inept twat to arent you. The Afrikaaner is not a racist. Some people are racist but this does not make an entire group racist. The Afrikaaner that I know work together with all racises and cultures probably better than you will ever know or be able to. South Africa is a leader in Africa in technology, and structure. They provide the starting block for some of the latest banking systems in the world.
DVD companies do this as well. They call it "region coding".
More and more of the world's costs are changing from per-unit-production costs to non-recurring development costs (software, drugs, entertainment, news, electronics). Companies need better pricing models to accommodate this shift.
Steven E. Ehrbar
Africa is widely considered the be the poorest continent in the world. The fact that they're beginning to embrace open source indicates not only their need for low-cost modern technology, but also their need for any sort of modern technology. Welcome to the 20th century, Africa. I'm glad you made it before it ends.
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Remember when "Truth, Justice, & the American Way" wasn't contradictory?
I think you missed the point. There are computers in Africa, believe it or not. It's not entirely unpopulated. S. Africa for example. They feel the same pressures over there regarding this issue, I would imagine. Enough to create the need for open source, apparently.
Long signatures suck.
While being a better overview of what Linux is, the article still occasionally misrepresents Linux. /. users, the author states that "even technically competent people don't have the time to figure out how to install Linux".
My point is, though, that taking the cultural differences between the Westen world and the "less devleoped countries" into account, the social culture of the latter suits the Linux uuser profile much more.
Let me expand: In the recent article in the Boston Globe, which provoked a strong reaction from the
This is a true much more for a technically competent person in the Western world than in developing countries - there the time is just not as valuable. Hence in Russia, fo instance, even with the lack of good network connections, Linux is a lot more popular than one expects.
Thanks
You st00pid racist fuck. Wait... I agree with you. Maybe if they killed & ate Sally Struthers...
For those who do not already know, Linux is pronounced with a short i like Li-nucks.
Not quite. "Linux" is pronounced more like "leeh-nucks", definitely with a long "i", not the often-heard "linnecks" or even "lie-necks". Also, note there's a "u", don't replace it with an "e".
Linus himself saying it:
http://www2.cybercities.com/~jr ocho/faqs/english.au
Yeah, good thing Africa adopted Linux as opposed to some other OS because we wouldn't want to let the supercomputing center that Africa is slip into the hands of a less-deserving community... WTF are they going to run Linux on? Does Linux port well to tribal drums? And that whole lack of electricity thing will prove to be a bitch as well... Too bad Linux isn't edible. Then they could actually use it. Linux in Africa. Jeeeeezzz.....
"Study your math, kids. Key to the universe." -The Archangel Gabriel
Why don't they just pirate windows like the rest of the world?
"Li" like in "lithium". "nucks" like in "canucks". Atta boy!
The last time we saw a phenomena like this was in the immediate post-colonial era from the 1950s-1970s. Nationalist governments in Egypt, India, China and elsewhere stopped using imported products to spur industrial development at home.
Bad example. These countries are still 3rd world and stuck in profound poverty.
However I do remember the results of isolationism and protectionism, when in the 70's the US auto industry, protected from imports by import teriffs became complacent. Without significant competition the big 3, churned out flaming Pinto's and low quality cars that fell apart in 5 years or less.
I see the MS DOJ case as important because if MS is allowed to compete unfairly it is the same as protectionism. I have encountered many times the attitude amongst the general population that MS's and Intel's virtual monoply is good for the US since it allows the US to dominate the computer industry. Sorry wrong answer. The rest of the world will move on, and innovation will come from somewhere else and the US will play catch up again.
If anything history clearly shows that advancement, innovation and economic growth springs from an environment that is both free and fair.
What a minute I am way off topic. Oh well.
Linux will be influential in Africa, not because of its logo, its mints, or its rebellious nature. It'll be influential because it's the right tool for the right job. Nothing more and nothing less.
I think this article has a lot to say, even if on the surface it doesn't. I think it says that Africans are fed up of being spoon-fed other people's ideas of what a solution should be, and are willing to pick up the challange of finding out what's right for them.
