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.

Comments

I think

[craenor]

That the route to mainstream approval and acceptance for Linux is through countries like this. The ones who can't afford to shell out the bucks Microsoft demands.

If enough interest can be generated in these countries then hundreds of thousands of skilled programmers will turn their efforts towards advanced applications for Linux.

Is it a fast process? Heck no, but I think it's going to be more successful then just trying to convince mainstream America they don't need Bill Gates.

Agree, totally

[Idou]

And to the people saying "these people need drinking water, not Linux!," MS was there too. I am sure MS is at all these 3rd world countries pushing there expensive products. No, Linux will probably not solve such issues as clean drinking water, but MS products WILL suck very scarce funds that should have been used to address such issues!

Linux has to be ready before it's mass-accepted.

[BigBlockMopar]

That the route to mainstream approval and acceptance for Linux is through countries like this.

I think the fast route is actually making Linux ready for the desktop.

Linux is NOT a viable alternative to Windows, and you're deluding yourself if you think it is.

It's a foregone conclusion that we need a comprehensive desktop environment like KDE. We need an underlining spellchecker in KMail. We need KDE not to be so slow that it takes half an hour to parse my MP3 collection every time I open the folder. We need people to match feature for feature every Windows product, instead of whining about "highly advanced math" like polynomial regressions. We need xine to work, instead of having their developers wandering around talking about changing the default logo to something which looks like it was designed by a 14-year-old Run Lola Run fan from East Berlin.

Is it a fast process? Heck no, but I think it's going to be more successful then just trying to convince mainstream America they don't need Bill Gates.

I think most North Americans have no particular love of either Windows or of Bill Gates, and will jump ship to the (free/reliable) alternative as soon as it's really there.

Linux simply isn't ready for the desktop yet.

I run Linux on my primary desktop. While the kernel and system-space stuff is leaps and bounds above Windows, from a UI standpoint, it's still about as painful as going from Windows 2000 to Windows 3.1.

Ironic?

[watchful.babbler]

As much as I enjoyed the article -- and it's nice to see folks like Roblimo working to expand Linux and Open Source opportunities abroad -- there's a kind of obvious irony in evangelizing Free Software in countries that are still working on Free Speech.

Oh, well. Let me do it for you: "-1, Offtopic."

Re:Ironic?

[The-Perl-CD-Bookshel]

No, this is very much "Ontopic." To a certain extent, free software and free speech go hand in hand. Free software, like free speech, both have limitations in their use while at the same time are both incredibly powerful tools. However, the fact that free software is less of a threat to the aristocratic leaders in these countrys makes it easier for them to accept. Perhaps the acceptance of free software will bring the idea of free speech to the foreground. I'm not saying that free software will lead to free speech, but it will help.

MS on Open Source: A slap in the face

[GMFTatsujin]

The "many eyes make all bugs shallow" Open Source development creed was refuted with comments (disguised as questions) about how it is better to have professionals with professional-quality debugging tools checking mission-critical code than it is to rely on all those rag-tag Open Source developers.

So basically the MS line was, "You guys in Jordan cannot hope to have the skills and smarts to possibly put together quality software, no matter how much you put your mind to it."

It sounds to me like this *was* a gathering of professionals, or at least, programmers coming together to become professionals in their area. Way to make a sale, dumbasses - alienation *always* makes buyers' pockets just a little deeper, doesn't it?

Did he go so far as to call the Jordanian programmer "ignorant towel-heads" too, or was that saved for later?
GMFTatsujin

the BSA

[nicedream]

Mod me as a troll if you want but this needs to be said....

The BSA is cracking down on software piracy in countries where the poverty rate is 30% and sysadmins get paid ~$300-$600 per month? How do they sleep at night? And do they REALLY think all those pirated copes of Office, IIS, etc. are going to be turned into legit sales once they put the pressure on?

I can't see this doing anything but pushing more and more people towards open source, because it is their ONLY option. The funny thing is that they really do want to use proprietary software, and if they could offer more REASONABLE prices they could probably capture more market share than with their greed-inflated prices.

But of course that will never happen, and when more and more open source software is used in its place I will laugh as they sleep in the bed they made.

Re:Linux has to be ready before it's mass-accepted

[BigBlockMopar]

Once my sisters login, visitors act as if nothing is wrong. They go about their business. They check their email, write their paper, chat with gaim.

Agreed. It's great, isn't it?

Bet you've got a pretty fast computer to do that.

