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South African Gov't Declared An Open Source Zone
fungai writes "The Business Day reports that the South African government has decided to adopt open source software and develop support programs with local research institutes and universities. The CIO of the State IT Agency says: 'The logic for open-source is so compelling that after a year of debates we decided to stop talking and declare government an open-source zone.'"
Hopefully other disadvantaged countries like ZA will pick up on this. Isn't India considering this too?
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
I'd have to say this is a good thing for the future of open source ...
It will be interesting to see what kinds of programs they come up with and how soon other countries follow suite.
~.Evanrude
The South African government has a CIO ? Next thing they'll be offering stock options and buying aeron chairs.
However, Microsoft's response was the kicker.
"It's a very popular technology today, but ultimately it's not a sustainable business model. What happens when the developers who find it exciting today move on to something which will pay the bills?"
I almost fell off my chair laughing. It's interesting seeing them confuse state operations and business...Maybe they've been suckling (sp?) on the US government a bit too hard?
"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
"The logic for open-source is so compelling that after a year of debates we decided to stop talking and declare government an open-source zone"
You have to love it when governments take a "why not" approach to innovation. It's something a lot of USA busineses (and government entities) could take a lesson from.
non-troll but also non-funny
Not.
Considering that the country's flock-of-apes substitute for a government has scared away any commercial interests, and that the Soviet Union and the KGB is no longer around to fund the ANC goons.
Another country down the African drain.
Hey - wake up dude! Apartheid died in '94...
Need an ISP in South Africa?
At least from South Africa's perspective it is.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
Well, that's an easy one: the high school and college kids who were watching the developers will take their places. Duh.
and non-fattening at the same time!
> The logic for open-source is so compelling that after a year of debates we decided to stop talking and declare government an open-source zone.
Someone must not have found it too terribly compelling, or else they wouldn't have spent a whole year debating it.
At any rate, it's easy to imagine that billg is packing his bags for another emergency handout run right now.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
insiteful....
communism is really basically the same as opensource and gpl is all about...
people never want to admit, but mankind needs to change so that gpl can be really a break thru...
to many greedy and moneydriven folks out there. money is the worlds number one problem.
That comment is pretty insensitive and only betrays your ignorance. Not funny at all.
... is "No Propietary Software" signs everywhere sort of like the no smoking signs with the circle around it and the line going through =P
Since Sun insists on acting like Microsoft every chance it canm get, Star office costs a minimum of $25 per user.
Why pay that? Why not install some other open office suite? What does Star Office bring to the table?
(Note: this isn't a flame or a troll, just the obersvations of a South African living in the US)
It appears that, in general, South Africa has leapt way ahead of the US in a large number of policy areas, not just Open Source. They've got fundamental protections in their constitutions which are significantly stronger than those in the US (for example, you can't discriminate based on percieved sexuality, domestic partnerships are law, with same sex marriages in the works, etc.) Now, to be fair, I haven't been back in SA since the '94 elections, so I don't know how much of the new government's legislation has made it into actual practice, but it does seem odd that SA is apparently overtaking the US in terms of the general "cluefulness" of the administration.
Wow, genuinely GOOD, INSPIRING news on slashdot. Nothing for anyone to bitch and moan about; this'll be a boring comments section.
I am very pleased at the news that open source software will be used in SA, but it's certainly not amazing. What's incredible is that more governments haven't switched to open source. There is excellent software out there being given away for free, but people are still using inferior software and paying money for it. It only stands to reason that eventually all smart governments will adopt the 'don't pay for what we could get for free' policy. The Microsoft reaction seemed entirely panic-driven(giving software to schools), and their argument is weak. They are right about one thing though, open source software in itself(i.e. just the software) isn't a sustainable business model. Of course that's completely irrelevant. What's relevant is that the software continues to advance in leaps and bounds, is free and is showing no signs of stopping. Let the open source companies worry about business models, I'm only concerned with my free software that I'm free to change however I like.
My Blog
Isn't this amazing that this decision come around the Dr. Martin Luther King Day. I think it is great :) Freedom and Free+OpenSource Software. It can not get any better than that.
In the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King:
Early morning, April 4.
A shot rings out in the Memphis sky.
Free at last, they took your life,
But they could not take your pride.
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
Dozen of one, half dozen of the other...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
MS Gordon Frazer said
"It's a very popular technology today, but ultimately it's not a sustainable business model. What happens when the developers who find it exciting today move on to something which will pay the bills?"
Kudos to South Africa. It's turned into
one of the most unenlightened regime to the
most forward looking government in 10 years or so.
I hope Capetown becomes a high tech Mecca and
Redmond becomes a bantustan for crappy
software developers.
Damn...if you'd told me ten years ago there'd be bad news from Canada and good news from South Africa on the same day...
"My mom says there's a lot of black people in Africa".
...how do you keep posting after all of the downmods you keep getting? do you keep track and when you know you're on your last post you go for the big karma? for someone who spends as much time trolling as you do, you must have the system pretty well figured out.
Microsoft is still trying to figure out web services and .NET. The first version of .NET has a lot of improvements over IIS 3 and 4, but it still isn't enterprise class. For small and medium business with minimal needs, it's fine. For serious enterprise apps, it's still has a long way to go.
If microsoft can't get windows and .NET up to enterprise class in 5 years, they can forget about it happening. I know first hand many large financial corps are moving towards clustered/grid approach to next generation platform, so there's only a small window for microsoft to break in. If they delay be 2 years or more, linux will become the defacto clustering platform for PC hardware.
Learn why.
Microsoft suspends Venezuala operations Damn, we're on a roll !!! USA next !!!
They just got a get outta jail free card...
Got Code?
"The logic for open-source is so compelling that after a year of debates we decided to stop talking and declare government an open-source zone," says Moseki.
If it was so compelling why did it take a year of debates? Why did the debates not come across this compelling solution, and have to stop, not decide, and just choose one?
Maybe the person was misquoted but it sounds a bit illogical.
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
I'm all for criticizing Microsoft, but that's going a little overboard. It's an honest mistake, and many of Microsoft's competitors (especially OSS developers) have made much larger blunders.
