Bridging the Digital Divide with Linux

mpawlo writes: "I think you would be interested in a story on Advogato submitted today, discussing the digital divide and the role of Linux: "With respect to locating parts with lowered cost on software. There is one candidate the would evenly fit the requirement. As of this writing, there are several OS out there having those properties, but there is only one having a large developer base and community scattered around the globe that can act as support contacts. The name is called GNU/Linux. ... Bridging the Digital Divide requires an enormous amount of work for the techonology sector. A huge responsibility is placed on those who wish to take up the challenge. Current technologies in software, specifically, the Linux OS is a good candidate to play the role." Read the entire story."

Comments

A modest proposal

[gewalker]

1 -- require Microsoft (and other software companies) to make abandonware revert to free-use by anyone. Don't require company to necessarily make old versions available for download at now cost, just eliminate copyright protection for versions that are no longer supported.

2 -- Change copyright protection for software to a maximum of 5 years. Abandonware would simply accelerate the push into public domain.

3 -- Eliminate shrink wrap agreements, these are onerous burdens on uneducated consumers. Specify a standard commercial conduct code for shrink-wrap software.

4 -- Eliminate patents for software. Copyright protection is nearly automatic, favors the small developer compared to patents, and would eliminate a large cost of software development.

5 -- Encourage other governments to follow a similar set of reasonable rules.

My personal comments on these rules follow.

Microsoft might actually have to innovate to provide enough value to make consumers but software within the shortened copyright period.

Maybe Borland would revert to like a book license agreements -- in fact, that sounds like a good criteria to be included under point 3 above

Linux -- no damage here, if its all about freedom for the developer and consumer, Linux would be unaffected directly, although stiffer competition from a revitalized commercial sector may inspire more insanely great software here too.

The foundation for my existance is not "digital"

[wfrp01]

I've spent some time in Morocco. Not a third world country, but certainly not first world either. There are large towns, cities, where the majority of the community shares a phone. (I've been absent a few years, so forgive me if things have changed.)

Digital divide?! Most people in world don't even have telephones!

So, the argument goes, we must, with all due haste, do all we can to make sure that anyone anywhere can reach anyone else anywhere, at anytime. We must make all information available to everyone at all times.

Well, maybe. But, despite my white male American technoliterate sysadmin background, I don't give any of these objectives high priority.

What is life like, when you can't drive? Can't make ad hominem (sic) social arrangements with your friends across town? Can't keep pace with the gyrations of the NYSE? Well, you probably know your neighbors.

Answer this: What are your neighbor's names? Where did they grow up? What do they do for a living? What are their ambitions? Are you good friends? Could you, with all of your magical technological sophistication, do something to make their life better? Do you think maybe, if you got to know them, techo-illiterates though they may be, they might be able to make your life better?

I have a sick number of computers at my disposal. Throw them all in the river, and give me tajine on the mountains overlooking the beaches of Agadir. For all our wizardry, we are still existential infants. Don't let your sophistication get to your head.

Re:The foundation for my existance is not "digital

[debrain]

You address a massive issue. Consumerism, industrialization, modernization, digitalization, all fine ideas. But do they provide any sort of happiness. Fundamentally, a professor of mine once described our desires as the desires of the aristocracy, from a Foucaultian perspective - to own a castle (house), segregate our personal lives from that of those around us, and choose our fate to a tea or tee time. What has happened, perhaps, is that we did not in our individualization ask whether or not the aristocracy was happy.

From a paleolithic perspective, we are certainly anything but in our element - packs animals that do seasonal hunting and foraging and farming. We turn nowadays to television, and in cases internet, for the elements of our physio-psychology in derth. Yet we are supplementing artificial inventions for natural (presumably natural) environments.

One case in point is a family of refugees where I live here in Canada, a man from Berundi and his wife. The man's ex-wife was killed, and some of his brothers, sisters, cousins, were killed in war, he cannot see his children and cannot afford a vehicle and relies upon donations for essentials. Yet he is the happiest person I have met.

I enjoyed reading your note on the matter.

Re:The "Digital Divide"

[MrResistor]

There is a HUGE difference between being poor in North America and being poor anywhere else in the world. It's the poor in the rest of the world who are truely suffering from the Digital Divide. Anyone in the US can get access to the internet if they want it, even if it means using a terminal at the local library. The same is not true in, say, Nigeria.

You make an interesting point about piracy, though. I read somewhere recently that in a lot of countries that are currently bootstrapping themselves into into the digital age Windows is fairly popular, mostly because it's all pirated. Linux is often a popular choice as well, but has no economic advantage since Windows is free-as-in-beer also.

Re:The "Digital Divide"

[Tackhead]

> poor people are less likely to have computers. This has a number of impacts on their lives, both economic and cultural, which have also been rehashed endlessly. If ways can be found to get computers for more of them, or to reduce the economic sacrifices they have to make to get them, can we all agree that it is a good thing?

You can give a computer to a Homo Habilis, and he'll use it - but he'll use it to crack nuts.

What educational value does a computer provide to someone who may not even be able to read?

If you assert that it's "better" to get the news from cnn.com than from watching TV, that's fine -- but people with poor reading skills won't start reading cnn.com because they have a computer, they'll continue to watch TV. They won't "learn" a damn thing until they want to. (They'll play Quake on it, they'll enjoy MP3s, they'll get advertised at by AOL, but they won't learn unless they want to learn.)

Anyone (poor or not) who does want to use a computer to to learn stuff, or to educate their kids, has probably already spent the $100 for a Pentium-class PC and pirated the educational software required.

I see the "digital divide" as a red herring. As others have pointed out, it sounds good, and it's a problem that can be solved by throwing money at it. It's a problem in search of a solution in search of a problem, if you will. The only ones likely to benefit are those who take your money for the solution.

It's a literacy divide, not a digital one.