I find Windows 2000 to be perfectly usable on a Pentium II-233. I find a PIII-500 to be ponderous when running KDE.

The other problem is that perhaps I have higher expectations of functionality. I want an underlining spellchecker, and frankly, it costs us credibility that it's not there. Sure, that's not Linux' fault - KDE runs equally slowly on most other Unix variants.

Same thing at my workplace. We've started installing Debian desktops to replace the aging and incapable web browsing applications that work on Win 3.1 (our platform is DOS). Logins are authenticated against the main Netware server. People go about their business.

Yeah. I considered doing something like that with over 600 computers for the Canadian federal government. Unfortunately, to be as quick as the users were used to, I would have to upgrade a bunch of Pentium III machines, even for users whose most taxing applications were their e-mail clients. (Remember what I said about Ximian's Continental Drift? Ahem... Evolution?)

Sorry, that's unacceptable. I cannot justify buying new machines for e-mail drones.

Questions about Lotus 123 and Open Systems Accounting software are commonly asked daily - this company has been using this software for years! I can count on one hand the number of times I've had to explain to people how to move files, print old faxes, or download and print product datasheets.

Yup. The Unix filesystem is easy enough for new users to understand, especially since most software defaults to their /home directory.

Perhaps I'll buy that free software isn't ready for the desktops of power users.

If it takes a Pentium 4 running Evolution to get the same functionality as a Windows 95 box running Eudora, then surely even you will agree that something is wrong.

No one who needs to use a computer to get something done cares if a program underlines misspelled words when there's an obvious spell check menu or button.

Excuse me? That's probably the single stupidest thing I've ever heard anyone say.

Here's an exercise for you.

Cut and paste a large technical document into KMail. Select "Spell check". Sit and *manually* acknowledge every correct or incorrect word.

Now compare the same task with any software package including a modern spellchecker. Notice how much easier it is to simply glance at an underlined word and see whether it's correct or not? (Oh, the spellchecker doesn't know my customer's 18-letter-long last name. Oh well.)

If a spellchecker is considered to be unimportant, let me remind you that misspelling costs credibility, which causes a company to lose business.

No one that only needs to do real work cares that the scroll wheel doesn't work - people know how to use page up/down, the arrow keys, and scroll bars.

Of course they do. But that doesn't mean that they should. A computer is a tool. A tool should be designed to be as easy and efficient to use as possible. I bet I can scroll through an e-mail faster than you can mouse over and hit the elevator buttons.

In the real world, time is money.

But that's okay. If there's no scroll wheel support, users won't take your new operating system seriously and will resist your every attempt to supplant their familiar and functional (if unreliable) Windows.

You power users don't care that there's a legal liability in making xine work right.

It's a legal liability to have a repeat button? And to have a GUI which doesn't include decorative buttons which don't actually do anything?

You want to play DVDs with free software or facilitate it? You need to be prepared to break federal laws in the US. I will never provide DVD playing software on my family computer. It's not worth breaking the law. Distributions and software authors are even more justified in this fear than system integrators.

Perhaps you should read what I wrote at www.glowingplate.com/dissent. I never said that DVD support should be built into xine, did I? I understand the liability of DeCSS. Sure, the functionality would be nice, but I'm not asking for the impossible. I'm asking for a concentration on matching the features and UI of such defacto software as Quicktime and Windows Media Player before designing GUIs that are so tacky they'd only be enjoyed by empoverished European children.

I've migrated a considerable number of non-technie people to free software. I've seen how people behave when they've only been exposed to Windows.

So've I.

Know what bugs them the most? Logging in and out.

The users I've found haven't been bothered by this. You see, I've actually tried this in a corporate environment where users were already accustomed to logging in and out with their Windows machines.

Don't knock the idea until you have some more substantial experience than a webpage that harps on bugs in individual applications.

You, sir, are an idiot, if you really think that a decent user experience isn't the *absolute* first step towards migrating users from the comfortable embrace of Windows. For fsck's sake, it's not like I'm even citing obscure applications.

Look at Knoppix. Yes, Knoppix is technically brilliant and the single best Linux demo out there. But if you were to show that to the CEO of a bank, he'd laugh you out of his office. The UI is tacky, it lacks comparable features that users are now accustomed to, and its only advantage is that it's free.

The cost of the software pales in the face of the cost of the employee which will be using it. I can't afford to pay employees to sit around and click through Ignore/Ignore/Ignore on their spellcheckers or wait 1/2 an hour for a Pentium 4 to parse a directory of 2,000 MP3s. I'd be out of business.