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Namibia Says "No Thanks" To Microsoft Donation With Strings
The Register posted an update about Namibia's SchoolNet, Microsoft "donations", and what looks like Namibia final decision. Apparently, MS's "donated" contributions would have been so small (and would have required such a large investment in OS licenses), that SchoolNet Namibia found it wasn't even worth bothering with. A very interesting article.
Here is the letter itself...
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This is preaching to the choir, and instantly earns the +5, Anti-M$ moderation. The word is Slashturbation. What good is this article on these geek media? Someone get this on mainstream news, puhleeze.
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If you moderate this, then your children will be next.
Remember, GNU/Linux, is protected by the gpl.
So while they technically "gave it away", there are restrictions that shouldn't be ignored.
Strings, they're everywhere.
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pants ahoy
Is Microsoft really that worried about market share in impoverished Africa, and is it this inept at promoting itself?
You know that cracks me up. I mean Africa has a mean Per-Capita-GNP of about $2000, a AIDS infection rate reaching 30% in some countries, massive amounts of foreign debt, corrupt governments, and the list goes on-and-on. And yet microsoft is paranoid about market share. You think they would realize that it is *really* hard to get a business/non-profit organization/individual to pay 600-1200$ for the latest Microsoft Products when they can get near-equivalents for *free*. As in free. As in don't have to sacrifice the equivalent of 1 years worth of pay to buy some MS products which might be marginally better than the equivalent *Free* products. The only hope they have is giving them free software since, in all likelihood, if the organization really wants said copies of MS software they will just pirate the darn things anyways. And, hey, wouldn't you if you made 1500$ a year? Note: Don't advocate piracy or stealing, just trying to point out how inept MS strategy is.
To: Microsoft
From: Africa
Subject: Quotes
After reviewing your offering of $15,000 to connect and equip 20 computers with software - from our grand total IT budget of about 50$ - we have decided to go with the competitions offer of *FREE*. That way instead of buying your over-priced software we can actually do some good like teaching rudimentry tech skills, feeding the poor kids we teach, and maybe attracting some tech jobs to improve the future of our grandchildren. We would like to assure you that your quote was appreciated and look forward to possibly doing business with you in the future.
Kthnxbye.
This article made me want to send money to Nambia right now. How much would each slashdotter have to send to equal Microsoft's $2000 (if you ignore the $9000 debit for OS licenses)?
This space intentionally left blank.
You see, they *could* have given the hardware and software. The cost to M$ would have been actually neglectable and they would still have achieved their real goals of locking down a poor country in their web for the future.
The scary part is that if they had done that, then, only us geeks would have been able to see the deception; the mass media would have played along (untwittingly or not) with the marketroids' plan and portrayed M$ as a savior of struggling countries whilst ignoring the dire long-term consequences.
Again, M$ stupitidy manages to cancel out M$ evil, and the world is a bit safer for it.
-- MG
You know what would be a good thing to do, it would be to get the Slashdot community together and help get these people some laptops, without continued community support these guys might fall to Microsoft in the end or just fall period. Open Source is about everyone giving a little, so it would only take everyone who reads this article donating a quarter or a piece of hardware. Anyone with me on this?
This sounds like a good market for the
Solo computer
a neat ARM powered machine that used 8.5 watts all in (including monitor) and can be solar powered.
Instead of 500ish watts for a standard desktop.
No I don't work for ARM I just like their kit.
It looks like the ultimate silent pc - no noise even in the power generation.
Although RISC_OS isn't open source it is pretty solid and isn't part of the Evil Empire.
The irony of this article is that no one seems to understand what's actually going on here. Do you really think a non-profit manager would actually write such an insulting letter to a potential benefactor in response to getting turned down? OF Course not... He's simply trying to make MS look bad to increase their offer, pure and simple. Microsoft will quietly donate EVERYTHING he asks for to make this go away. And no more linux in the schools, while everyone on slashdot snorts at their own clever MS bashing comments. Bravo...
Actually the office software HAD to be worth more than $2,000. Most people don't realize that Microsoft makes A LOT more money selling Office than their OSes. One copy of Office Professional costs $560 (office max). (Yes I know that you get discounts when you buy in volumes)
50 laptops =
$28,000 for Office Pro
$15,000 for XP Pro OS
So actually, they were getting a better than getting the OS for free and having to buy Office.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
I guess you only read the first half of the article. I quote: "But the Herero and Nama peoples from the arid central and southern regions mounted a rebellion against the colonial authorities in 1904. Tens of thousands of the rebels were massacred and stripped of their lands. Those who were left were rounded up into native reserves and used as pools of cheap labour for German colonial farmers. About 3,500 white commercial farmers own around 30 million hectares of farmland, most of which is semi-arid and used for cattle ranching and trophy hunting for wealthy European and American tourists." I can imagine they want to get rid of those so called white farmers. Oh, and nowhere can be read they are genocidal, i.e. killing the white farmers. They just take their land and don't pay enough money (not enough for those white supremists anyway). [damn, I hate it when Opera doesn't interpret my CR/LF's]
Unfortunatly Microsoft have already beaten you to the punch: some distros of the .NET framework had an (albeight inactive) infection of the Nimda worm.
