Linux in the Developing World

Norsemann writes "Peter Spotts of the Christian Science Monitor has some very interesting things to say about the latest wave of Linux adoptions throughout Asia and beyond. He hits on some important points about not only China's role in Open Source but the 'global' role in Open Source... Perhaps the best is still yet to come." The BBC also has a nice story about Brazil using Linux in cybercafes.

Comments

Linux's best quality?

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

It is OSS. When you run your entire operation on MS you're having your data infrastructure being controlled by a foreign government.

OSS is the best thing in the world for those governments who might be a little suspect of U.S. commercial interests.

The other advantage is that OSS helps to close the gap between the haves and the have nots. There are those people that romanticize the developing world and think that bringing technology to them is a bad idea. Well obviously these people have never been to the developing world and the lack of technology in these places helps to keep them in the third world.

Ironically a tremendous number of people in Nepal have email access and the guesthouse I stay in in Kathmandu runs everything on Linux.

Open Source in developing countries

[xeno_gearz]

This is certainly interesting to see that Open Source is being more widely accepted in the developing world. It bring to question, in what manner developers of programs that are not open source will attempt to combat this. Microsoft's recent pricing of Windows OS for only $40 in Thailand is an example of these attempts. Will this attempt by Microsoft really have an impact in Thailand, or is this simply an act of desperation? I wonder what the current impact is of computers running Linux in Thailand?

Re:Open Source in developing countries

[antiMStroll]

Microsoft's foreign price reductions will bite them in the ass. American companies and individuals will start asking why they're forced to pay $100 + per seat while those outside Microsoft's native land get away with less than half that. They'll likely be forced to reduce domestic pricing too and it's a question whether their business model can support that. A friend who works in Redmond recently told me the company is become increasingly tight-fisted internally, to the point where this $50 billion in the bank corp no longer buys donuts once a week for developers and that it cheaper for employees to buy some MS product retail than through their employee discounts.

Isn't this simple logic?

[neiffer]

OpenSource makes tons of sense in the "developing" and "cybercafe" world for several reasons. The flexibility in licensing and the diminished need for patching over the dialup lines (speaking of remote locations, of course...some of the best public access to the Internet I've seen is outside the traditional developing world) is a great asset to those on tight budgets. However, it goes further than that. As the non-Western economies tend to have a different standard of living, even inexpensive licenses (compared to our costs) could be cost prohibitive. I have a close relationship with some teachers from Belarus and the piracy there is rampid not because people are necessarily out to steal from "the man," but rather a $50 or $75 dollar copy of Windows XP Pro (and come on, other than NFR copies or those that get on reseller deals...it's never that cheap here) would put the software out of reach for all but the elite. That being said, if you want to following licensing (like in a school), the alternative is clear.

I am in Indonesia at the moment

[einhverfr]

And there is a MAJOR push for Linux on the desktop here at the moment. Here is why:

Previously businesses and individuals bought their software via low-cost vendors of pirated software. This kept their cost down.

More recently, the Indonesian gov't has been crackind down on said vendors (a good thing IMO). THis is causing people to choose between paying full price for Windows or getting Linux at little or now charge. When you consider that the average worker here makes less than 20% what a worker makes in the US, the equasion is not very ballanced.

So, here comes Linux on the desktop at least here. Unfortunately, I have been less than impressed with the skill of the IT workforce here (at least one network admin I met didn't know what localhost referred to :P) but this is what you get without an affordable public education system...

Anyway, I think that the third world WILL drive Linux on the desktop adoption for some time to come.

Re:I am in Indonesia at the moment

[Grizzlysmit]

So, here comes Linux on the desktop at least here. Unfortunately, I have been less than impressed with the skill of the IT workforce here (at least one network admin I met didn't know what localhost referred to :P) but this is what you get without an affordable public education system...

It probably has as much to do with English not being their first language as anything, we English speakers don't realise just how biased towards our language and cultures the computer world is.

