Thin Client With OSS for Developing Nations

FridayBob writes "The BBC has a story on a new, ultra-thin client that a group of not-for-profit developers, Ndiyo, hope will open up the potential of computing to people in the developing world. Not surprisingly, their system uses open source software. The system runs Ubuntu Linux with a Gnome/KDE deskto and OpenOffice. From the article: 'Licences for software are often a significant part of expenditure for smaller companies which rely on computers. But a recent UK government study, yet to be formally published, has shown that open source software can significantly reduce school budgets dedicated to computing set-ups.'"

Comments

Thin clients for models

[dotslashdot]

What about thin clients for models? They regurgitate whatever information you feed them.

The third world need wireless mesh.

[Baldrson]

A better solution for the third world is a bootable cdrom image that comes up with a minimal system including:

1. Wireless mesh software and drivers from widely available and now very cheap 802.11b cards.
2. A web browser with good javascript/xsl support.

Such a bootable cdrom (based on Slackware) is already available from LocustWorld.

Maybe the Ubuntu guys should port it over from Slackware.

Re:The third world need wireless mesh.

[stubear]

No, the third world needs a source of clean drinking water, democratic governments instead of tinpot dictators and warlords, education on how to grow crops instead of remaining nomadic herders, better housing, and public schools to name a few things. Computers don't even rate on any list of things the third world needs.

Development begins at home

[Doc Ruby]

Why are these cheap entry-level systems always targeted at the "Third World", rather than poor people here in the US? They'd have much better chances of success in our society, already geared for computer-readiness, in becoming popular - or gaining entry at all. Poor Americans have less of a culture gap to close to become computer users, and are much more able to bootstrap themselves into becoming unsubsidized computer consumers like the rest of us. And American products filter out to the rest of the world after they're out of fashion here, so feeding the American poor would eventually feed the foreign poor, too. Without setting up the foreign poor as better competitors to our domestic poor, upon whom we all depend. The products would be easier to produce and distribute. Aren't our own poor people worth helping?

Re:More of the same NON-SOLUTION.

[grcumb]

"The truth is that in "third world" countries, bare bones PCs that run your choice of Windows or Linux simply don't cost a hell of a lot more than $100, and often less."

Welcome to the land of Generalisation, where one anecdotal observation trumps any need for actual data!

Sorry to be so crude, but what you're saying is so hopelessly wrong that it just about made me jump out of my chair. How do I know it's wrong? Because I'm sitting right now in a developing nation that adds a 40% duty to all imported computer goods. I cannot buy a new PC of any kind for less than USD 1000. (That's about 6 times the legal monthly minimum wage.)

I've spoken with officials from the department of trade, and they've been extremely receptive to the fact that high computing costs are a huge barrier to development. In fact, they're in the process of lowering those barriers. But even then, the best we could expect would be a roughly $4-500 computer, which still represents a huge amount of money for the average person. When you're earning very little money, every dollar has to count.

So guess what? We used 8 year-old Pentiums to operate as thin clients to connect to 'modern' PIII 450s running Ubuntu. Here's the press release we just published.

In fairness, there are a number of countries where computer hardware is cheap. But the fact that some developing countries have cheap computers does not mean that 'the developing world has cheap computers'.