This quote is more fun:
[emphasis added]Just remember that half the people on the planet still haven't used a telephone. A billion people means nothing if they live in the middle of nowhere in mud huts and the country changes names about once a year.
I'm sorry man, but your message makes me want to projectile vomit carebear energy.
New area, no precedent set.
TCPA is commi. This is typical american choice and seemingly a growing one.
You guys almost have me convinced to try linux.
Can we expect to see Bill Gates making a trip to South Africa now? After India just said they were leaning towards it, MS wandered over there carpetbagging "Free" software. I garuntee that within the week, there'll be an MS rep on the Dark Continent preaching the joys of their software. Let the countdown begin.
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
(1) Open-source isn't a "sustainable business model?" So, according to Microsoft, forcing annual upgrades and software subscription on businesses IS a sustainable business model? In the now-infamous Peru letter, didn't Microsoft state that sales make up only a small portion of the overall software cost -- support, integration, and customization make up a far larger percent. That sounds like a sustainable business model to me. Being a US school district that received an audit threat letter from their marketing department, we sure aren't impressed with Microsoft's business model anymore. That's why we switched to StarOffice on 1000 PCs last fall (grand total cost, $25.00)
(2) What happens when "the developers
(3) What happens when "the developers
The Microsoft FUD machine is really revving up
You'd think with a population the size of that, they will never run out of programmers.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
especially considering the high costs of HIV/AIDS treatments, anything this government can do to same money in sensible ways is a much, much bigger plus than merely its effect of the open source community, or /. world. People are dying at incredible rates because of a lack of education (costs money) and treatment (costs money).
Excellent idea.
I didn't pull that quote out so much to criticize Microsoft as simply because I thought it amusing when I came across it (it's obviously a typo, because the entry right next to it is a similar constant for a set of three buttons, I don't recall which). Maybe I'll finally go change it one of these days.
The average African does not make the same amount of money as the average American.
So when you say stuff about people in Africa somehow getting rich off of windows programs, you would be right if this were happening in 1995-99, but its 2003, theres no longer a shortage of programmers, the supply of programmers are endless and the supply of software is limited, at least in africa where the people cannot afford the software.
Their best solution is to develop their own software using their own labor, and then they can build the technology they need to export to the USA and thats how they can REALLY make money.
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(wishin i had mod points...
thats really a great answer; bill you see that?
GNU/South Africa
Africa needs an economy. They have more than enough workers, what they need is infastructure, they need an OS, they need plenty of software which they can develop on their own considering they have unlimited people power,
Its almost like China or India, yes they can make money making Windows software but they would make ALOT more money if they didnt have to pay for licenses, this would allow them to advance in the information age faster because even with a poor economy they'd be able to compete with and even surpass us in terms of software development and engineering.
Robotics, AI, and alot of computer devices they create could be exported giving them a similar economy to that of Japan. Japan currently sells playstation 2 and electronics devices which require alot of programming, Africa has the ability to have an economy like this easily.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I'd have to say that if governments and educational facilities are dropping your product to go with something else...they might have a better 'business model' than you.
it's only the start...
The Navy/Marine corp is presently going in the opposite direction. They are launching a large scale contract (NMCI) that restricts all Navy IT to MS and MS solutions. No room for further innovations with other platforms or the application of appropiate technology to the task, just a rosey pink homogeneous MS world. Under the new system you are not even allowed to connect a BSD, Linux, embedded network device or even a MAC machine to the network anywhere.
At the Navy labs, this one size fits all approach is even more short sighted and foolish. The upper echelon has yet to catch on that the network is the backbone or the infrastructure that enables an ever increasing plethora of monitoring systems, data acquisition and control systems, collabration and communication mechanisms, etc. As more and more devices become Web enabled the Navy has effectively locked itself out in the cold and crawled in bed with built in obsolesce - not to mentioned left itself vulnerable to an attack or virus that would spead like wild fire in a homogeneous network.
Speaking from a publicity standpoint, South Africa seems to have little credibility in the world these days. I'm sure you all remember their government denying that HIV causes AIDS in a desperate bid to avoid having to take responsibility for South Africa's terrible AIDS crisis. Additionally, South Africa unfortunately has a huge problem with rape. It seems that the country is barely able to govern itself, and is perilously sliding towards the chasm of anarchy.
Obviously none of this is the fault of Open Source software. However, I think that if/when South Africa collapses, this will taint whatever good using Open Source has done. All I can say is that I hope another, more stable country, does something similar so that when South Africa implodes, its failure doesn't taint the Open Source community.
Thank you and God bless!
Egg Troll
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
its corporate communism. since they are the ones in control.
now all they need it a mascot...
I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.
So risk didnt cost anything. Building railroads? FREE! So of course if you can use native americans, blacks, asians and other slaves to do all the labor, well of course you can take more risks than you do now.
Now someone has to be PAID, risks cost money.
Now if you talk about the early 1900s you have more of a point.
If US companies want to take risks, it could be the last risk they ever take.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Citizen: "so now how do I use your system to sign up for health benefits and other social benefit programs?" Gov: ....dead silence....then "RTFM! Geez, don't you people know anything?!?! You probably use AOL or something...ROTFLHRHARHARHRA...you are just a Windoze user and not one of us l334 open source people"
Citizen: "Time to move"
"South Africa has among the highest rates of violent crime in the world. Calculated per 100 000 of the population in 1995, only two countries had higher murder rates - Colombia and Swaziland. The US has a murder rate eight times lower than that of South Africa. Rape figures are the highest in the world, as are South Africa's reported cases of robbery and violent theft."
Real progressive.
I hope this does not go against any of their Apart Height rules. You know, Microsoft being taller than Linux.
Meat is murder, I eat chicken.
I do believe that is the entire point of their excersize. How may proprietary software companies are there is South America. If overal not one single job is created, they really could care less. What matters is that the new open-source developers will be local in SA instead of in Redmond or Silicon Valley or elsewhere in the US. That 3billion could create a significant tech sector if all of it was diverted from overseas to local.
I'd expect more governments, especially those of somewhat poorer countries going this route as a way to not only free themselves from ties to the US, but also improve their economy at the same time.
There has not been a single communist country in the modern era, so how would you know if it only attracts naive and powerhungry people?
