Slashdot Mirror
Open Source Makes Waves In Africa
smarquard writes "Open source has arrived in Africa in a big way. Idlelo: First African Conference on the Digital Commons, in almost-the-southern-tip-of-Africa Cape Town from 11-15 Jan 04, has attracted a strong lineup of African OSS advocates, as well as international OSS and IPR figures like Richard Stallman (FSF), Loic Dachary (FSF France), Rishab Ghosh (Infonomics), Wendy Seltzer (EFF) and Dimo Calovski (UNCTAD). Could this be the turning point for a continent that least needs to be locked into paying inflated license fees to US corporations ? The conference is co-hosted by African OSS lobby group FOSSFA and the University of the Western Cape."
Hi,
At the moment I'm working to set up a Free Software organisation in my country. I, and others, have put a lot of work into it, looking around at other orgs to see how the goods ones are run, etc. One strange thing I've noticed is that in my search, I've found 14 active Free Software orgs in Europe, but not one active OpenSource group.
And now we have this article. The people that have decided to make the effort to turn up such as Stallman, and Loic Dachary are called "OSS advocates". Both are very clear that they do Free Software.
The two terms refer to the same set of licenses (pretty much), but they represent different movements. Freedom isn't a dirty word, and Richard and Loic are representatives of the Free Software movement. Both are busting their asses to give freedom to computer users. A bit of accurate recognition would be good.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
It does matter where it comes from if you're paying for it.
If you're a developing country (like South Africa, whose government spends several billion Rands every year buying software licenses, 80% from the US), perhaps you're better off spending that money in your own country, or at least your own continent.