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Roblimo Abroad: Pushing Linux' Prospects In Jordan
Last week, NewsForge editor and Slashdot poster Robin ("roblimo") Miller traveled to Jordan to observe, talk about and foment the free software scene there, in part by speaking at the Open Source Software Workshop held in Amman. How do you grow a software industry in a country with a 30% poverty rate, where water supplies are a bigger concern than ATX power supplies? At the conference Robin spoke at, clearly a big part of that answer is high-quality free software. He notes that "Two gentlemen from Microsoft also spoke. I was in favor of Linux and Open Source. They weren't." Aside from the software side of things (including another plug for the awesome demo power of Knoppix), the report is worth reading to anyone as ignorant of Jordan as I am just to find out more about the place.
usa has an 11.3% poverty rate which is hardly that fantastic, and looky looky senator - microsoft arrive!
I am a computer programmer living in Egypt, the situations between Egypt and Jordan are much alike (despite the fact that Egypt is much better of both technically and financially).
The open source movement is gaining so much momentum here in Egypt, actually i am one of the people who tries to recommend Linux in each and every situation or problem met,and have managed to get some ppl to acyually implement it in more than one occassion, and performed some system devlopment on them and there are lots of ISPs running linux here in Egypt.
The bottom line is, that countries like Jordan, Egypt, Qatar,..etc... should favor the open sorce movemnt cause its in their own good to do so. Enviroments like these should avoid monopolizing companies (with out mentioning any specific one $$).
The lunatic is in my head
Arabeyes.org was presenting at this as well. What a worth while project it is.