People who think they know what communism is about tick me off. It is completely about openness and free choice.
Communism isn't BAD -- powerhungry people are BAD.
MORTAR COMBAT!
I feel it's nonsense to declare any governemnt department or private institution an 'open source' zone, if the implication is that only open source solutions will be considered.
What happens when they need functionality that the open source world doesn't offer. I'm thinking of things like the scalability and availability features you get from the big Unix guys (and no, sticking 100 Dells together is not always the answer for big systems). What about when something like SAP, Oracle Apps, Siebel, etc, etc is required?
Support issues and costs are not instantly solved just because you can look at the source code. That is utterly irrelevant to most IT managers. The last thing govt IT workers I know want to be told is that they no longer need that support contract - they can just look at the code man'. That simply doesn't hack it in a large number of situations. If it does work, then use it, but it shouldn't be the sole policy.
No IT solution should be dismissed out of hand, whether closed or open.
South Africa is a poor country. Just because they have an Aids problem doesnt mean they are the only country with this problem, Asia also has an Aids problem, especially Thailand.
As far as the Aids crisis, while alot of people in South Africa have aids, the spread of Aids is greater in African than in the USA because Africa does not have the technology, the medicine, the doctors, most people infected with Aids dont know they have it, the fact that most people in Africa arent educated enough, etc.
You have to start somewhere, a country needs an economy before it can improve.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
It seems every time a "big time" Open Source story like this appears on Slashdot, all the posters turn into blind zealots.
Sure, this is great news - but that's no reason to discount what Microsoft is saying.
Microsoft may be guilty of a lot of things, but sofar I agree with the "paying the bills" statement. There's scarce few major success story from any developers coding Open Source software alone - but yet there are many successful proprietary developers.
It seems to me that Open Source software works best when the collaborators are working on behalf of different companies on the one piece of software. That is, the businesses themselves are not reliant on the software, but the collaborative development benefits all those involved.
Communism is bad, but no country has successfully been built on Capitalism.
Countries start off communist and then convert to capitalism.
Africa had slavery, USA had slavery, China started off Communist, Europe had slavery.
You act like Capitalism works before the infastructure is actually there to make it work.
Sure you can build a country on free Labor, but Communism is what works. How is Africa supposed to buy Microsofts software? Capitalism doesnt work because they are too poor, they must first build up their industries and economy.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
...and I have bad news.
...the Governor of Illinois pardoned all the felons on Death Row.
...HanzoSan has disappeared!
First the bad news...
Now the good news...
Until the country reaches a point where all the food and educaiton requirements are met, and this is when you can move to capitalism.
The USA is not pure Capitalism, neither is Canada or any of the European countries.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
When I trace into fclose, I get... oh crap, the /. lameness filter won't let me post it all, but it's a disassembly with debug info and it's got a lot more code in it than that. There are 3 system calls appropriately enough to functions named _lock_file,_fclose_lk, and _unlock_file in that order. At any rate, the source is either not installed on my machine (or not available to begin with). Obviously MS's libc doesn't use the code in your sig, since it wouldn't do much of anything. So, what are you trying to say?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Is this move by South Africa, People's Rep. China, et al. really a big win for the Open Source movement, or is it just governments taking free stuff?
Maybe I'm being a cynic and/or misunderstanding, but I'm not expecting some of these governments to actually contribute anything back to OSS. I half expect some of them to end up violating any licensing the code is released under.
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
Maybe M$ would have better luck if they didn't hire crap comedians as managers.
the Australian Labor Party would bring out an OSS policy instead of this
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
Thus Open Source advocates created a self-fullfilling prophecy: Deny third-world countries like South Africa from having access to MS products and then express smug satisfaction when said countries are forced to use Open Source materials!
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
yah, that's kiff. But its all a bit arb at the same time.
You have to take into account that China is just as bad as Africa and look at China.
Sure they dont all have electricity, but they all have brains, books, and as open source companies begin to get government funding, the government will build internet cafes all around the country, the companies will use their profits to hire programmers, programmers will make money and this money which goes to taxes will be used to build more infastructure.
It will take 10-20 years for Africa to go from being a third world country to a world leader.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
> So, according to Microsoft, forcing annual upgrades and software subscription on businesses IS a sustainable business model? Of course it is.....for Microsoft.
Anarchism is communism without rulers.
Bottom-up organized instead of top-down.
In the one or two cases (besides open source software) where it has actually existed.
Someday we'll all be negroes
"At any rate, it's easy to imagine that billg is packing his bags for another emergency handout run right now."
Help! Help! I'm a Windows user who's going to wipe his drive clean, and install Linux! Send money quick!.
k.. im really tired and I cant think that good, so this wont be very clearly written how long do you think it will be before we will see more and more state and local goverments doing similar things? There is a HUGE deficit and money shortage, and many groups are looking to cut costs. The public school system in my area has to cut there budget by 2 million dollars(the latest proposal was to cut media aids). Ive got a feeling that more and more people are going to be looking towards open source solutions in the near future.
Selling software wont make you money, selling a service will.
America is on the bleeding edge of innovation. In computer hardware, computer software, biotechnology, manufacturing processes, new models of service... We have on of the least risk adverse but still responsible business cultures in the world. America has 4% of the world's people and over 25% of the world's economy. Our share of the global economy continues to grow (which is remarkable).
Yes corporations are stupid here; but they are stupid everywhere else and on average moreso everywhere else. And corporations are not adverse to open source. 8 years ago there was almost no open source in most corporations. Today almost all corporations have some open source and many of them have it deployed extensively. That is a very rapid change. You mentioned the gun example; see how long it took for business to use interchangeable parts in most of their manufacturing processes. It wasn't instantly. 25 years took just as long in the 1800s as it does today.
A few things to remember regarding open source and America:
1) In 3rd countries (thiugh I'm not sure about SA here) the common office worker is more intellegent and better educated then their counterpart in a first world country. Thus ease of use is less important and ease of configuration more important for them.
2) The cost of a worker relative ot the cost of software is much higher in 1st world countries than 3rd world countries. Microsoft products are not really that expensive on a per employee basis in the 1st world.
3) America is Microsoft's home turf. Their programmers are most in tune with American business, and further arguments about exporting capital don't apply to US business.
