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Microsoft Thinks Africa Doesn't Need Free Software
DIY News writes "Microsoft has claimed the cost of software is not an important issue in the developing world. According to MS, while you can give people free software or computers, they won't have the expertise to use it."
In many cases, what they need is food, clean drinking water, and shelter. Let's get those bases covered before we start doling out the software, shall we?
"Caffeine is not an option. Caffeine is a way of life."
According to MS, while you can give people free software or computers, they won't have the expertise to use it."
Well, you've got to start somewhere.
...the RIAA claiming they lose $XXm a year because of piracy.
Maybe they do need training, but once a few of them are trained, they could train others, and so on and on. Plus, they are smart people, I'm sure they are quite capable of teaching themselves.
they don't have anymoney to pay for it.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Holloway went on to say:
"I mean, I've lived here trying to teach them for years, and black people using computers? It's absurd!"
I guess Microsoft feels that they'd rather have countries paying for software liscenses instead of food and medicine. Most African countries from what I understand are at a deficit of both when it comes to domestic production.
Really makes you wonder what a company's willing to do to make more money when the tap runs dry. I blame the system.
_Vishal www.squad9.com
...they'll never get any expertise using it at all if they have to pay exorbitant amounts of money for an OS and office suite.
Move Sig, for great justice.
... when you don't know if your kids will have enough to eat today.
Hey, good slogan. "What do you want to eat today"?
Linux can cure hunger.
Gates doesn't exactly have a great record at being a visionary. Didn't he also say that he didn't see the potential for more than a handful of computers in the future, before the home computer boom?
I guess they think it's better to spend money on their software than on drugs and food
If anything - this shows the level of stupidity at Microsoft.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
They seem to know how to use computers already! Excuse me while I go fax my banking information to the attorney of an imprisoned Prince whose country recently went into anarchy, I need to help transfer funds for him!
Do they really need expertise to run some simple desktop applications?
Well, sure, if you give them the software for free they might lack the expertise to use it.
But if you charge them for it instead, then you've gotten a tiny amount of cash, they've lost (~)months of their savings, and they STILL lack the expertise to use it!
-:sigma.SB
P.S. Interesting. Firefox "parses" </?P> tags. :S
WARN
THERE IS ANOTHER SYSTEM
Free software is already available, but without computers they are useless. And when dirty water and HIV/AIDS are killing so many people, computers are useless because there's no one to operate them.
Newsflash: Most Africans do not live in huts on the savannah.
They live in cities and towns. They have access to technology. They're just as smart as you and I.
While I did attend a few hours of BASIC training way back in the dark ages of computing, I learned most of it myself by just having access to my computer. These days, computers are (more) user friendly so the story just strikes me as being stupid bordering to racist.
And by keeping the software expensive you drain resources from training. And its not the case that all africans are computer illiterate. Many, especially the well educated, know damn well how a computer works. I hate this Western arrogance and ignorance, treating Africa like one giant homogenous mess. That's not true. Ok, so we need IT training, but we also need cheap software, roads, medical infrastructure, improved schooling, decent terms of trade, and much much more. Not because we're a basketcase, but because the west screwed us over. an angry african
Everywhere else people have the expertise required
Microsoft will see less profit if Africa uses competing software.
There was an episode of Nova or something similar on PBS that described how foreign companies or NPOs invested a lot of money in bringing technology and training to Ethiopia (I think) in an effort to bring them up to Western levels of progress. Ethiopia was going through a famine at that time and desperately needed external support. So the idea was to bring in farming equipment like tractors and irrigation machines. They also tried to teach the locals how to use the new tools. Improvements in infrastructure were attempted as well, if I remember correctly.
All of it failed. The Africans were simply uninterested in doing for themselves what external nations were willing to do for them. As long as the Red Cross kept the bags of oats coming, it wasn't worth it to the "farmers" to go out of their way to produce the food locally. The impact of the technology was nil. The mindset of the Africans had been so rooted in help for free that they simply let the machinery rust.
You can see this type of "money for nothing" mindset even in wired countries like Nigeria where the national pastime seems to be sending scam emails.
Gates is not incorrect in saying that Africa doesn't need free software. What Africa needs is the ability to interact with the rest of the world as equals, and software, free or not, must make this possible. This means becoming a trustworthy trading partner. It may mean becoming consumers of for-pay software. It may mean producing their own software.
What it ought not mean is that Africa gets a free handout.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
Note: I have not read TFA nor have I read previous comments.
Microsoft has forgotten that they didn't always have the easiest of operating systems... yet they became successfull using DOS and Windows, even though everything had to be configured by the users by hand, following writen instructions.
This is the kind of nearsightedness which makes me truly dispise Microsoft. Microsoft makes some truly great products... but they force these products and their prices on everyone. Bah, I guess Microsoft will loose to the people willing to learn linux on their old 486's, because linux still runs well on them.
-Pathway
Jesus Christ that is one outrageous title...SPIN perhaps????
Insinct is stronger than Upbringing - Irish Proverb
How? By turning every Nigarian into email scammers so that any one of them would be richer than all of us combine?
Kind of hard to do that when they are mostly financially dependent on domestic products. Maybe you are talking about how computers would revolutionalize their marketing and shipping methods? What a great idea! Except there is one small problem...golbalism.
What on earth are you thinking?!
Without basic needs, technology is nothing.
