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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."
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.
Afghanistan is not a "former Soviet Country", really, although it was under a Soviet-backed government for a time. It never had the state-supported education and health-care infrastructure that developed in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and even North Korea. The American-backed guerilla campaign against the government began almost as soon as the communists took power (and six months before the Soviet invasion), and any efforts they might have made to reorganize the society were made difficult by the almost continual state of war after 1979. So it is really the last 25 years that they have been "falling behind", and things were not amazingly great before then.
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
SCO sues Afganistan!
The UN actuall postivly encourage it. Via Netaid the UN setup a group of voulenteers who provide OSS based advice on people out in the field. Its worth looking over there just to see what you can offer
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
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?
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
...a press release from Microsoft cleared up many pre-war allegations. Most interesting was the following:
"This just proves that no WMA will be found in Iraq."
Life is like pants... fit in or you don't fit in.