For all these reasons you would expect American business to be one of the last dominos to fall not one of the first.
Sorry, but I must ask even though this is off-topic...
I don't think I've ever heard a rational argument that homosexuality is immoral. Those who believe that seem to resort to religion or an appeal to "nature". Even if you don't agree with it, I'd be very interested in hearing moral argument you're thinking of.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
Last week the company[Micro$oft]followed up with the surprise news that it will open its source code to governments worldwide so they can enhance the security of its software. That is a calculated move to entrench its position in government markets. But Microsoft's move has come too late to affect the agency's decision.
Micro$oft's 'open-source' sham is like a woman that teases you by lifting her dress for a second but doesn't let you touch anything... of course in the case of Ms. M$ you wouldn't want to touch anything...
They did the first heart surgery before anyone else and had laser weapons aboard fighter jets in the 1980s.
I remember hearing (probably on slashdot) a conspiracy theory about why MS got off so easily by the justice department. Basically it went something like this: MS is not just a monopoly in the US but the globe, as such they act as a huge funnel, pumping money from over-seas into the US economy. Now, wouldn't the US gov't be crazy to close the valve on something like that? Especially in this economy. No wonder they couldn't be broken up. Further, I wouldn't be surprised if a similar "conspiracy" keeps the US gov't from ever taking OSS seriously. The US gov't *wants* its multinational corporations to have global monopolies. They're at least willing to look the other way more than say for AT&T. The US gov't using OSS would give other coutries even more of an excuse to jump ship on MS ("look even the US gov't uses OSS! YEAH!").
BSD is DEAD already. Mike Smith said so.
Get over it.
Next on news.
In general the US has supported the Lockian notion that property rights lie at the roots of all human rights. Attacking property rights to defend human rights is a war of the branches against the trunk. That position is held by few other Western nations, which isn't suprising given that most of them have had Socialist governments until recently, and some still do.
The civil rights act of 1964 which outlawed the kind of private discrimination you are talking about was very controversial among many people who were against discrimination but at the same time saw this act as fundementally undermining private liberty. And make no mistake about it, both the opponents and the proponents of the 1964 act have had their predictions validated by history. In the case of homosexuals it is very hard to argue that they are economically disadvanteged since "out of the closet" gays in the US have living standards well above the mean.
As for same sex marriage I'm not sure what the heck that means. Marriage is a covenant which primarily involves sharing property so as to bind the couple together for the long term which is primarily neccesary to raise children, since raising children takes about 2 decades and with multiple children closer to 3 decades. What exactly do same sex couples need from a marriage that they can't get from living together and owning a house jointly? Finally as for domestic partnership; why would you need that if you have same sex marriage?
It seems they have merely made open source the stated preferred option. Closed source alternatives will not be banned.
Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
I think the article was pretty clear. They are going to build not buy. They are very few times that an inhouse solution can't be used instead of an Oracle app or an Siebel solution.
As for scalability and availability. First off for real availability I still think Z-OS (formerly S/390, MVS) offers a much better package than any Unix. And probably they aren't excluding Solaris (which is essentially free if you buy the expensive hardare).
BTW in terms of supercomputing Linux scales excellently, and in terms of availability NetBSD runs on some pretty high reliability hardware; and Linux is going to support Sparc III. So it would be possible though likely not the best solution.
And now the US navy get 0wnz0red by hostile countries. Well, it's their choice.
Congradulations to the South African Government!! Now, if we can only convince our friends in the US about the *real* "Homeland Security" dangers. We should be very concerned about this as,
1) Parts of the Windows source is being handed out to government bodies
And
2) Microsoft themselves have admitted that handing out source code would be a national security risk.
What's 2 + 2, again?
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Nope, that's the beauty of the GPL. Because the source code is in the public domain, other developers can step in and advance the application further or organizations that depend on that code can hire their own people. With a closed source solution, if a company stops development and/or support, your screwed. Especially now, when its more profitable for software companies to force upgrades by abandoning support and updates for older products.
No.
(Even paid developers wander off, of course, as Microsoft is no doubt painfully aware. But the government can always find a new contractor. It's pretty hard to find a new Microsoft if this one isn't working out.)
The FL is pretty much irrelevant. Mod down. Mod Down :-)
(Of course, perl values can also be "1" or "2" or whatever because perl doesn't have a specific boolean type; but treating "undefined" as false will cause warnings, while treating "1" as true will not.)
As a South African, this makes me proud. Ridiculous I know, but it does. Amandla Awetu!
100 % agree.
It appears that the same thing is happening to "a lot". Deal with it. If you want to complain, why not go straight to the source and complain that "a lot" makes no sense as a term of magnitude? "a lot of wood" used to be a specific amount of wood, i.e. one lot. This was gradually perverted into meaning "any large quantity of...", and is now about as meaningful as "many". People used to complain about ye fuck-tardes who use "a lot" on its own, as in "I swear at people at lot". "A lot of what?" they asked.
...GPL discriminates against you.
You dont seem to understand that the government influences the whole economy.
The government will keep some stuff private but will make alot of stuff public because it will help Africa.
Companies in Africa dont benifit if the stuff developed is not released, with no economy Africa cannot improve its economy thus the government wont get more tax dollars back.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Being a South African myself, I just hope this isn't another one of our Governments tricks at appearing to be 1st world and 'up to date/ahead of' 1st world countries.
Whilst people in our country remain illiterate, homeless and diseased on a vast scale, the government implements such things such as this, instead of facing up to our most immediate problems.
They implement laws such as 'no smoking in public places', yet fail to curb the serious offences, such as murder, rape and robbery.
They implement grand new schemes, such as this Open Source 'initiative' when millions are without homes, clean water or electricity.
It's just lip-service - they can pat themselves on the back and say "Look, we're just as good as the 1st world" while ignoring the real issues that face our country.
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
That's the clearest reasoning for good OSS citizenship I've heard yet. Very well put!
China just recently got involved in world trade.
China still to this day is Communist.
You dont have a pure Communist or Capitalist country so you decide if a country is Communist or Capitalist based on the way the majority of that country works.
USA is Capitalist, but not all states in the USA are cutting taxes and following capitalism, alot of states are socialist high tax and public support states, like massachusettes.