Nestle's CEO states that "Africa does not need bread and water, but Butterfinger and Nescafe".
:%s/Open Source/Free Software/g
YTARY!
but you can't make them think?
Shame on you MS!
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
RTFA. It's about how even after giving the people the software, it's not the important part, the training is and how Microsoft is spending efforts on training the people in Africa to use information technology. It's not about how Microsoft hates Africans or anything like that. It's not about how Microsoft is trying to exploit poor Africans by selling them software. It's simply bringing up the surprising fact that the primary barrier in Africa isn't the cost (though cost is a barrier), it's the fact that the people need training that is the main barrier to adoption according to MS. Considering how often people complain about FUD, it's quite annoying to see it from the /. crowd as well.
Microsoft thinks poor people are dumb.
Microsoft still doesn't get free software. Free software isn't about the cost, it's about the freedom. Consequently the MS rep is right when he says costs isn't the major issue, and his arguments about expertise strengthen the position of free software.
Free software gives Africans a better chance of learning how to use software and build a local industry modifying it.
I bet the next generation of African mechanics already spend their days under the bonnet of any car they can get access to. These are the people who will own small mechanics business in tomorrow's Africa. Tough luck if your car is a Microsoft car with the bonnet welded shut.
Microsoft's aim is to keep Africa dependent on Microsoft.
Some people are using the 'give them food before computers' argument. The philosophy behind free software is larger than computer software. It's about the abilityto determine your own course in life. I'm sure Monsanto is using the same arguments as Microsoft about the sterile seed they sell.
We all know that computers help with production. More, it helps a country to link its businesses and people to the worldwide scientific community. That said, we might say that computers help the developpement of the economy. A better economy means more jobs and an augmentation of the average annual salary. This also means more people can afford a computer and hence, more people will buy Microsoft licenses. Wouldn't it be wiser to give licenses for free, wait for the results and catch a bigger fish in a couple of years ? Just my 2 cents.
They even created a special release of Word just for niggaz, see...
- 5807.jpg
http://media.urbandictionary.com/image/large/word
Just teach them to use bittorrent.
With FREE FOOD, so why make the effort? Kind of hard to compete with a product with zero cost. But hey, why let reason interrupt a perfectly good bitch session.
Arbitrarily take ~350 BCE as a base. Assume that the works of Euclid are the benchmark for the slow growth in rational development. Africa boarded on the ancient Greek world. The exposure to Euclid et al didn't show much of a return. The dark continent remained dark. Why? Really, I don't know. I just hear over and over and over... send more money... give us more money and in return we get another crazed dictator. Nelson Mendala is the exception.
Why can't African states bootstrap?
My few contacts with Africans, white and black, seem to uniformly suggest that the majority of Africans are tribal primitives. Again, why?
Myself and my family are generous and have given as well as we can to many causes, but I'm now no longer sympathetic to the plight of Africans. The plea for yet more money is just a background whine.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
"You can see this type of "money for nothing" mindset even in wired countries like Nigeria where the national pastime seems to be sending scam emails."
You don't have to go that far. The US is nearby.
"1) Why would you give a third world country free software when most of them arnt going to use it or even have computers that can run it? Its a waste of packaging and cd's."
The ones that have electricity and devices like computers, can use it. If it's a waste to you, then don't contribute to such a project.
Do you think all of Africa is like some barren wasteland or something?
"2)Why would you give software to a country that is in more need of food, water, and medicine?"
It would be nice if people would give them those things too. But questions like this come from a point of view of advocating *withholding* free software from them.
"3)Why would you give software to a country that is mostly underdeveloped?"
Why and how would you withhold it from them?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Sigh, I just don't see it how those open source products that could compete with M$ ones would require that much more expertise. Just feels a bit lousy statement that is.
That's part of the reason the tap runs dry.
Big question -- Is Mil^Hcrosoft milking the system?
that Microsoft is giving to some African communities and governments.
Give them a little free MS software, train them how to use (to the extent it's possible) and hope they learn how to make money with it to buy upgrades at some time in the future.
Microsoft once again dominates the conversation by making it about cost.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Microsoft is creating a chicken and egg problem where there isn't one. Use OpenSource, and the expertise will come. It lowers the financial burden, and it also lowers the barrier of entry to gain expertise. And it's in your local language. -an African.
My soon to be wife has lived for years in Africa as a exchange student through her church - West africa, not the tourist spots that get cleaned up to look better so they attrract more tourist money - so I know a little something about this.
Water is a rare resource there. If you get bitten by a bug for example, you wipe the bloody sore on the wall to scratch it because if you use your water for the day on it, you dont drink.
A person can live - barely - on about 2 bucks american a day for food and basic needs - and no that does not include toothbrushes or soap as they are luxuries - in Africa if they have a home; Unfortunately most dont even have 50 cents american per day.
It is a fact that electricity is only available in the larger cities if at all, and without electricity you are not going to be able to boot a computer much less use any software on it open source or not. The African people are cunning in the way that they can usually do what it takes to survive - survival of the fittest being a cruel but true thing in the extreme land and political environment and all the civil wars they have gone through - but they can not use electronics without electricity.
But they do know how to use the tools when they are available. The biggest thing over there - and the one thing every African knows how to use - is the windows based computers at the internet cafes in the larger cities. People walk days just to use them. Saying that they do not have the knowledge to use computers is not only an insult to them and a racist comment in itself, but completely goes against the standing facts that keep Spam filters against Nigerian - yes Nigeria is in Africa - Spam from hitting your inbox.
