Africa Source 2004 Wrap-ups

Douglas Hunter writes "Africa Source 2004 has wrapped up and the last of the stragglers have packed their bags and headed home. Africa Source 2004 was a gathering of pan-African Free and Open Source software developers held in Okahandja, Namibia. Organized by Tactical Tech, All Africa and Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA), Africa Source was a mixture of structured and semi-structured discussions with loads of good 'ole hacking thrown in to boot. With workshops ranging from i18n to wireless hacks to running a MOSIX cluster, there were plenty of hands-on sessions for folks to attend. The first ever Kiswahili spell checker was developed and released during the conference, a testament to the activity of those involved. For more information about Africa Source 2004, visit one of the blogs."

Comments

Make the stand against artificial scarcity

[Thinkit4]

In a region where artificial scarcity of AIDS drugs (patents) kills--any sort of stand against "intellectual property" is a good thing.

Re:Make the stand against artificial scarcity

[azaris]

In a region where artificial scarcity of AIDS drugs (patents) kills--any sort of stand against "intellectual property" is a good thing.

It's intellectual dishonesty to claim that Africa's AIDS problem is due to intellectual property rights.

Lack of education, lack of free contraceptives and lack of a properly managed international effort to organize these things are what's causing the problem. And the US policy of only supporting programs that preach abstinence isn't helping either.

Re:Make the stand against artificial scarcity

[hachete]

The Americans didn't help by trying to reduce to a minimum the circumstances - proscribed by international convention - in which forced licensing could legally take place. So, whilst the original poster can be described as overstating their case, I don't see this as being "intellectually dishonest". Rather, I see your deflection in this light. The US drug companies were complete bastards in this respect and I can understand the feelings engendered by such a negative, hateful policy.

h

Corporations vs. Open Source

[jabex]

That's one of the I like about open source. Where a megalo-corporation would do it's best to stay away from a possible African market... people that have the resources the can work together to produce their own products.

If only open source could produce food... hmm.