NACI: Gov't of South Africa Pushes Open Source

GNU lover writes "National Advisory Council on Innovation in South Africa has issued a release concering the use of Open Source and the digital divide." The use of open source in the 3rd/2nd world is one way to get around licensing costs - at least more honest then pirating.

Comments

Yes, they REALLY are...

[JesseL]

I'm not saying that you shouldn't be able to resell old software,but Microsoft cerainly has.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Open source not for the developing world?

[Twylite]

South Africa is fairly unique amongst developing (esp. African) nations. We have an excellent infrastructure for transportation and communication in most parts of the country. While many people do not have their own telephone lines, there are ongoing projects to remedy this situation.

But far more interesting is the fact that these are a huge number of people living in ghetto-type conditions with no basic services, who are using the cellular networks to communicate. This goes to show that there is money and intent available for electronic communication.

There are several existing projects to get PCs into underdeveloped schools. In fact the hardware side of the projects is quite successful, but they are struggling because of the cost of software and the lack of teachers with computer experience. Linux is not suitable in such environments until it is easy to install and administer with little or no experience.

One of SA's biggest barriers to bringing "computing to the masses" is the commercial attitude: SA is extremely loyal to Microsoft, and to leading-edge technology. Technology more than a couple of years old becomes nearly impossible to get. Few wholesalers stock chips under a Celeron/Duron 800, or RAM chips less than 128Mb. They perceive that there is money to be made from companies, and not from supplying cheaper hardware to more "charatible" causes.

SA suffers from a "nothing but the best" syndrome, which affects development. It is generally unacceptable to provide second-class solutions as an interim measure while working on a long-term solution. This means that, for example, a project to get computers into schools will involve building a secure building for the computers (many poor schools are prefab or have degraded buildings), and the provision of networked multimedia computers.

Having said this, it is obviously not the way to go. There needs to be an attitude change and an acceptance of older technology, alternative technology or interim solutions.

Actually the availability of communications is not important in the use of computing in developing nations. Computers can be used "offline" as teaching aids, and this is probably where investment should be targetted. Education standards in SA are dropping, there is a massive adult illiteracy rate, and computing skills (required in many industries) are lacking.

An obvious and useful proposal would be to develop and mass produce cheap hardware which can run OpenSource software, and start developing (locally) teaching aids in all national languages (we have 11 of them :

Incidently ... the mining sector only accounted for 6% of GDP in 1999 (worldinformation.com), Tourism for 4% and agriculture for 4%. What makes SA an economic power in Africa is its NON-reliance on mineral resources.