Yes, a lot of readers of Slashdot have probably come to the same conclusion. But a lot won't have. There will always be people who use a tool, or buy a product, purely because of the label. To have an entire continent wake up and realise the label isn't worth a damn thing, and that it's the product you're buying, is absolutely staggering!
It's very rare to get that kind of enlightenment, even in "technically advanced" countries, such as the US, Europe or Japan. Nike can charge up to a thousand times as much as anyone else, and get away with it, because people crave the labels. It wouldn't even matter if the shoes fell apart if you tried to wear them. People would still clamour for them. Most people are sheep.
But here's an entire continent that's poised to evolve from sheep to genuinely aware, sentient beings. Anthropologists claim humans evolved from apes. Personally, I think the process went in reverse for the brain. But if we're finally going to see self-aware, competent humans, that will be a great day indeed!
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
True, it means very little, let me try expand on it a bit: A programmer here might earn R80000 a year. When you convert that to $, you end up with very little money. Add in the fact that a lot of stuff is imported, and your money does not go very far.
What we are talking about here is part of the long-term shift away from "western" culture into something new. Frankly, this scares me shitless, because there is no telling which way this shift will go, except that it will be different, and different people will be in charge. I think we are eventually going to see a shift as great as that from the dominance of the Arabic world to the European Renaissance and Europe's eventual domination. Linux being adopted by Africa and China is just a piece of that shift.
Hold on to your hats everyone, and don't forget where your towel is.
> There's only one problem... how do you explain Tux to them?
a ss.htm u in.htm
How about: "It's a penguin" already.
StrawberryFrog, Living in Cape Town, Africa, Currently wearing a tshirt with a large Penguin (tux) on it, thinking of the large, noisy and ever-growing colony of Jackass penguins on a beach near here.
See
http://www.wcape.school.za/mickle/penguins/jack
http://www.botany.uwc.ac.za/Envfacts/facts/peng
Wait a minute... noisy Jackass penguins? As seen on slashdot?
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
I agree. However, Pakistan has come up with the money to buy nuclear weapon technology while their people starve and suffer the worst kinds of inhuman treatment imaginable. A great many Africans are starving, and not because of diverted funds. Fortunately they've made the decision to channel their resources into a free OS that will hopefully help to educate the populace as to how to play catch up with the rest of the world on a variety of levels. And to think they did it all without developing weapons of mass destruction. Do you hear me, Pakistan?
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Remember when "Truth, Justice, & the American Way" wasn't contradictory?
There is no reason to justify that software should be a tool restricted to a small part of the humans. Computers are now taking a growing place into how people communicate, solve scientific and technical issues, how art may spread, how society evlolves. Society should not build itself entirely over business and money, and Free Software is part of this idea. The magic coktail made of freedom+lowcost+hitech perfectly fit this role. So Free Software may be a passion for some of us, even make some others earn money, but the most important is that it is designed to be open to everybody, regardless of who he is, preserving freedom and equality, in the limits of its scope, of course.
So Thanks to RMS and the FSF who designed and formalised how to protect Free Software and let it grow and improve.
gdon
"...hardware such as those old 386s can be put to use."
Yeah, right. What recent version of Linux will run on a 386 with maybe 8 Meg of RAM (but probably only 4) *and* fit on that under 528M hard drive that's the biggest thing the mobo's BIOS will take? I've got some old hardware I'd like re-use. Anybody know where I can pick up a copy of "Linux for BoatAnchors"?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
It does happen - I know a company in Johannesburg that specialises in remote admin for some U.S. clients. Their prices are very competitive because of the exchange rate and they work in shifts to provide a round-the-clock service.
But more often what actually happens is that S African programmers get tired of a) being paid $1100 per month or less b) treated like sh*t in the workplace and c) the crime levels in the country and so they emigrate to the U.S., Canada, the U.K. or Australia. Those are skills that this country can ill afford to lose.
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
The poorest in the US are very, very poor. If you want to see something slightly more civilised, see how the poor fare in Europe. It's still not ideal.
You keep missing my point. You're refusing to support some little toddler because its parents are druggies. How the hell can you say that such an unfortunate toddler has any less right to a decent life than your brat? Don't you think that a small portion of your stash of money should be used to give this toddler a chance?
> The US has the richest poor people of any country on the planet.