China but for the most part China is communist.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I was wondering how much that really is. Wandering over to XE.COM, one US Dollar is equal to 8.9 South Africa Rand. The article's writing style seems a bit odd to me, but maybe that's how reporting is done in South Africa. Quoting....
Now I'm wondering if "R3bn" is (roughly) equivilant to 337 million US dollars. Suppose the average PC gets $600(usd) installed on it, in windows, office, and a couple other apps. I just pulled that $600 out of a hat, but it seems a reasonably conservative (high) estimate of the amount of proprietary software you'd purchase per machine, on average.
That'd put their annual software purchasing at (approx) 561600 PCs per year, or 1.12 million PCs in use on a 2-year Microsoft "software assurance" upgrade cycle.
Is that reasonable, or did I add something up wrong?
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
This story at kde.dot.org tells about an effort to translate KDE into all seven official languages in South Africa. No way any commercial program (like windows) is going to go through that effort.
But open source software allows you to do it yourself. KDE is a nice one in that regard because they have good tools for translations and a good process for dealing with it. Before a big release is made, there's plenty of time for the translators to do their job. There is a "string freeze" to allow every translation to get completed.
(Other big projects probably 've got something similar, KDE is just an example where I know it worked).
So: You want the functionality badly? You pay for it (with time or money) and there is nothing to stop you from getting it! Nice, that open source software.
Reinout
Reinout van Rees
Lives on the backs of 10 Africans.
Well both you and the original poster are guilty of misquoting. Here's the original. "It's a very popular technology today, but ultimately it's not a sustainable business model. What happens when the developers who find it exciting today move on to something which will pay the bills?" He's trying to cast fear and doubt on there being anyone to back your software "investment", if the developer loses interest. He's viewing the world through the "old model" point of view.. However OSS as you should have realized by now, doesn't play by the same rules. Having the source code puts control of the "investment" back in the hands of whomever holds it, not a company in Washington state. A successful OSS project is one who's code is being used, regardless of how much or how little. Not how much money the developers make:i.e. "successful proprietary developers." Also your "successful proprietary developers", have tied their "success" to a single point of failure. So Microsoft fortunes go, so theirs go. The governments and businesses who are giving OSS a try are simply breaking that link, and placing their success were it should have been all along. In their own hands.
Wow, getting your Ph. D, eh? Learn to spell.
I've been to South Africa more recently than you.
Honestly, the laws aren't much of a factor there right now. The law of the land is poverty, immense poverty. The good news is that it isn't just the blacks now.
Anyway, unfortunately, the situation in SA right now is so dire that human rights aren't really important. Most people are being denied the most basic human right, life, at an early age by the results of poverty or the rampant spread of AIDS due to the sexual practices there.
As an aside, people of high ideals brag about the successful end to Apartheid by an economic boycott. I wonder, do they realize that their boycott has destroyed SA's economy and now the vast majority of the population has been lowered to the levels that the blacks were at earlier? And yet the rich are largely unaffected. The Sandton Mall is doing just fine. Do these people see what they have wrought on South Africa? It isn't much better than the results of the wars they rail against.
It took me all day to finally figure out why that quote is funny. Somebody hit me now please.
Mmmm. This just means that they can take the money they would have spent on software and buy themselves new Mercedes and BMWs. ;-)
I thought the .za government was going to open-source itself. Now that would be a story worthy of Slashdot.
Why *doesn't* the OSS community start working towards OSGov't?
I have lived in South Africa for almost all my life and four years ago, got out of there and have moved to Sydney, Australia (like most who can, do!). The primary reason for this was the amount of corruption going on, largely due to the shocking government in South Africa (it's disheartening to say this, but SA is going like the rest of Africa).
The RSA Government has obviously recognised OSS software as a means to reduce costs which is excellent news for them, and good for the OSS community, but it won't be sustainable for very long. Professionals are leaving RSA in droves and whilst it's cheap for the government to hire such people to manage Linux systems, corners will be cut everywhere and the South African government's greed will simply make the project fail (OSS software is good, but often requires a little more expertise to implement than other solutions which is ok in almost all circumstances).
In the end, the corrupt government will screw things up so bad that they can't even afford to maintain even OSS systems.
Apartheid ("separate development") is more alive than ever in South Africa (and having living there most of my life, I am so disheartened to see how it's still in existance), but the now completely black government in power has swapped things over.
The apartheid is stronger than ever in South Africa, but instead of blacks being disadvantaged, everyone is.
Try living over there and see how long it is before someone you know (or even yourself, and especially if youre white) is killed for crimes based on race. This is one thing OSS software can't help (unfortunately).
Most people don't see this because South Africa's racist government has banned media coverage of murders and serious crimes - if no one sees these things happening, how will the "new apartheid" (aposed to the "new South Africa") ever be identified?
I have nothing against black people, but the majority of them are worse off now than they ever were during the apartheid.
Its amazing that a person like yourself can have such a profound opinion about a country which you abandoned 9 years ago just as these "progressive policies" were being applied.
Who gives you the right to make such a statement. You disgust me!
You, sir, are to stupid to live.
I have made money from OSS software (Apache licenced), if you can't, then too bad for you. Don't blame the rest of us for your own stupidity.
True, OSS won't build the next MSFT, but then again, who needs a huge corporation? It only takes freedom away for the grunts doing the coding.
So, unless you are Bill Gates that should not be a problem.
I pity you.
Apartheid ("separate development") is more alive than ever in South Africa
Is that so? When did the South African government pass laws dictating who people could and couldn't marry, where they could and couldn't live and work? Where is it that they are throwing the weight of the regime into imprisoning people who challenge this system?
Oh yeah, that's right. They didn't, did they. They just moved over to a democratic system and you don't like the idea of being governed by a black majority. Well tough. My heart bleeds. Not.
I have nothing against black people, but the majority of them are worse off now than they ever were during the apartheid.
Yeah, yeah. Slave owners used to say the same thing about slavery as well. Funny how few black people say it though.