For instance fred@foo.bar.net we look at it @ is 'at' so fred at foo.bar.net, and that net it's short for network or internet, to a non native English speaker those hints are not necessarily there, my Brazilian friend didn't know that @ means 'at' till I used it in a sentence on him once, then he had to ask me what I meant. Same with localhost, to the English speaker we look at it and see the two English words 'local' and 'host' joined together, two massive hints, even before we get tech savvy. Programming languages are even worse, I don't know of one thats not heavily based on English except may be that Brainfuck language which is as it's name say's :-D.

It would be kind of cool to try to make a more multicultural computing language, but at this time I don't even know where to start. (maybe a 1-1 mappings of the keywords for different human languages, and a veiwer/editor that autoconverts it for your prefered locale, hmmm).

Re:I am in Indonesia at the moment

[jlleblanc]

maybe a 1-1 mappings of the keywords for different human languages, and a veiwer/editor that autoconverts it for your prefered locale, hmmm

According to a professor of mine, they've tried things like this in the past, with poor results. Although I don't know about Far Eastern nations with non-latin based languages, translating the computer languages simply hindered German and French programmers. He made the point that most musical terminology is based off of Italian words and that we haven't bothered to translate them into English.

Re:I am in Indonesia at the moment

[andika]

Unfortunately, I have been less than impressed with the skill of the IT workforce here (at least one network admin I met didn't know what localhost referred to :P)

You are very unfortunate indeed, to meet such a network admin like that. But in my experience, there are plenty capable network admins here in Indonesia, especially in Bandung, Jakarta, and most big cities in Java.

Please don't make generalization from a single fact.

Open Source is a good thing!

[kbsingh]

About 6 years back I developed and setup a Cyber Cafe management system that ran 100% off Linux and Open Source tools.

For developing countries like India one of the major advantages of Open Source is the Cost factor and the general commuinity based support avilable for most Open Source platforms. Added to that the fact that things work the way they are supposed to, and you have systems running for well over 60 - 80 days without the need for a reboot / support of any nature. The end result is a winning combination all the way.

The other major advantage of investing in Open Source is that the younger generation ( who are'nt into the commercial aspects of computing as yet ) grow up and learn within a framework that encourages choice and alternatives rather than constricting you into a predesignated thought process.

In things as they stand today, we need this kind of liberty of thought and process.

Re:Open Source is a good thing!

[TheLinuxSRC]

Great points. I have one to add regarding the younger generation. OSS promotes learning about how a computer actually works. This is diametrically opposed to what the MegaCorps want.

Just my $0.02, but keep in mind; I am an MCSE yet I have learned more about computers in the last five years that I have used Linux than the ~12 years using DOS and Windoze.

Imagine a world where the big expense is hardware!

[Howzer]

That's the world that many Asian IT companies and deparments live in.

Just think about that for a minute, and imagine how it would turn your world upside down: People are cheap - servers are expensive.

In this environment, stuff like Linux makes even more sense than it does in "the west".

People like TurboLinux and Red Flag Linux are all over this opportunity here in China and elsewhere in the region.

What if SCO wins?

[janneH]

This article made me wonder what might happen IF an outcome of the SCO action is that the GPL invalidated or crippled in some fashion. Could some or most of the rest of the world continue to honor the GPL, while the US does not - that would lead to some real weirdness. Maybe a lawyer can comment.

Linux in Venezuela

[armando_wall3]

Venezuela also adopted Open Source in its government offices like a year ago.

I've been using Linux at home since 1995, and enjoyed every moment (even the learning, frustrating ones!); and whenever I can, I try to make my venezuelan friends become aware of GNU/Linux and Free (as in speech) Software.

Back to work!

Re:Who will build our digital future?

[PSaltyDS]

"...here's a hint, it wasn't megacorp!"

I disagree. Megacorp reasearch departments and some great geeks they employed invented many of the things that make up our digital present. Of course, many came from great geeks at university labs too. But the large scale, affordable digital present could not have been achieved without the megacorps.

"The same type of people who built our digital past.."

Here I agree. The hobbyist geeks, university geeks, and megacorp geeks will continue to be the source of cool new stuff in the our digital future. Megacorps will almost exclusively bring this stuff to the masses at affordable prices, though. Open source software could be an exception to this in some areas, but it will still hold generally true.

