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UN Supports OSS/Free Software In Developing World

Posted by timothy on from the as-well-it-ought dept.

headisdead writes "This BBC report has details of the IOSN's (International Open Source Network) role in yesterday's Software Freedom Day. As the article rightly points out, the economic potential of these new markets for large tech corporations like MS makes this a real battle in the making. Question is, can Free Software really stem the tide when other sustainal development projects are struggling so much?"

4 of 239 comments (clear)

  1. officail site ! by phreakv6 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here is their official website since the article
    fails to mention it anywhere

    --
    fifteen jugglers, five believers
  2. FAIR, using FOSS (skolelinux) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Some organisations are already using open source software in their work. Look at FAIR (http://www.fair.no/english/home.htm), a norwegain project that are bringing ICT-equipment to development countries. They are aming to use Skolelinux (http://www.skolelinux.org/) in their projects.

  3. [link] Microsoft _wants_ you to "pirate" software by leonbrooks · · Score: 5, Informative

    c|net interview 2 jul 1998

    Key phrase: "As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

    --
    Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
  4. Re:Money by The+Cydonian · · Score: 5, Informative
    A lot of third world countries do not recognize copyright, so it wouldn't acutaly be pirated software there.
    There's this 1985 study by the World Bank on exactly this issue. Turned out the actual graph of nations versus IPR protections (ie, copyrights, trademarks AND patents, although not necessarily software patents) was an inverse bell-curve; that is, the more improverished nations (sub-Saharan Africa?) actually had protection-levels equivalent to that of the (so-called) First World nations. Essentially, all their IPR laws were colonial-era laws; with other pressing issues taking center-stage, their governments didn't fiddle around with them. It was only nations that were (are) developing economies, notably countries such as Malaysia, China (?) and India (drugs industry as an example), that had lesser IPR protection because their industries needed tech fast.

    Of course, the WTO changes all that; now the graph is more or less a straight line. That is to say, that Windows XP SP2 CD you bought off Kuala Lumpur's streets for 8 ringgits is still illegal, even if it's affordable.

    --
    More than mere navel gazing.