As a South African business & games software retailer, I can tell you Microsoft is one of the few companies in the country who refuse to adjust their software prices based on the country they are dealing with. For example the Age of Mythology retails on average here at R 545 (exchange rate R8.80 = $1.00) Whereas a company such as Electronic Arts average PC Games retails for R 299 or even lower in SA. Taking Microsoft pricing policy forward to their business software and licenses, one can see they are horribly overpricing themselves in a country who can ill afford their high prices.
Ever thought why you could access MS SQL server from linux using the Linux Sybase Client - MS SQL server is just that - Relabled & reorganized Sybase. Looked at the documents lately... There is an awfull lot of (C) Copyright Sybase in the documents....
What bothers SA is that they buy licenses of software, but yet not one company develops software in SA. Using Open Source they are giving the chances to future generations of developers. In other words they are becoming self reliant.
Lets put it in their context. Would you not do the same? Would you not want to have your people be part of the digital revolution? Buying software does not make you part of that revolution.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
The stuff you smoke is working :)
"Try living over there and see how long it is before someone you know (or even yourself, and especially if youre white) is killed for crimes based on race."
I am living in Johannesburg, and everyone is alive and well - thanks
Also, there is no such thing as banned media coverage od murders and serious crimes. When it happens you hear it on radio, see it on TV and read about it in the papers - maybe you just got hold of the local town paper which wasn't too concerned about what happened hundreds of kilometers away.
The only thing we are on agreement is your last centense. Especially in heatlhcare they are much more worse of then before.
Need an ISP in South Africa?
There's a moral argument against everything if you're moral compass is twisted the right way. But it usually includes something along the lines of "...against God's will...".
B.Gates and S.Balmer is going to South Africa next week to discuss aids and education problems in the country with SA Gov't.
Never fear - Apartheid will live on in Israel.
oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
me too - Java (as no one else has mentioned it)
Just finished developing a large app on Linux, demoing it on Windows and deploying it to a huge 64 way Sun box. Yes, it really works... amazing. OK, there's not much of a GUI, but Swing and SWT do work.
But who the fuck cares? If they are saving money to deliver water to its citizens houses, build schools and hospitals, and SAVE LIVES, who cares if they will contribute?
As an OSS developer, knowing that I am helping someone is enough (but that's my point of view of things).
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
With a grey penguin. None of this black and white nonsense! hehe
Since WHEN is the /. community sensitive.
Get the fuck out of here. Next you'll be wanting us to talk about how this made us feel.
I suppose you'd never laugh at a joke that was off-color or poor taste or racists in some minor way, hm?
Unless a school gets concessions, you can't use SO for the cost of one install. You can use 1 install for every 5 PC's (IIRC), or as many OpenOffice installs for as much as it costs to get the copy ($0-$10?).
No problem. It took me a good 60 seconds to figure this one out...
So the people who managed the deployment were free? How about the user training? How about the lost productivity time as end users got used to the new app? How about the conversion problems on the few especially complex documents star office struggles with?
It's been said before, and here it is again... free software is only free if your time is.
Read reviews of shopping cart software
Can anyone figure out if this is actually South Africa or Zaire?
>> An MS rep was heard to mutter :
.. if there was no OpenSource, if there never was a Linux .. if M$ had complete reign to set prices in this industry .. then how many hundreds of thousands of dollars would it have cost me to build an 8 node cluster, with all those compilers, SQL database(s), GUI development tools, webserver, unlimited users, etc, etc. What Bills is he referring to ?
>> "It's a very popular technology today, but ultimately it's not a sustainable business model.
How is a business model which saves the SA govt billions of Rand, and promotes local employment 'unsustainable' compared to giving all that money to M$ ?? Who has the sustainability then ??
>> What happens when the developers who find it exciting today move on to something which will pay the bills?"
Lets see
The real question is, without OpenSource, where am I going to find a job which pays me enough money to save up to foot all these bills for stuff that I _need_ ?? I dont need to pull 100k pa to pay for food and board.
Finally, where is this M$ sales rep going to find a job to pay the bills by this time next year, when the Microsoft Pyramid scheme collides with cold hard reality ??
Just look at IE. It's been almost two years since IE 6 came out, and that was just a minor upgrade over 5.0 and 5.5. When Netscape ruled the browser kingdom, IE was progressing at a rapid pace. Now if Mozilla, Safari, Opera, etc, make serious dents in market share, watch IE development take off again...
Competition is a wonderful thing.
Hmm, if you're using StarOffice 6.0, you really ought to be paying some kind of licence fee.
It's good to be diversified. In-breeding never did humans any good so let's all mix it up. Some may want to take to OSS while some take the closed route. Use different OSes, different applications - even different applications to do the same thing. Use another layer to interoperate. We will get innovation because of diversity and not be entirely vulnerable to malicious attacks.
Microsoft's country manager Gordon Frazer argues that governments must evaluate each application individually rather than routinely opt for open-source over commercial software.
"It's a very popular technology today, but ultimately it's not a sustainable business model. What happens when the developers who find it exciting today move on to something which will pay the bills?"
He says there are higher expenses for the management, upgrading and security of opensource software.
Even if the expenses for maintaining the open source infrastructure in SA is the same as they're paying now the big issue is WHERE the money is going. SA can spend their R3bn (I thought that was a hacker name when I first saw it) on programmers and companies in SA rather than merely writing a big check to MS and watching it leave the country.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
This might be a good thing if you want OSS to spread. However, the day OSS rules the world (ahem... :-) I'd like to be able to say that non-government organizations (i.e. for-profit companies) adopted OSS early and contributed to it's success, rather than having to explain that governments decided to use it, and then it became successful.
It would just feel better.
Guess I'm still idealistic when it comes to some government.
:)
I've done programming for the government before, but I guess that wasn't the type of work you meant.
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
you are an asswipe.
Well, there's different kinds of costs. And time has different value to different people and organizations.
At most schools the labor is cheap. Students are usually close to free, and even the teachers (or grad students) aren't very expensive.
In a typical school, they have a lot more labor available than hard dollars (which must come out of a shrinking budget somewhere).