Any technology distinguishable from magic is insuficiently advanced.

Re:Imagine a world where the big expense is hardwa

[Anonymous Coward]

Think about it further....

I have a large number of NCD terminals I bought for my side business. 20 of these run off ONE dual P-III server. now you dont have to use ncd terminals, old Pentium 100 computers work great for this.

now I can have one server act as 20 workstations AND a server. no extra cvosts per workstation, and cince I can use throw away hardware for workstations my costs are even lower. (I got the NCD terminals, a pallet of 144 of them for $20.00 at an auction.) if a terminal fails I throw it away, replace it with another and boot.. nothing to restore or set up again.

this is only possible with linux+OSS. as with windows the same thing would cost many thousands as I would need 2 more servers and 2 licenses per workstation for the OS and apps to do the same thing with the same performance.

I am selling Open source solutions based on "terminals" and linux to businesses here that the windows people can't even compete with. One Machine shop owner absolutely loves the fact that if a PC dies (rare now) nothing has to be done other than swap the workstation and the user continues to work... no call to me for a service call and having that user down for 2-3 hours. I maintain their system in a contract basis, many things I do over ssh from my home.

not only asian companies see this as a benefit, but American businesses are seeing that it's just plain stupid to use microsoft products anymore... It's just too expensive.

Thank you, Mr Spotts

[shis-ka-bob]

Slashdot readers, I think this is an important article. The main press is starting to grok why open source matters. I urge you to read this article. If you agree with it, please send Mr. Spotts a thank you letter. The open source community, when they are covered at all, is often derided as anti-Microsoft zealots that sit in dorm rooms and turn out substandard code that results in 'free, as in puppy' software and tell all newbies to RTFM. Mr. Spotts reports otherwise. More importantly, he explains why open source is important to the developing nations.

Now lets have backers of open source demonstrate a better image by writting thank you letters. If he , and his editors, see that this is popular, they are more likely to continue writing favorably about our community.

its isnt necessarily the quality of open source..

[psycho_tinman]

The situation in some Asian countries runs counter to this article, at least for the mass adoption of open source.

Piracy is rampant and the cost of a Windows installation is only around 50c American. Bandwidth is expensive, so downloading a Linux ISO is also prohibitively expensive, definitely more so than buying a pirate CD off the streets.

Linux distros are pre-pressed and available for sale. However, those distros are usually 3-5 disks (3 for Mandrake,5 for Suse). A Windows install, is the price of 2 disks at most. Everyone has "heard" of Windows, not many have heard of Linux. Therefore, you go with the software that you've heard of, rather than trying out new,esoteric OS and tools. That is why Linux is limited to some corporate servers and hobbyists only.

Which one is wider used ? Windows, of course. Will that change anytime soon ? Only when there is a crackdown on pirated software.

Re:Imagine a world where the big expense is hardwa

[fitten]

I have a large number of NCD terminals I bought for my side business. 20 of these run off ONE dual P-III server. now you dont have to use ncd terminals, old Pentium 100 computers work great for this.

now I can have one server act as 20 workstations AND a server. no extra cvosts per workstation, and cince I can use throw away hardware for workstations my costs are even lower. [...]

this is only possible with linux+OSS.

Wrong. This is absolutely nothing new. Time-shared servers have been around *long*, *long* before Linux and OSS, even before I was born (I'm 35 now). Early computing was this model (big mainframes with many cheap ttys - ever wonder where VT100 terminal emulation came from, for example?). You put all your compute type resources in one expensive node and then hang cheap terminals off it for folks to input into the server. From there, folks started making minis and eventually the personal computer. The model you talk about here is just the wheel on its second revolution around. Also, I've seen 100s of cheap terminals hang off a machine that had less than 1/100th of the processing power of your PIII box. Nothing new here.

as with windows the same thing would cost many thousands as I would need 2 more servers and 2 licenses per workstation for the OS and apps to do the same thing with the same performance.

Not that I necessarily disagree with you here, but given the rest of your post, I'd like to see the numbers and report that you made that prove this assertion. What I do disagree with is someone just blabing out garbage like this as fact when there is no evidence to support it.