No. Just for info, at least Switzerland, Luxemburg, Denmark and Norway have richer people.
For Norway, this is mainly due to huge natural resources (gas, oil, fishing), _plus_ a very clever management of these resources,
Switzerland and Luxemburg are wealthy mostly thanks to foreign and illegitimate money poured in their black holes usually called "banks".
I don't know of any obvious structural explanation for Denmark.
any business digging dow fiber optical cables?
Yes. If you're homeless in antarctica, you die in a few hours. Great social care system.
About 18 months or so ago, I was involved in a project to help recondition old 386/486/P1 machines to run Linux and ship them out to the developing world. Ultimately, we folded because our main contact had to leave Britain and we couldn't carry on without his local knowledge. It's nice to see that what I always felt was a good idea (Linux for the developing world) has occured to other people too. I'd definitely be up for having another go at a project like this. Anyone know of any projects already running that could do with some help? If not, anyone up for starting one?
Thanks open source!
Moderators, take note:
1)Read the moderation guidelines before moderating anything
Besides, anyone who manages to drop to the underclass in the USA deserves it.
I say goddamn!, why did maxis have to go and butcher perky pat?
There's only one problem... how do you explain Tux to them? Perhaps we should change the linux logo to a picture of a koala bear........
> anyone who manages to drop into the underclass
> in the USA deserves it.
Does this apply to toddlers who die of TB because of their filthy living conditions? Or do they not count?
Excactly. The infrastructure we're used to in the west just isn't there. I saw somewhere that 2/3 of the worlds population have never made a phonecall in their life, and that probably applies especially to the poorer countries. So even though Pakistan can produce sophisticated technology, that technology is only available to a very small percentage of Pakistanis. Same with some African countries, even if they can hook up to the internet, it isn't much use to those who don't have access to telephones, or even electricity.
Gummi
The problem is making that technology available to the people in those countries. Open Source can make a big contribution to that end, by allowing low-cost technical education.
Of course, basic education is still the biggest problem. Pencils and notebooks are more needed than computers in the poorest countries.
Moderators, take note:
1)Read the moderation guidelines before moderating anything
People have been looking for a haven for servers, somewhere where DeCSS code could be worked on at a permanent site, for example. South Africa is already ignoring patents on AIDS medicines for instance and with all this open source in the country; might be willing to stand up to RIAA and MPAA among others.
Is there anyone in Africa who would like to start a server haven? Is there a way to rent or buy access to a server with good bandwidth in Africa? Is there a country which is especially immune to pressures from copyright laws?
This just about settles it. I can't say that the kernel won't split. I can't say that every distro will run every other distro's software; but we are now entering the era where Linux moves out of the early adopter phase, past the major market share phase, and into inevitable market domination. Linux's free nature, it powerful feature set, and plain old nationalism are combining to end the OS market as we have come to know it. Every nation on earth now believes that the high tech cocktail of Internet, software and next generation technology startups is the magic potion to lift them to first world status. Just as they once believed that industrialization would be their salvation in the past. The story of the next few years will be that countries like India, China, etc will push to create a software industry like that which exists in the US. Linux is the software that makes this all possible. Why base your software industry around Microsoft products when you can use Linux and avoid sending money back to the US. The last time we saw a phenomena like this was in the immediate post-colonial era from the 1950s-1970s. Nationalist governments in Egypt, India, China and elsewhere stopped using imported products to spur industrial development at home. The adoption of Linux in African nations and China can be seen as the first wave of a new supply substitution economic policy. This leads to a whole new set of questions. Will the US continue to dominate the software marketplace, or will it go into decline like the US manufacturing sector? Is the US in danger of becoming isolated as the rest of the world adopts Linux and we stay on Microsoft technology, much like the US uses English measurements; while the world goes metric? Finally what are the greater ramifications for the software industry? Will open source movements in databases, web servers, etc lead to the decline of the Enterprise software market?
Hey WormRunner,
I know where my towel is and I also know about 42.
Freeeeow!
Bob Clip - friend of A Nony Mouse ~;-)
Is anyone working on ideas/technologies that would allow individuals, neighbourhoods, and communities, put in thier own bandwidth/networks? Something that could build from house to house and from yard to yard? Something wthat would give high speed access locally, even if it was not connected to the net at high speed.