As for complex documents: In my opinion you shouldn't be using a word processor anyway. Desktop publishing, research papers, and other things like that are best done on different applications. Word processing is fine for letters and memos, but that's about it.
http://www.linuxworld.com/linuxworld/linuxworldtod ay/lwt-indepth7.html
As for 'sticking it to the man' I suppose it could fit that, but I don't get the sense that was why it was created, but for social cooperation. As to not being intended to be politically subversive I'm sure that's true, nevertheless here's a good quote from Eben Moglen (FSF lawyer):".. The problems with anarchism as a social system are also about transaction costs. But the digital revolution alters two aspects of political economy that have been otherwise invariant throughout human history. All software has zero marginal cost in the world of the Net, while the costs of social coordination have been so far reduced as to permit the rapid formation and dissolution of large-scale and highly diverse social groupings entirely without geographic limitation [32]. Such fundamental change in the material circumstances of life necessarily produces equally fundamental changes in culture. Think not? Tell it to the Iroquois. And of course such profound shifts in culture are threats to existing power relations. Think not? Ask the Chinese Communist Party. Or wait 25 years and see if you can find them for purposes of making the inquiry. "
http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/my_pubs/anarchism. html
Someday we'll all be negroes
How consistent is that with supporting open source, I wonder. Perhaps something's changed since?
I have a proposition that you may be interested in.
My country has some very expensive source that needs freeing, but we need some initial capital in order to do it.
We expect large returns, and you can be a part of it.
Keep your packets off my GNU/Girlfriend!
It's been said before, and here it is again... free software is only free if your time is.
It's been said before, and here it is again...
"Free as in speach, not as in beer."
--- Evil robots don't kill people, Mad scientists kill people.
One of the defining characteristics of 19th century economics (which has become popular again the US as part of the Reagan revolution) was treating the government as any other economic actor. Certainly in many of the day to day operations a government IT department is no different than a corporate IT department. But there are huge differences between the two which is essentially the difference between micro-economics and macro-economics (see Keynes). "bill/tax" are similar only in a micro economic sense.
A great deal of what business is involved in, is Ford vs. GM type compition. Government is neutral with respect those sorts of battles. OTOH GM and Ford have no control over determining the proper level of cyclical unemployment neccesary to maintain a proper exchange rate which in turn spurs the types of investments the economy is looking for. They simply respond to these forces.
A South African company can't fundamentally alter South Africa's use of technology the government can. The original post expressed things that were very macro in nature:
a) Wanting to stem the outflow of currency
b) Wanting to create more South Africans business which were software oriented
Neither of those are likely to be corporate objectives.
It is entirely possible that forgetting about the macro-economic arguments that buying Microsoft software is the best solution for South Africa. It is entirely possible that South Africa's macro economic analysis is incorrect and the ineffeciences introduced by in house development will swamp any economic advantages created the two benefits they seek to achieve. What is impossible however is that:
a) South Africa as a country can't do inhouse development
b) That the South African government should undergo essentially the same kind of analysis a company would in a similar situation. I'm standing by my difference between a basketball team and the referee, the referee isn't playing basketball in anything like the same sense as the fowards.
Not for Windows since that is bundled with the hardware (#include rant.h). However, when you enter a volume licensing agreement, CDs with all the software you sign up for are sent and updated monthly. Then you order the license and install from the single CDs (or backup copies).
They have been putting more effort into MSN Explorer, which is supposed to replace IE.
I think IE6 is supposed to be the version of IE.
I'm not kidding. There ought to be a Federal law against this sort of thing, for government agencies. In the commercial world, when a company makes dumb technical decisions, in the worst case, it can go out of business. When the US Navy makes dumb technical decisions, it could literally cost people's lives, and affect national security.
This gives new meaning to phrases like "no-one ever got fired for buying IBM (or Microsoft)". No-one ever got killed by allowing heterogenous systems.
I wish you weren't a Coward, so I could add you to my friends list... You came up with the perfect response to the most ignorant post I've seen all day.
>we switched to StarOffice on 1000 PCs... (grand total cost, $25.00)
I wholeheartedly agree that switching to StarOffic or other open source applications is the right thing to do for many reasons. Maintainability, security, cost, and just plain morally.
However, the total cost of switching 1000 PCs is most certainly NOT $25. I presume that was the cost of the original media. But someone needed to install the software; presumably, someone making more than a few pennies an hour. And someone needs to deal with corruption or problems that arise in installations (not because StarOffic is worse than other things, it is just the nature of software). And it takes time to learn new software, no matter how good the new software is. Maybe that learning is accompanied by formal retraining (i.e. paid trainers), or maybe each individual user has to devote a non-zero amount of time learning on her own (instead of doing something else useful, and for which she is paid wages).
At the end of this, I'm sure the switch saved a substantial amount of money over using MS-Office. But it just discredits the claim to pretend it is $25.
Buy Text Processing in Python
Well, I was about to say I wish I lived in South Africa, but that would be a lie, any ever heard of the flamethrower car defense system?
So the people that previously couldn't afford a computer and its software but can afford just a computer -- isn't that an improvement? If you want to change an entire country, start with one person.
It is 90% poor and 10% rich. There is NO middle class. They buy all the old/used/obsolete computers from the U.S. and the poor still cannot afford them...only the rich.
You can hire someone to kill for you for less than $1 US. They can eat for a week on that.
You can live like a King there for $300 US/month.
Changing an entire Country may start with one person but will take several serveral several years to come.
A government that believes that AIDS is a fictitious disease made up by the white man to keep the black man down--IS the same government choosing to use open source.
Sorry, I will have to confirm the parent to your reply that they definitely lack the resources and skill level that China and India has.
Dude, it's a fucking school.
So the people who managed the deployment were free?
Their called TAs, and at the district school level they often are free.
How about the user training?
Again, it's a school. Training is their business, and I very much doubt anyone at the high school level has any use for the "advanced features" of MS Office. I've never had a use for them, and I've been in the Real World for some time now.
As for training the teachers, you must be joking. I have a few teachers in my family, and the level of computer training they recieve is readily apparent: none at all.
How about the lost productivity time as end users got used to the new app?
I haven't converted many people away from MS Office yet, but in general the only "lost productivity time" I've seen has been the time it takes to install.
How about the conversion problems on the few especially complex documents star office struggles with?
Where exactly are all these "especially complex documents" I keep hearing about? Are these the same ones that MS Office seems to choke on?