My fiance has personaly known some of these africans and talked to them, and do you really think that nigerians would be sending you spam and trying to get money from you if they where not so damn poor with no other option? Sure once it works it may just be greed that keeps them going, but in such a sorry state of existance and in such a poor country if it works and keeps them fed and clothed, what else are they going to do to survive? I am not saying spam is good - its bad and the people who send it have very low to non-existant ethics - but what other choice do some of these people have thanks to companies like microsoft not even wanting to try to help africa be developed enough to be self supporting?
Microsoft is just splitting hairs and insulting people, as well as lying through there fscking teeth. They have the power to make not only Africa as a developing natuion but the entire world a better place, and they will not do it because they are too damn greedy to think of anybody else but there own profit margins. The funny thing is they say they are against spam, so you would think they would want to help develop africa - and nigeria - enough to allow the spammers alone to have other options. That in itself would make the world a better place.
- d
Just one word: billogical!
That's quite a biased way to put the very real problem that flooding a country with extremely low-cost foreign products means that local producers can't even hope to compete. You know, investing resources to produce something you can't sell is not exactly financially smart. You're better off doing nothing.
And this sort of stuff has happened in the USA, too, and in an even more absurd manner--the stereotypical economic depression scenario where there's a food shortage in the cities when agriculture overproduces, because the price that could be obtained for food is just too low to justify spending more on production and distribution. Which led to those New Deal government incentives for farmers to actually reduce yields...
Are you adequate?
In response to a question on the role of open source software in Africa, Gerald Ilukwe, the general manager of Microsoft Nigeria, said that cost is not important, even though he admitted that the average annual salary in the West African country is only $160 (£91). Cost of XP? only about $189.99 Now, with a total YEARLY net profit, without expenses of food, etc, this would mean that they could afford less then one copy of XP home. Let alone the computer to run it. I've read some good articles about the efforts going on to get both Africa, and some parts of Australia connected using buses equppied with internet. These can run Linux (software, assuming you pick the right distro, is free), so you only have to pay for the hardware. Now, if a group of people, say... a small sized town... got together, they might be able to convince the people doing these bus routes to stop on by. I, for one, think that this is just up there with all of Microsoft's claims of fooey and blooey, FaB(tm), and wish they'd, perhaps, donate software to help some people out? Oh, and for all those people saying "they need food first" not *everyone* in Africa is starving, and computers would be valuable learning tools as well as would greatly help the economy (think academy courses where you can come out of high school with a programming certificate).
Want to find other gamers to play board and role playing game
I'm amazed that posts like yours always get modded up in discussions like these.
Do people really live under the dillusion that there is only one Africa and that people don't have drinking water, food and shelter throughout the whole continent?
Please tell me that isn't true, though this seems to be the perception of many people, as posts like yours show.
Africa is a whole freaking and diverse continent and while there sadly are areas where providing basic means of survival must be the only priority, this simply isn't the case in the vast part of the continent (thank god).
And believe it or not, in vast areas of this continent people do need better education and better access to global knowledge and that's where technology can and should play a role and I think free software is best suited for these goals.
The technology was developed but was not commercialised due to public pressure.
It's worth noting that Monsanto has achieved pratically the same outcome by sueing any farmer who propagates seed containing 'their' genes.
on biz, and I see a lot of pirated software in the banks where I'm working on client site.
I'm against pirating software in general, but with attitudes like this, well let's just say Africans are ok pirating MS software in my book.
Down in Africa those folks are just doing the best they can with what they got. This attitude that "if they can't pay they don't deserve" is mind boggling. MS could do a lot of good down there, but no.
On the plus side, I'm seeing lots more banks deploying Open Office on the desktop with Liunx and MySQL on the Enterprise side. This whole controversy will be rendered academic in perhaps ten years.
Who the hell would accept MS crapware when they've spent the formative years on their careers using Open Source?
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Having spent two months in Uganda teaching IT this summer, I can wholeheartedly agree with the article. I was working in the rural south-wesst of the country and teaching IT to local charity workers. They had a lot of computers after receiving them (old P1/II's) from a UK charity, but I only found two that were being actively used - the others were in the office of people who had never been taught how to use them.
Internet access was pretty poor, 9.6k dialup, which was an issue. Between the power cuts and flaky telephone service it is impossible to download free software, windows updates or virus definitions if the file is 1Mb or more.
For the charity workers, the most useful thing I taught was some basic accounting and how to track their accounts in Excel. This is one thing theat is not taught in local schools, but naturally the supporting charities from the West expect their donations to be managed in a western manner.
I also took some of the computers out to schools where the children had never seen computers and I worried a bit about this, where 9/10 of the kids are going to live a subsistence farming life, you wonder about the point of teaching them how to use the computers. However, if we take that attitude about anything that's more complicated than working a mattock then where is the development going to come from?
Good to know that if common sense conservatism still exists anywhere in America, it exist in the richest and most powerful corporation in existence.
The key sentence of TFA is "Microsoft has claimed the cost of software is not an important issue in the developing world."
And while you might attack it on how wrong it is, it's mostly true. Piracy is high enough in these countries that real cost of the software is nowhere near the cost of purchase, and even with near 0% piracy, the cost of purchase is still about 8% of TCO, no matter what software. So where is Microsoft wrong?
