Linux Comes To Afghanistan

gaurab writes "For the first time, 11 people were trained in Linux in Kabul. This training was supported by UNDP as a broader program to build capacity in use of computer technologies. The press release and some info is available at UNDP Afghanistan Website. It was reported on NewsForge today, and was picked up by the Washington Post few days ago. Some discussion also happend on the South Asia Mailing List."

Comments

Afghanistan could certainly benefit from LINUX.

[banal avenger]

That's interesting that the UN would pick up LINUX support. It's good, but still surprising. LINUX is a great way to start people on the right track to success, free of restrictions from the likes of Microsoft. Instead, they're only limited (freed?) by the GPL.

At any rate, it's definitely beneficial to provide them with a low cost solution to get up-to-date in the tech world.

Re:Afghanistan could certainly benefit from LINUX.

[Malcontent]

" That's interesting that the UN would pick up LINUX support."

Yes. Especially considering there has not been a public election yet.

Free as in freedom should include elections don't you think?

Benefits of i18n

[GammaTau]

It was very nice to read this at the South Asia IT mailing list (the one linked in the main story).

So.. yep,,, there's work being done. There're also KDE and GNOME development teams in Farsi, which is very close to Dari- the langugae of Afghanistan. Pashto is also similar. There was a demo of Frasi KDE while I was in Kabul and it has also generated some interests.

Good localization is really important for the non-western world. I really respect the GNOME and KDE projects for developing open framework that allows this with reasonable effort.

Re:Benefits of i18n

[GammaTau]

Also, I'm still waiting for an explanation for the idiocy to put the text of a software somewhere else than in a simple to replace text file than mix it between the code.

Err, I think the GNOME and KDE projects do it exactly in the non-idiotic way. As far as I know, they can be translated by editing a simple text file. That means that people other than the actual developers can do the translation so very little developer time is wasted on that.

By the way, translating software to your own language (if it's something else than English) is a good way to offer volunteer support for your favorite piece of software even if you didn't know how to write code. It's something non-technical people can do.

Afghanistan is not a primitive country....

[hughk]

if they manage to get their act together. One of the good points about Former Soviet Countries was that education was relatively good. It is only in the last 10 years or so that things have fallen behind.

If you go to the surrounding coutries such as Uzbekistan and Pakistan (even Iran), they have quite a good infrastructure. It is just Afghanistan that has been left behind because of the war.

Why Linux, well getting aid money to buy software isn't so hard. Unfortunately, it isn't going to pay for the updates. WIth Linux, you at least have a chance of ensuring your stuff is well maintained. At least in Pakistan and Uzbekistan (I worked there, so I know), you can buy Win2K3 or XP for a couple of dollars, but you can't really use aid money for pirated software.

In palces like that, the replacement cycle for PCs lasts a long time. Three years ago, I was still seeing 486s in Uzbekistan under Win95. The ability of Linux to last longer with the same hardware is definitely an advantage.

Re:Afgani Tech Sector

[martingunnarsson]

Whatever happened to that "all humans are equal"-thing...

Why Linux? Some thought on possible reasons.

[WegianWarrior]

Or even, why Open Source Software? I can see several possible reasons for the particular choice of operatingsystem they have picked to train the afgans in.

Linux is essesially free off charge (if you pick the right distros), which means that the UN and the afgan goverment can spend their money on other things than buying lisences for the OS we all love to hate.

Linux (and most other OSS) are not tied to a particular country of origin. Face it folks, both OS X, the various flavours of Windows and many of the commercial *nix belong to corpetations based in the US, and the US has managed to make itself less than popular with the UN lately.

You can still get support for distrebutions of Linux that can and will run on older machines, like 386s and 486s. Thus it is possible to run the infrastructure on the hardware that is already present in the country, instead of forcing them to invest in the latest and greatest from Intel or AMD.

Stability may be an issue. Linux has a reputation for beeing more stabel than a certain other OS, and it is certainly less likely to catch a virus. Thus money can be saved on support.

Overall, I think the monetary considerations are the most important here - while the chance to kick the US on the leg may be a (happy) coincidence. And off course, the other question is; Do MicroSoft or Apple even provide a local flavour of their operatingsystems?

Re:Why Linux? Some thought on possible reasons.

[Oggust]

Also, it's actually possible to get linux into the country without violating any EULAs. Pretty much every piece of commercial software I've seen have that little bit about how you're not allowed to export it into any of the T7 countries or afghanistan. (some of them say "taliban controlled areas", so I guess those are OK)

They should of course change now, but many of them still contain afghanistan.

/August

Re:Why Linux? Some thought on possible reasons.

[edunbar93]

Or maybe, just maybe, it's a unix-like operating system that works wonders for building infrastructure?

Using it to control and automate things like power stations and fresh water reservoirs, for instance.

Not to mention banks.

Things that were being done 20 years ago in the US by big iron mainframes that cost $180,000, plus $10,000 for the OS itself, which can now be outdone many times over by systems costing $300 and $0 for the OS.

There's little or no need to use hardware as crufty as a 486 anymore, when you can get a system a cheap as this.

Things in developing countries are typically done on the cheap, but are often newer technology than the legacy systems Americans continue to use (because it was state of the art years ago and would cost too much to bring back up to the state of the art again).

Re:Jesus.

[Anonymous Coward]

They are just too damn leet


script kiddies using many different proxies to post crap are not leet, they are just stupid script kiddies.

What about nearly-free hardware to match?

[frostman]

I love the idea of propagating Linux and other free software in poor areas.

But I wonder what the options are for extremely-low-cost hardware to match?

If you consider that there's a lot of gov't bureaucratic infrastructure to build up, and not much public (international) money to support it, Linux et al are the obvious answer. Linux experts volunteering to do training are the next logical component.

How cheap could decent computers be bought to round out the picture?

I don't mean as in "Dell, give us freebies." I mean, could we get together good cheap PCs for US$100 including shipping? Or US$???howmany? What if you bought in Taiwan?

I'd love to see some charity/not-too-corrupt-NGO make a website where you could buy a computer for the department of your choice in the poor country of your choice. You could opt to keep in touch with its users as well, if there's a common language between you. Dellpaqarcdbmitsu and the like would of coure be welcome to help.

Anybody seen such a thing yet?