It's been said before, and here it is again... free software is only free if your time is.
And yet OpenOffice still manages to be much cheaper than MS Office.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
How much more can M'beke put in his pocket?
Says "Microsoft's country manager Gordon Frazer":
"And while government's idea of training open-source developers is admirable, it will not create new jobs but will simply replace thousands of existing jobs for people who now work with proprietary software"
Sure, but the open source jobs will be created in South Africa. I don't think the South African government cares if people in Seattle get fired.
0 is true, everything else is false. It makes sense to do it that way; if a function completes successfully it doesn't really matter how it does it, but it can fail in any number of ways and it's important to know which one.
If a function completes successfully, it generally returns a VALUE.
If a subprogram completes successfully it uses the unique value 0 to indicate success and some non-zero value to indicate WHICH FAILURE.
If a variable is FALSE it is convenient to use 0 as FALSE and any non-zero to indicate TRUE.
0 AND anything is zero (with maybe some quibbles about anything actually having a value)
true AND anything is not necessarily true.
Obviously no one has ever seen the episode of the Goodies where they went to South Africa and there were different rules for tall and short people, and it was called "Apart Height". Oh well.......
Meat is murder, I eat chicken.
Maybe my company purchased a version of VC++ with source code, I don't know, but I have fclose.c installed in \Program Files\DevStudio\VC98\CRT\SRC. At any rate, here are debugger screenshots of a dummy program before and at the beginning of the fclose() call. From the #ifdef's nearby, it looks like somebody screwed up when they were adding multithreading support.
Things are going well enough over here without people like you - Don't knock your own country from far away, rather come here and do it.
There's far too many ex South Africans who continually put the country down when they are not even here to see the reality.
The reality is investment is starting to happen, the rand has strengthend and our fledgling government is starting to get better - slowly, agreed, but things are starting to look good again.
The mood on the street is for the most part, very upbeat and people are looking forward to 2003 as being a prosperous year.
The same as the rest of Africa ?
I don't think so - why the F**K would we be hosting the world cup cricket if that were the case.
Stay in Sydney and DON'T EVER COME BACK - we don't need you, asshole.
Looks like you've misunderstood the term "second world."
To be a 2nd World country you have to first and foremost be communist. See here
In truth the 2nd World has all but disappeared. You might argue there's still China, but if that's all that's left you might as well just use the term "China".
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
Say no more ...
a few thoughts on the matter:
.Net) i wonder if it is going to end?
Good thing OS is going to be used in SA.
If our goverment implements it right it might work.
Hopefully they will use the money they saved to train people
(they could start with my ex computer science teacher ms. Herbs).
Our school bought a proprietary product for lots of RRR although i suggested using RealVNC for FREE.
Microsoft sponsors all the software for schools and universities in South Africa
(MS Office, Windows XP, Visual Std
The schools switched from Turbo Pascal to Delphi this year.
Will the schools switch to Kylix next year?
christo
nylstroom,northern province(limpopo?)
PS. ons gaan gat skop in die krieket wereldbeker
Tax cuts do not stimulate the economy.
You cannot stimulate the economy, at least not an economy as large at the US economy, with small little drop in the bucket tax cuts.
10 trillion dollar economy, 600 billion dollar tax cut, thats 6 percent tax cut.
Now, if we did something more drastic, like cut taxes by 2 trillion dollars overnight instead of over a period of 10 years, the economy would be stimulated.
The tax cut has to be swift and large enough to matter, small tax cuts dont have much effect.
Also your tax cuts have to be directed at specific industries, new industries which are still growing.
Tax cut incentives to support nano technology, bio technology, and industries with no market leader, because when you give tax cuts to a monopoly like Microsoft they wont reinvest it into our economy, they will use the money to hire workers in India.
We have to give tax cuts to small businesses, not big businesses, this is how in the clinton era the economy was successful.
Clinton wisely did not tax the internet, this caused the dot com boom to occur, tax incentives helped the Web grow at breakneck speeds, perhaps it grew too fast, but thats how you stimulate the economy.
Long term stimulus does not work.
Japan had flawed LONG TERM ideas, they cut taxes but not when the time was right or for the industries which needed them.
Japan should have grew their internet industry faster, they should have removed all taxes from software industries to encourage software development exports.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
The cost of living in the USA is also alot more expensive than sweden. So what good is higher income? So what if you make $30,000, thats poverty level in the USA, you are on the edge of being homeless and living paycheck to paycheck on an income like that.
So when you figure out what its like to be on the edge of homeless in sweden you'll see its better to be poor in Europe than poor in the USA.
The USA has far less social programs for the poor. If you are poor in the USA you are fucked, and if you dont have a degree in the USA you will most certainly be poor if you are a minority.
So compare the education level of the average african american whos living in the middle class to the average swedish person whos living in the middle class as well.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
My statement wasn't about Microsoft's policy regarding giving software to schools, but rather this particular gift was given directly after SA's announcement that it was going open source. It was an indication that Microsoft felt that they had to do something to alter the SA governments decision. That in itself isn't very insightful, but it's true no less.
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No doubt it can be more difficult to run open source solutions sometimes, but SA is planning on some extensive training and developement $$. They know what's up, and they know that in the long run it will be cheaper for them this way. The longer they use open source the more their people will develop the required expertise. I think in the article they specifically mentioned using windows for their gas chromograph spectrometer ;).
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I dont believe how redundant some of you are. After living in South Africa for my entire life, I am proud to be South African.
South Africa, is far more ahead of the time and technology than some of you think. We aren't as sophisticated as any of the first world countries, but coming from a second world country, I think, we have come a loooong way.
Opensourceness in South Africa has also come a long way. In my province (KwaZulu Natal) some of the schools are switching to Linux and ridding them selves of M$ Windos. Even though M$ has offered low-cost licences and other packages, some of us are not blinded by this.
Please think of South Africa, not as a 3rd World country that has suffered and is in the process of developing, but as a country that has grown and has developed into a new era of technology, some even better than first world countries could. Take Mark Shuttleworth for example, he started Thawte, an internet based company that sparked most new encryption technology over the internet. His company was bought by Verisign for $400m.
South Africa is kewler than you think.
~ Kishyr