Governments of developing countries, or all countries for that matter, need Free Software. Not necessarily "gratis". But "free":
Transparent for government (no backdoors - open source)
Transparent for citizens (no illegal activity by government - open source)
Free to integrate with the country's infrastructure (open standards)
No vendor lock-in (Supportable by anyone - open specs, open standards, open source)
Customizable at will (Open Source)
Freely accessible for all the citizens (GPL or other non-locking license)
Providing opportunities for local economy (Open source)
Most of it can't be assured by proprietary software from big overseas corporations. All of it is provided by Free Software. And cost is almost irrelevant in this kind of consideration, so Microsoft claiming their software is not worse because cost is not an important issue makes a moot point.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
Development countries doesnt worry about software cost - they just copy it over and over and over
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
- I'm sure Monsanto is using the same arguments as Microsoft about the sterile seed they sell.
Thankyou Sir for pointing this out. Sterile seed is the dark side of capitalism: it creates artificial scarcity in order to maximize profits and should be fought against with any method.
I guess food and drugs are not among Microsoft's top priorities as far as /significantly/-reduced licence costs,
the African people are concerned. It's all about profit, profit, profit
while moral factors are reduced to scratch. Microsoft's help, rather than
be given in the form of free or
comes via the Bill Gates foundations. This way they can be flasely per-
ceived as humanitarians while at the same time draining the pockets of
those whose aim is not to use the most widespread O/S, but to survive that
wisespread HIV.
Microsoft yet again prove that they choose to live in a dog-eat-dog envir-
nment, all of that despite being in that Big Brother role. This comes to
yet again show how they spit at the very same community they pretend to
cherish.
My Linux - (L)ove (I)s (N)ever (U)tterly eXPensive
Africa Thinks Africa Doesn't Give A Crap What Microsoft Thinks.
Some say food should be the only top priority for these countries, right? That they need to solve that first before even thinking about using computers, right?
I think that's seriously short-sighted. They need help, food and money, yes, but is it not like they say? "Give a man a fish..."? Food is just a simple short-term relief, and not a solution. They'll eat today, fine, but they'll still wake up hungry tomorrow.
I firmly believe that giving them the technology and education so that the new generations can actually become competitive is equivalent to "teaching them how to fish". Education and technical resources, in the long-term, is what will take those countries out of their poverty status.
Using Free Software is not just an option, it's the only sensible one to choose. Teaching new generations about the freedom that make it possible for them to get everything they need is something so precious that the opportunity simply can't be missed.
- Otaku no naka no otaku, otaking da!!!
While Bill is write that the price of software is not important (in fact software/hardware in general), he is talking about the educated elite in these countries and not the farmer working 12 hours in a field somewhere for 6 bucks a month.
Food, water and shelter are a good start, but so is education. What is the west afraid of (or is THAT a silly question)...
Karem
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
this is a total money driven sector. whatelse did you expect out of the money maker. i wish things were simpler.
and it needs it free as in freedom more than free of charge .. or at least the parts of africa that don't suffer from hunger and disease. .. not something made by a great company driven by a market that can't care less about the poor african people.
in fact microsoft's software IS free of charge in Africa, it is pirated !!
However, having a truly open source free software that you can customize to meet you needs (to run on all those old 486 machines for example) or to learn from it and start establishing your own (hopefully free) software industry is what Africa really needs
they need a software that BELONGS to them, that is owned by them
they won't have the expertise to use it
It's interesting how the first thing that comes to mind is the argument of slavers attempting to justify their dominion with arguments like,
"They're ignorant. Look, if we set them free, they won't know how to handle themselves." Yet at the same time, the argument ignored that no education was provided to these "inherently" ignorant individuals.
So, that said, I call bull-fucking-shit. Microsoft's desperation at trying to hinder open source only hints at its inevitable victory. You don't fight so hard and so persistently against an enemy you feel isn't going to win; you ignore it.
Of course, as previous posters have said there are some other needs that must be met first. Food, water . . . and underneath them peace. Violence is perpetuated by ignorance.
This is the so-called information age. Knowledge is power and all that. Now what's interesting about this age as opposed to others is that, in the past, the primary resources and concerns were physical. Stone, bronze, iron, mechanical. Now the main tool of society is non-physical. Bear this in mind.
Emerging countries are often sympathetic to communistic ideals as they see their poverty as oppression by the more wealthy nations. Economically, the capitalist model can not compete with "free" and "open". How can it? Sure, capitalism can drive innovation, but it's going to cost. Open source has no cost.
Combine communistic sympathies with a model that does not work in traditional capitalistic thinking and I see a core change in the global society in not too long. If information and the primary tools of this age are things that can be had nearly for free, and have no restrictions upon them, then what's to hinder other veins and avenues of thinking from changing accordingly?
In essence, if the tool changes, society changes with it. I think we're on that point.
Once evolution was underway, the whites and asians took off as far away from Africa as they could. So without them, the community just went to pot.
Microsoft is saying that because X is true, Y must be false. Well that only works when the two are mutually exclusive. When the two are not then the logic breaks down. In situations like this one, where the two issues are only tangentially related at best, the logic breaks down before it even gets started.
Aquiring the expertise to know how to use computers is a necessary prerequisite to being able to benefit from computers and the software that they run, regardless of whether that software is free or proprietary. Microsoft is correct in stating that these people would not be able to benefit from free software at this point, but then they're no better equipped to be able to benefit from anything Microsoft has to offer either.
