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Open Source Makes Waves In Africa

Posted by simoniker on from the both-good-and-hope dept.

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."

3 of 17 comments (clear)

  1. Should be a great conference by khanyisa · · Score: 2, Interesting

    We're presenting stuff on what makes open source projects mature, and on open source from a translator's perspective ... looking forward to hear all the other presenters too ...
    If you've never been to Cape Town and live in the rest of the world, it's a great place to visit and this conference will give you a fresh perspective on Open Source in the developing world...

  2. boa-constructor is african too. by Domini · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Another project from (South) Africa.

    But who cares where stuff is from? OSS have lifted social/political and financial boundaries, and suddently there is good software from all over the world.

    The tone of this article is patronizing and irrelevant.

  3. Yay! I live in cape town by 010011101_(thats+me) · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Its about time something cool happened here!
    By the way open source has in fact been here for a while,I dont have all the links on hand but ,heres one,google can probably turn up others
    Contrary to what you may think cape town and SA in general has a thriving PC population and even frequent LAN games(100+ games in CT every month or so) despite fairly poor hardware support (I dont even know where to buy apple macs around here (no big loss)) ,a weak currency(which has has improved massively lately though) and least I forget really shocking ISP services.
    Our local monopoly offers the following : outrageous installation (about R4000 or about $615) including modem and monthly fees (R1200 or about $185) and a ridiculous cap of 3 gigs per month ,but I'll try not to go off into a rant about that...
    However most PC users arent even aware that there are alternatives to windows and I have yet to meet anyone who runs Linux at home!

    --
    (A)bort, (R)etry, (P)retend this never happened...