Then, every pipe to the net would be a bit more bandweidth to the world. I see this as a technical problem and as a legal problem. (At least>) What technology exists fro this, and how can it be implamented? In my country, laws would prevent the stringing of wires from block to block above or under the streets. Laws also prevent the use of RF wireless. Laser or IR wireless would span the gaps, but cost is sky high.
Does any here have any ideas?
Bob Clip - friend of a Nony Mouse
Question: one thing about Linux is that it is MUCH easyer to telecommute via Linux then via Windows. If South African programmers are that much cheaper then it would make sence for some cash strapped U.S. companies to hire south afircan programmers to do things for them remotly. Dose this happen now? and do you think it could be much of a selling point for Linux?
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
US companies already do that with Indian firms. The company that I work for has several onsite and offshore Indian programmers working for it. Unfortunately, from what I've seen, they fuck up everything they touch and I have to fix it. So because management is so 'cheap' they want these guys to do it since they are less expensive per hour than our US inhouse programmers. However, if they would factor in the time that the US programmers have to spend checking and correcting the offshore code, it would have been cheaper to just let us write it in the first place.
Of course the commercial software people should consider to set the product price proportional to the average income in a certain country. So, when a certain new operating system costs the equivalent of one week's earnings in the USA, the price in other countries should also be approximately one week's earnings. This would most likely reduce the piracy in countries where the average income is much less than in the USA. (and it would introduce problems because people in the countries where prices are low would setup mailorder firms advertising the product on Internet...)
... unlike the good people of California, who see flocks of them playing in the snow every day.
The koala bear is Australian!
News must be scarce on a weekend
- mipe -
Just to put some things in perspective:
* South Africa has more telephone lines than the rest of Africa put together yet our national telephone penetration is about 8 per 100 inhabitants.
* A 64 kilobit permanent connection to the Net here costs roughly $1000 per month.
* The telephone operator is a government-enforced monopoly which is partly owned by SBC and Telekom Malaysia
* The exchange rate of the South African Rand to the U.S. $ is about 6:1
What has all this to do with software? Quite a bit actually. The more costs you can get rid of the better, and Linux has shown itself time and again in this market to be cheaper, less expensive to run and completely free from the local piracy issues we read about on a more or less permanent basis here. This is also an extremely price-sensitive market, almost but not quite as sensitive as India. :)
Currently the most IT spend in the country is done by the top 100 companies but that is swinging quickly to the hundreds of thousands of SMEs. When they take the biggest piece of the IT spending pie, then Linux will become an even more popular choice for those businesses.
Microsoft in South Africa is a pretty slick operation but they've made their cock-ups. I sat in on a seminar for teachers once when the local MS salesperson threatened them all with death unless they paid full price for NT, Office and some other products. There were quite a few Linux converts that day
Check out this site for the local Linux umbrella body which IMHO is doing an excellent job of promoting the OS. As an example, South Africa's equivalent of Comdex attracted about 50 000 visitors last year. The local Linux lads managed to sell in the region of 15 000 RedHat and Suse distros during the show - which means nearly 1 in 3 visitors walked away with Linux on CD.
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
Penguins often get caught by sea currents and wash up in the beaches of Africa, South America, Australia, and Southern Hemisphere islands.
Yes, penguins can be found in the wild in Africa. But not in North America. Perhaps gringos should consider a new Linux mascot, to be used exclusively in their continent...
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I see - all those crackheads are just doing it to burn away some of their excess money! Therefore their toddlers deserve what they get.
Come off it - there's a direct correlation between the income gap in a country and the amount of drug use by the poor. America leads the world in inequality, and hence thousands of its toddlers die of TB. At least when it happens in african countries, it's not because most of the fellow countrymen don't give a shit and vote for tax cuts.
I saw a similar article in a swedish newspaper just the other day but it was about India, and how people there wanted to create an adapted linux distribution(better interface, language support) so even the poorest people would get to use a computer. I look forward with great hope, think about the future then maybe whole continents grow upp using free software!!!
De lyckliga slavarna är frihetens bittraste fiender, legalisera!!!