Listening to Microsoft when it comes to computer software is like asking Ford or GM what brand of car you should buy.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
What Microsoft is trying to say is that what people in Africa need are more IT skills, not free software and they are there to help train them along with other companies according to the article. In other words, you can give people linux, firefox, or any other free software you can think of, but if they don't know how to use it, it's useless.
HD Trailers
Some comments from an African: 1. Anyone heard of Ubuntu? Does that sound like an english word? "Ubuntu" is an ancient African word, meaning "humanity to others". The person driving it (Mark Shuttleworth) is an African and the business he built and sold was developed in Africa. 2. Africa is a big place, don't generalise. Some Africans live on a $1 a day, whereas I live a first-world lifestyle. 3. Microsoft ignores the developing world at its own peril. A true competitor for MS will probably emerge from a developing country, where people and governments are not prepared to pay expensive licenses for functionality they can get for free.
to defend Slashdot when the retards on Digg.com are posting anti-slashdot propaganda. Everytime I see the imbecilic picture of Gates as a borg I feel embarrassed for Captain Taco. I'm not even going to RTFA when the title is "Microsoft Thinks Africa Doesn't Need Free Software". That's just asinine. Say what you will about Bill Gates, the man has given millions upon millions of dollars to African nations as well as others poor countries around the globe. He and his wife are also leaving only a small percentage of their fortune to their children when they pass away. The bulk of their fortune will be going to charities. Grow the fuck up and attempt to post something that vaguely resembles an unbiased Microsoft article once in a while.
While software isn't the last thing Africans need, it is far from the first thing they need. What most african nation need right now is self determination. By that I mean a stable society to protect the people from harmful foriegn interest thereby forstering long term growth. What they do not need is being told what to do by a bunch of western nations which, as histroy has shown, have screwed them over again and again. It is so typical to see /. members bicker over minor technical details of issues they have no grasp of.
Because they can't afford it they must not be smart enough to use it! Seriously, no one has ever been smart and poor!
What's that? Socrates was poor? Mozart was poor? Monet was poor? Freud was poor? Even J.K. Rowling was poor!?!?!?!
So much for that philosophy!
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
Microsoft has claimed the cost of software is not an important issue in the developing world.
Just like the cost of food isn't important to those who want to grow up healthy?
even though he admitted that the average annual salary in the West African country is only $160 (£91).
Yes, I'm sure that Africans wouldn't mind starving for a few years, so that they can buy Microsoft's software - which I'm sure Microsoft would offer at a discount rate for the first year.
"It's not about the cost of the software, it's about how you take your expertise to people. We are sharing our expertise, particularly with governments in emerging markets. Cost is not the barrier here -- expertise is," said Holloway.
Most commendable. My hat is off to Microsoft, having ripped off those who can afford its software, it spends some of the excess on locking poor people into its proprietary solutions.
If Microsoft was to give everybody in Africa free PCs running the latest version of Windows, what would they do when they had to upgrade? And, if they couldn't afford to upgrade, what good would their expertise in an old, out-dated operating system do?
Microsoft seems to be getting right back into 'Linux is a cancer!' mode with this textual outburst of desperation.
The thing is, many Africans have time to spend learning how to use software, but they don't have money to spend buying software. Using Open Source seems the better option, especially when there is a need to keep up with upgrades.
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
Thanks again, Microsoft, for providing more ammunition for the people who despise your business tactics and your complete disregard for your clients and potential clients.
Apparently, over here in Africa, whilst we are too poor to afford the exhorbatent prices of software (windows XP Pro costs about R1000 (+-$150) here, for a dealer, and more for the average Joe), we would also be too stupid to use it anyways, so it doesn't matter.
Yes, there are countries which need food. Certainly, for them, there is a more dire need than free (or even just reasonably priced) software. But people must remember that Africa is a rainbow blend of the complete have-nots, the have-some's and the have-everything-that-other-people-used-to-have's. There are rural areas where "running water" means the stream 5 kilometers away, and technological centers where IT forms the backbone of communications and business. The former couldn't care less about IT, free or not. The latter often incorporates small to medium businesses who are severely set back by exhorbatent software prices.
This is exactly why initiatives like Ubuntu Linux are fantastic. Ubuntu provides a lot of what a small to medium enterprise (SME) needs on a desktop, and it's all free (and even delivered to you free on a cd!). That coupled with an initiative we are trying to get together to provide the necessary business tools for a starting company for little or (preferably, if we can get enough sponsorship) no cost to the company are some of the counterweights that will help to swing the African continent out of its ruts. Because, at the end of the day, Africa belongs to the Africans, and the businesses which prosper are continually putting back into the community.
It's all about that "give a man a fish" idea. We're trying to enable fishers over here, not give handouts. And people who think that free software won't help are the same people who don't have to pay the oppressive price for software over here. Walk a mile in an African's shoes before deciding what he needs.
... picking bugs out of their hair, lengthening their earlobes and shrinking skulls they could learn how to document it all in PowerPoint Presentation. They are a very intelligent bunch..
They have no money but lots of time(CHEAP time) to learn and train themselves on open source. Also, since wages are lower, they can spend say 5 hours learning the ins and outs of open office at around $2/hr.. for a grand total of $10 investment. vs paying Microsoft $300 for their office suite.