After it was discovered on the CD Microsoft went into damage control and had to convince a whole bunch of people that it wasn't dangerous.
Guess Microsoft got a taste of it's own medicine when its own servers were compromised.
"And then I visited Wikipedia
I can see why the guys in Namibia would be pissed off -- it sounds like they got jerked around.
It doesn't change the fact that the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation does an enormous amount of good in Africa and the rest of the world. Look it up if you don't believe me.
Bill Gates is the biggest philanthropist in the history of the world, and while critics can talk about soft donations of things like software licenses, in reality he does a lot of stuff like vaccinations and grants to develop basic infrastructure in the developing world.
He's done far more than anyone else, certainly more than me or anyone slamming him here.
then their locked into the MS Office monopoly. Plus when Office whatever comes out and won't run via wine they'll go to back to windows.
Much better to stick to native software like OpenOffice. Wine is a crutch that keeps you locked in a windows world. The more you use wine, the less incentive companies have to build native apps.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
At mine, we have MSDN, so we can download 6 or 8 versions of Windows, Visual Studio, and Visual Studio .Net for free. Haven't seen Frontpage of Office available, though.
:-)
;-)
I did see Office XP available FREE after rebate at CompUSA the other month, which was quite a surprise...would have gotten it, expect I don't use XP, don't plan to start, and have OpenOffice anyway
Is that $5 including CDs? Quite a deal...it's a shame other companies aren't as generous with colleges as Microsoft is. I know there's some Adobe software I wouldn't mind getting
Twenties Retirement
Joris Komen
Founding Executive Director, SchoolNet Namibia and NetDay Namibia
Why doesn't the US school system have REAL leaders like Joris?
Moreover isn't there any such thing as morality? You're comment makes schools look like your common beggar. If computers are donated, they're not going to just go out and buy a forty of Old English. Is there a good reason that Microsoft can't just donate the hardware?
MS does this all the time, and it is a truly singular stance. Your argument states what the CAN do. But isn't it the DUTY of the rest of us to play watchdog, to call out the corporations for such heinous actions.
It shames me as an American that my countrymen go to the poor of this world, hand them a dollar and then steal their clothes. That is what MS is doing here.
Fortuantely I can find consolation in the works of others. I work at an elementary school in seattle and we recently needed to surplus some old macs that we have and can't use (too expensive for us to fix, we don't have the manpower to do it ourselves). Yet, we are donating many of them and a local group is going to harvest parts and fix them up and then ship them off to Africa. There are no strings attached. Oh, and as for software, they can download Mac OS 7.5.5 free and then install the free Nisus Writer or install mkLinux.
So why don't we put together a fund and donate a pile of low cost linux boxen to the Namibians?
This might be ever so slightly off-topic, but damn, if the people here don't find it interesting, who will?
:-)
The news basically is that MS is moving in to Libya these days. Those of you who are up on the political situation will appreciate how this is interesting news.
As I understand it, this is under the aegis of someone in the ruling family; fingers in the pie and all that.
Finally, I find some use for the AC facility...
Anyhow, this is fresh news, 48 hours old from the horse's mouth who was in the middle east yesterday. Figure it out yourself.
And don't ask me how I found out...
Is this one of those countries that refuses any form of help from anyone, even if say the EU were to donate several tonnes of wheat to help it's starving citizens? Basically taliban/N.Korean style. Or is it about money? I think if anything, RedHat should get off there arses and spread the word to 3rd world countries on open source initiatives.
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
Actually, for developing countries, tech work is a pretty reasonable field. It doesn't take a tremendous amount of experience to become a tech at the skill level that can command a salary these days. The market for IT workers in all these countries is just going to grow. As for software development, you don't need a huge amount of capital to develop software (well, I suppose it depends on your target market, but I can sit down with xemacs and gcc and and old computer and write marketable Windows or Linux software). You can also work remotely very easily, doing contract work for a company in another country.
It's pretty well recognized that India is heading to bypass the US in software development.
May we never see th
Does Windows XP and/or Office XP have language packs for any of the following:
Afrikaans
Herero
Damara
Nama
Oshivambo
!Kung
I'm not saying that Linux currently provides support for them either --- but translate.org.za implies that they will start work on those languages after they finish with the official languages of Azania.
At Cambridge in the UK, all the computer science students get Windows XP absolutely free... as well as Visio, .NET junk, and a few other bits and pieces. I severely doubt the university paid them anything for it... it's pretty obvious that Microsoft wants to make sure we're all programming under their OS.
Then again, we also have a new building to house the computer science department... called... the William Gates building. I kid ye not. Paid for in its entirety by Microsoft, in return for which they got to name it, and that's it.
Microsoft seem to be quite happy to spend money when they think it'll give them an advantage in the future... really, it's odd that they proposed such a lousy deal here.
