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.

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?