Then there's the operating system, they can easily learn linux or pay someone $.05 to learn it + teach it.. vs buying a $100-$200 windows OS.
The question is, what kinda crack is the MS marketing team smoking?
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
bill gates doesn't care about black people...
U-mmmmm...
Ah! Got it! But if they pay MS for the software, thereby getting a license, then they WILL have the expertise.
How simple! This is the answer to that third step in the process that always has the ellipsis.
FPO
In Africa, free software needs you.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
I rarely defend MS, but this is BS.5 /10/14/news/13474.shtml
Look at this article from a few days ago.http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/200
someone needs to tell Gerald Ilukwe, the general manager of Microsoft Nigeria, that his countrymen have been smart enough to swindle millions from people in the states. i guess the only computer training done there is in 419 101.
Don't know about people at Microsoft, but I trained myself to become quite proficcient with computers. A lot of the best computer experts I've met are largely self taught
they can use ubuntu.
I dont get why bill would say something like that out of one side of his mouth, while giving 100million dollars to prevent aids in the country. I dont think hes really that greedy. I hate to stand up for bill, but hes one of the most responsible billionaires I've ever see.
admin@nonmudnane.com
If you give the computers to the children they will learn it and the perceived difficulty is irrelavent.
When a child is born it understands no language yet learns one. Windows isn't easy for a complete beginner either, inexperienced computer users ask millions of questions about Windows every day.
What? A giant corporation doesn't care about a Africa?!
Phsss. No way! I'm in total disbelief.
I thought all giant first world monoliths have loved that part of the world for thousands of years. Right?
Sure, the "first world" may have accidentally been a tad negligent there a few times. There were the wars, the whole slavery thing, the agricultural exploitation, the strip mining, the occasional horrible foreign disease, the weapon sales, the currency inflation... but now they can't get free software?!.... from Microsoft?!! No *&^%ing way. Unbelievable.
My mind has thus been blown.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
I think I agree with Microsoft here, at least in part. I once had a lecture from an engineer that worked in Africa. He gave numerous examples of where technology was installed to "help" developing countries, but ended up being a liability to them. For example, one country had diesel pumps installed everywhere to supply towns with water. They worked nicely until people realised that they had to keep paying for diesel. And then a few years later they broke down. No one had the expertise to fix the pumps, so they weren't used anymore.
The same applies to computers. The software is a one off cost that anyone could donate. Maintenance is an ongoing cost, and without the expertise to maintain the software, the software becomes a liability. In developing countries it really comes down to the right tool for the job, they don't have the money to waste on failed second rate systems like we do. Right now, giving them software won't help a bit, so the cost is irrelavent. It's not until they have the expertise that the cost of software will matter.
I am an African, and very proudly so. Let's give a few examples: Squid - Written by Africans. Ubuntu Linux - Made by Africans.
According to Microsoft Corporation, people should not be permitted access to the main 'Control Panel' of their 'PC' running 'Windows Desktop Operating System' SOFTWARE PRODUCTS AND SERVICES at all, ever, absolute: "$PACIFIC$"
Before Microsoft black-listed me and started to refuse to accept my calls for Tech Support, one of their phone technicians actually told me that they didn't want users to fiddle with the settings in Control Panel of their own computers without their 'professional' assistance.
For some reason, telling them that I was a hardware integrator with 40 years experience who quit writing code in 1975 because it wasn't my 'thing' didn't help them understand that my equipment was throwing exceptions and their software was buggy all the way into the root boot disk images that I couldn't deal with using the script debugging tools that I had available to me and that the Windows System Self-protection/Self-repair features couldn't repair.
In the world of Bill Gates, GOD of all E-Knowledge vBasics, nobody but the Data Architects and Microsoft Certified Windows System Software Engineers that he has bestowed with his unique ability to hack into a computer, copy basecode pages by the ream and rename them with a special !!00 ETAG(Mobile Alert) and resell the 'PACKAGE' to his 'strategic partners' like Michael Dell, GOD of all TV p
re-set marketing stratagems to bundle in with the designs they have lifted to have repopped for them in Asian factories and marketed from Asian call centers to...well, to type more here would be to rant, wouldn't it?
while you can give people free software or computers, they won't have the expertise to use it.
Yeah! And while you don't give them free software or computer, they'll never have the chance to learn.
I'd its amazing, when you have that kind of money, analysts will prove anything...
As my Dad used to say: There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
I think this is something all slashdot readers can agree with
1. Claim Africa doesn't need free software
2. ???
3. Profit!!
"I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google"
While any kind of technical help would be welcome in the developing world, it is sometimes not required immediately. Handing a starving nomad or the mother of a sick child, a copy of XP is not going to help them in the immediate future.
Kanye hears about this!
I thought we'd grown out of being patronizing towards Africa. "Oh, look, the little black people couldn't possibly get their heads round computers, or voting, so we shouldn't give them either because they won't use it responsibly."
In other news:
Oreo cookies are black AND white!
Politicians accept bribes!
The sun rises in the east!