How easy to forget that most schools in the US were there just a few short years ago (indeed, some still are!). The amount of $$$ MS receives from our public schools in completely astronomical compared to what it was just 5 years ago. Schools started with just a few here and there, then things grew. That was always the plan, and MS knew it.
Anyone who paid attention to the Universal Service Fund (it's that tax that's on every phone bill in the country to help schools get internet access) could predict how large technology in education would become, and MS did not miss that boat. A little simple math: 92,000 school districts in the US, x 20K each in software licenses (let's say for simplicity, that covers everything - servers, CALs, Office, Mail, kids stuff, etc.) Now keep in mind that some districts are very small and can be just one or two buildings, others like Las Vegas or Dallas can have between 200 to 500 schools in one district - so this is a very rough but fair number (We spend more than that and we are 12 buildings).
Unless you purchase volume licenses, you may not have noticed that during the Office 97 era, Publisher was a separate package and a lot of schools didn't buy it (we just used Word), then for 2000 when you licensed Pro it included Pub 2000 - Oh I thought that was very nice of them!!! Now comes Office 2002 (XP) - you got it, Publisher is back out and costs another $5 a desktop if you want to keep it. Major bait-and-switch game. We opted out and are back to Word only, even with a couple of angry classrooms who had integrated it into curriculum, which I'm sure MS was counting on. It may not seem like much, but $5 a desktop and 2000 computers = another 10K just for that.
MS planted seeds all right, and now the roots are starting to crush the foundations...
Namibia has the beauty of many other African countries, but retains a heavy German influence, so things are generally much nicer, functional, and better maintained. When I visited the capital, Windhoek, I was impressed by its wide streets with actual street lights and working parking meaters (in stark contrast to many other African capitols such as Dar es Salaam and Kampala.) Maybe thats in part due to the sparse population. In character, Windhoek reminded me of Madison, Wisconsin, ploped down on the edge of the Kalahari desert.
There are many things to see in Namibia, including the rare desert elephants of the Skeleton Coast, the vast game park at the Etosha Pan, and reputedly the largest sand dunes in the world in the area of Sossusvlei park.
If you do go, I highly recommend a stay at the Swartfontein Guest Farm. They have great home cooked Italian food, and its the only place I've ever stayed where they let me ride along on a wildebeast culling.
SpyDock: Scientific Python in a Docker container
Exactly, a non student (if you aren't currently enrolled in college courses, you are NOT a student by their definition) your software is ILLEGAL and you are a thief. That also means, that as soon as you graduate, you must STOP USING IT, and you really cant use it on your summer break if you take one...
People need to actually READ the eulas they agree to... they would stop supporting microsoft in any way if they actually read what they are agreeing to.
(NOTE: this is the legal definition of a student as is regarded in legal contracts... the microsoft EULA does NOT specifically say anything but the fact that you must be a studen to use that student version... and you stop being a student the second you aren't registered for classes.)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
This is just off the top of my head.
Microsoft has:
Been found guilty (upheld in appeals court) of multiple counts of breaking antitrust law.
Engaged in terror marketing; using fear of audits to sell more licenses to companies than they need.
Produced and sold products so notoriously insecure that the FBI has had to warn the public.
Caused (through a bug in their SQL Server) nuclear materials in Russia and possibly in the US to slip through the cracks. The materials could be safe in a warehouse or in unfriendly hands, the database no longer has a record of them.
Left a trail of broken and dead companies in their wake, not through fair competition, but through dirty (and frequently illegal) tricks.
Caused huge amounts of lost documents and lost productivity to corporate customers, and an endless amount of frustration, stress, and blue screens of death to users.
Audited poor school systems and a children's charity, to grab what little funding those organizations had to feed their endless greed.
Attempted to force Licensing 6 on their customers, then publicly bragged about the resulting "unearned profits".
Refused to share their big wad of cash with their shareholders in the form of dividends. Since the stock is down from its glory days, what do the shareholders get in return for their investment? Nothing.
There is far more. Get your head out of MS Sand(TM) and read the news for a change. Microsoft has broken the law, failed their shareholders, and wronged their customers. That is wrong, even by the standards of business ethics. By the standards of human compassion, well gotr00t was right when they said Microsoft was a jerk. "Greedy Shark" works for me.
"At this moment, it has control of systems all over the world.
And...we can't do a damn thing to stop it."
Miyasaka, "Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (Japanese version)
Hmm, do you think Godzilla will blow Microsoft's candles out for his 48th birthday on Sunday?
Office is priced as high as people are willing to pay for it. Despite what a typical slashdotter thinks, people are willing to pay for the features that Office offers.
This is 100% irrelevant to the ethical debate on Microsoft's licensing and pricing practices. If the price of bread went up 5000% universally tomorrow, people 'would be prepared to pay' that amount for it because bread is an important part of the diet. However, that doesn't make it by any means ethically right, or acceptable to society. The 'monopoly' that bread has (there wouldn't be a replacement product) means that people MUST pay the going rate for it, and as long as it doesnt *bankrupt* them, they will pay, as it is so important to them. The same is true of Office. If you say that that's a fair thing, you're an incredibly ruthless capitalist.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.