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UN Supports OSS/Free Software In Developing World
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?"
This all comes down to money.
How can you compete against free, when the customers have little or no money.
A school in an underdeveloped country buys 100 old PCs.
Would you use 100 licenced copies of XP, or just download a linux iso for free?
The system had the verbosity of HTML combined with all the readability of compiled assembly viewed as bitmap images
I hope this will increase the use of free standards like Ogg Vorbis, XViD, PNG etc and it is only healthy to have many different operating systems.
Who is John Galt?
what is the relation between recommending FOSS and promoting capitalism?
UN should help nations, especially developing ones.
Clearly communication and computers are important parts of development process. What is wrong with suggesting a cheap way?
"Love it or hate it, any idiot can use Windows."
*Sigh*
No, he can't. Look at the millions of infected PCs, just work one day at a help desk for normal users and you will know that most people are not able to use Windows.
P.S.: Just because a lot of idiots use Windows doesn't mean any idiot can use it. Btw., I know a lot of idiots using Linux, what does that tell us?
Isn't empowering people one of the main ideas of free software? So giving people that until now had no means to use modern information systems the opportunity to finally participate is great and somehow at the heart of the free software movement.
Don't get me wrong, I think it is great that Linux (or rather GNU/Linux) is making inroads in corporate environments and has a lot of backing from big business like IBM, HP, etc., but I sometimes got the impression that the most important idea behind free software, giving the people means to make more of their lives, somehow slipped into the background recently.
So in this sense this is really going back to the roots of free software and that's a good thing.
As an impartial Global organisation they help with knowledge and training.
A lot of developing nations see the UN as a valuable aide on their way to a better future.
MS and the likes have their own sales teams all over the place, the Peoples Alternatives, eg. FOSS, are often not known with the decision makers but do deserve consideration where money is tight.
The nature of FOSS development is an other reason why 3rd. world nations might want to concider it, it can realy be a grass roots sytem where local needs can be met by local developpers.
Does the UN make no distinction between promoting democracy and promoting capitalism?
Weird question, one does not exclude the other!
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
I would say Bill Gates doesn't mind. In fact, he might even give away a special edition of Window just so he "indoctrinate" the youth and thus lead that generation to the life of Microsoft. Think about it. Once your a Windows user, most people stay that way. But if you started off using Mac, then that will be your religious..err..I mean..user friendly path in life.
Life is not for the lazy.
I think that the developing countries in this area have a real advantage: Since the dependency of IT in the public sector is far behind the industrial countries, they have not been locked in! They have the full freedom to choose without having to consider huge migration costs.
Microsoft is aware of this, I guess that's why they have made light versions available in some asian countries and are planning to sell this product in more countries. Also, they will probably benefit from the lockin due to software piracy.
Even if pirate copies are available, or Microsoft offers software for free, there are numerous examples of developing countries taking a step in direction of OSS. They have seen the long term consequences of M$ lockin.
Question is, can Free Software really stem the tide when other sustainal development projects are struggling so much?"
Yes, it can. OSS development models can also solve problems where traditional development can't. Such as: localized software for non-latin languages.
Another great potential use of free software could happen in the field of maschine translation.
A friend's daughter (13 years old) was at our house this weekend, and wanted to "play on the computer", which is loaded with straight-up Debian.
She watched me click on the menus to pull up a couple of games, and then she was good to go. She played and had a good time all afternoon, exploring the selection of games (Frozen Bubbles and Defenguin were her favorites).
Her comment at the end of the day was "you sure have a cool computer to play on". I think inexperience actually -helps-, as there is nothing to unlearn. Clicking on icons is clicking on icons, I have watched a lot of people sit down on my Deb system and just start "doing stuff". I have noticed that the hard-core Windows users have the hardest time, but the casual users really have no problem.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
My sibling posts say the same thing I'm going to: the true advantage of Free Software is freedom. But let me explain why.
Microsoft is seen worldwide as a very successful American corporation. This is not surprising, because, well, it is. Many countries (China in particular) are nervous about allowing an American corporation to control their IT infrastructure with so many little black boxes.
The Chinese government did not choose to move towards OSS because it likes Linux's interface more, or because it costs less than MS. It's moving in that direction because Linux, and all free software, is trustworthy. Cost doesn't factor in. With Linux, they have an enterprise level operating system that scales to absurd numbers of processors that can be audited and modified. A starting point, if you will. They know there are no backdoors because they can take a look.
Microsoft and Sun and most of the big guys offer "Shared Source" like systems that seem to offer the same deal, but it isn't the same at all. Because while you're welcome to take a look at the source, you're not free to change it. And with a vendor comes vendor lock-in; for example, suppose the Chinese government buys MS's bit and goes for Windows instead of Linux, using MS's shared source initiative as a means to "look through" the code. They do this, and build their entire infrastructure on MS solutions. Write their documents in Word. Etc. After a few years of this, MS could just stop offering the Shared Source initiative. Stop allowing their code to be audited. And by then, the Chinese gov't is screwed, big time. They know they should dump MS, but they can't; their whole country runs on the stuff, depends on its proprietary formats, etc.
But Linux will always be free. There is no evil American corporation controlling it, possibly putting backdoors into its software to steal your most precious secrets. Because its source is open and documented, there can be no format lock-in.
For foreign governments with no reason to trust the US or anything that comes out of it, the fact that Linux is free as in freedom, rather than free as in cost, is the true selling point.
As an aside, your point about Linux requiring sysadmins, support (and thus actually costing money and not being truly for-free) etc is a non-starter. This is trivially true of all software. Microsoft/Sun/etc software also have maintenance and support costs. Unless you're saying that the cost of obtaining MS/Sun/etc software PLUS the cost of maintaining it over a long period of time is lower than just the cost of maintaining a free system, you have no point. If you are saying that, it's just MS's "lower TCO" argument in disguise, which has been dissected here a million times and which not many of us believe, so I won't bother ripping into it.