It's crystal clear that 95% of the people here have not only not been to Africa, but did not even Read The Freakin' Article. Anyway, I have been to Mauritius (island off the coast of Africa) and no, people weren't batting flies off their heads. Developing countries do have a lot of poor people involved in low-wage agriculture struggling to get by, but they also have the beginnings of a professional class, the people who work in offices and run the governments, banks, etc. They all have computers, if not in their desks then in their offices, and those computers run software. But what, as Microsoft says, they do not have is enough people to maintain those computers, hence the lack of expertise it cites. Which brings up a good point that if you gave computers running Linux to people, they would have a very hard time maintaining it, because if the Microsoft expertise isn't there, then the Linux expertise definitely won't be there, because it's rarer. Scarce expertise may push people away from diverse OSs and towards the market leader (Microsoft).
So there's some interesting stuff worth discussing if people bother to RTFA before they post "Bill Gates doesn't care about African people" or whatever all the junk was I had to wade through while I was trying to spend my last mod point.
Tristan Yates
They also said something about the internet, didn't they?
Scott McNealy to Michael: "Suck my Sun!" Michael Dell to Scott : "Lick my Dell!"
People in developing countries are probably better able to pay for software than most of us realise - they're not all starving nomads in the savannah. However, what a developing country really doesn't need is for its economy, industry, government and workforce to be locked into a foreign company's software. RMS's "Free as in speech" argument is at least as applicable and probably even more so when it's applied to a country that doesn't yet have all the normal country-running mechanisms in place.
Oops, did I say worst? I meant worst for Microsoft!
It's hard to understand why people assume that all people in Africa have the same problems and needs. Many of them may need food etc., but others may need computers and software.
See, the world doesn't have to be all MS software.
Look at the car industry for a comparison. Not everyone drives a Ferrari. Precisely _because_ not everyone can afford a Ferrari, and they can't just pirate one, some will go buy a cheaper Ford Fiesta instead.
Or, and here's the most important part: in some of those countries they'll go buy a locally produced car, creating employment and taxes in their own economy. E.g., if a citizen of Russia can't afford a Ferrari, maybe maybe they can afford a locally produced Lada instead. Pretty good cars too, and they're creating employment and taxes in their own country. (Ok, I know Russia not quite a developping country, but it's the only one I know a car brand from, so for this example it will have to do.)
The same applies for other products too. E.g., Via sells a lot of their CPUs in China. If a Chinese family (earning about 1000$ a year) can't afford the latest dual-core Opteron, they'll buy a dirt-cheap C3 instead.
Yet invariably the same countries don't have much of an internal software market (and pretty much no retail boxed software market), because they pirate MS software instead. There's a bunch of jobs which never were created, because everyone downloaded a cracked version of Windows and Office.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
And while, Free (as in Freedom or Independence) is helped along by Free or Open Source Software, open protocols and data formats are the foundations of that. Most importantly open protocols and data formats can allow both open and closed source systems to work together, even an egregious example of the latter as MS.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
"Poor people are not price-sensitive" your BS alarm should go off. Naturally, no company wants to price themselves out of the market, but MS can't sell the same for 300$ in the US and 30$ in Africa, so...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
... that many people here in /. very often show a complete lack of understanding of the African continent.
People may have their stereotypes about the US, but I think roughly are better informed about how the US really is (we would not assume that having computers or access to technology is an imposibility for most USians) than USians are about Africa.
Just check this thread later. The comment "but they need food/medicine/whatever first" will inevitably show up.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Linux can be tailored to work on much lower hardware requirements than Windows.
Look at the $100 laptop project, that is Linux based not Windows.
Nestle's CEO states that "Africa does not need bread and water, but Butterfinger and Nescafe".
You'd be surprised that in a region, West Africa, which produces a hell of lot of coffe and has a coffe culture which is on par with Italian coffe, "coffe" surprisingly often means Nescafé.
In a region where money is scarce and time and coffe beans are plenty, people drink Nescafé. It makes your head spin.
But if you charge them for it instead, then you've gotten a tiny amount of cash, they've lost (~)months of their savings, and they STILL lack the expertise to use it!
Which in my experience, really, is exactly what happens in the first world...
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
...that nobody needs free software. Free software is way too expensive for anyone, and we all need MSCE training courses, the latest versions of Windows, that, really, we should all be good little consumers and buy Windows and STFU.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
Training without infrastrucutre is worth squat.
The initial barrier of entry is the cost of the infrastructure, and nowadays the software (the commercial one I mean) is perhaps the biggest cost of having a working computer.
This is even more true if you consider that you can have preety cutting edge machines from a computational point of view in old hardware with the lastest FLOSS software.
Assuming the cost of training is the same no matter what software you use (I will ignore the wide availability of training, help and advice in the FLOSS world) then at the end all goes down to cost.
If you use second hand hardware (the most likely situation if you are trying to introduce computing in a poor country) then you are only faced with the cost of which software to use.
And this makes it a no brainer, you can get a FLOSS OS, with any kind of application you can think of for $0. Windows (or MacOS, when it shows up for generic x86 boxes) will set you a substantial amount of money.
When you realize that very often the price of one license of WIndows is the equivalent to one month salary of a trianed person in some countries, then the argument of this individual (and by extension yours) collapses like a house of cards.
Why should anybody spend money in commercial software when that money could be better spent in paying for the training you will obviously need?
To say that this guy's argument is stupid, self serving and contradictory in the view of the existence of FLOSS is an obious understament.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
They realise that to expand the market in which to make money, they have to have the people that can take advantage of their software. It's a pity that governments don't take the same approach, given how stagnant the large western economies have been in recent years. Simply put, we improve the lot of the poorer nations, and they'll learn to see what we have to offer, and in turn what they have to offer to us. In the long term, it's a win-win situation.
What they could really use is total access to technology, Africa is one of the most resource rich countries in the world.
There are few reasons to assume if they had access to technical documentation they couldn't develop their own manufacturing and help themselves, even more disturbing is the seeming lack of outside trade, Africa has oil and precious stones which are sold through other countries who pay them a pitance, admittedly the Africans didn't have enough capiltal to start their own industry but if they have access to the technical information at least they'd have an idea of the complexities involved.
Free informtation would be good for progress around the world, it would challenge companies to be original year over year, but the effects on developing countries would me increadible.
.... that charity that is self serving is not really such.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
So how does the cost of a random piece of software relate to the level of expertise required to use it? On a more positive side if Microsoft believes this they wont be supplying free computers and software to developing countries. ( Which is probably a good thing in the long run)
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Please reply through this e-mail address: bensonkabo1962@eudoramail.com
Dear Sir/Madam.
URGENT BUSINESS PROPOSAL.
This letter may come to you as a surprise since it is coming from someone
you have not met before. However, we decided to contact you based on a
satisfactory information we had about the western world, as regards
business information concerning your country and the safety of our funds
in a steady economy such as that of your country compared to our country
Nigeria, Africa. I am Neil Holloway, the president of Microsoft for Europe,
the Middle East and Africa. My close and trusted colleagues
and I need your assistance in the transfer of US$45.5 million into any
reliable Account you may nominate overseas.This fund was generated from
over-invoicing of contracts executed by the Microsoft under our control and
supervision. This fund is now ready to be remitted into any account we put
forward for that purpose.What we want from you is a good and reliable
company or personal account into which we shall transfer this fund.
-- unix is for people without a social life - Patrick van Eijk
...I don't mean to say that I necessarily agree with this guy, but it seems to me that this post shouldn't have been modded down. It's a viewpoint commonly held (and perhaps erroneously, but that's not the point here) by many people. He isn't a troll because he probably didn't post just to cause an argument. IMO, anyway.
As for my own opinion, I don't know. I haven't read up enough to make an informed decision about it. However, since this is about free software, and the whole reason Africa is in poverty is because of the debt owed the country, this can only be a good thing.
It seems to us europeans that africans have better expertise to use computers than north americans.
Preserve old classics: copy your collection onto all hard drives.
Yea but if they bought copies of Windows they still wont have the expertise and training to use that too, and in that case they will be vulnerable to viruses and spyware, until they understand the software. Most Linux distributions are Good enough right now for a person who wants to learn how to use a computer can figure it out in time and it probably will take as long to learn linux then it will take to learn windows if you are starting from an empty plate. But in many of the poorer African countries $100 for a windows license can go real far for something more useful. Like food for a year.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I bet the next generation of African mechanics already spend their days under the bonnet of any car they can get access to. These are the people who will own small mechanics business in tomorrow's Africa. Tough luck if your car is a Microsoft car with the bonnet welded shut.
Not so uncommonly, when a Western European car owner he thinks his car is going to be scrapped it is shipped and resold in Africa. Going to Africa will redefine your notion of when a car is through.
All that is bound to change with modern cars which are not easily serviceable by their owners, where the bonnet is essentially welded shut, as you say. (But on the other hand, the World's current supply of user serviceable cars is perhaps enough to keep Africa rolling for the next decade, I don't know)
FTA: "It's not about the cost of the software, it's about how you take your expertise to people. We are sharing our expertise, particularly with governments in emerging markets. Cost is not the barrier here -- expertise is . . . ."
See? M$ just wants to share its expertise. You sure wouldn't want to give a ten year old access to a computer. No sir. That ten year old doesn't have any expertise.
People need structure.
Make love, not reality television.
You can't continue punishing people for mistakes they haven't commited forever.
Indeed, couldn't have put it better myself. In fact the attitude of ongoing national punishment led directly and in no uncertain terms to world war two, just google for the treaty of Versailles and the Weimar republic.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
No, Americans do not think that all Africans are running around in grass skirts. But, we do recognize the serious issues of war, disease, porverty, and totaltarianism, that exist in Africa. And, yes, Virgina, it's much worse than the USA.
Msft is scared to death of free software catching on in developing nations. The reason that msft is so scared, is that it really would make sense for developing nations to adopt free software - get started on the right foot.
I'd say a lot of people here in the USA are too retarded to be given computers.
But they do know how to use the tools when they are available. The biggest thing over there - and the one thing every African knows how to use - is the windows based computers at the internet cafes in the larger cities. People walk days just to use them. Saying that they do not have the knowledge to use computers is not only an insult to them and a racist comment in itself, but completely goes against the standing facts that keep Spam filters against Nigerian - yes Nigeria is in Africa - Spam from hitting your inbox.
i a.crime.reut/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/10/19/niger
Spammers face jail in Nigeria
Wednesday, October 19, 2005; Posted: 9:47 a.m. EDT (13:47 GMT)
ABUJA, Nigeria (Reuters) -- Nigeria, home to some of the world's most notorious cyber crimes, has proposed a law making spamming a criminal offence for which senders of unsolicited e-mails could be jailed for at least three years.
The draft law identifies the use of computers for fraud, spamming, identity theft, child pornography and terrorism as criminal offences punishable by jail terms of between six months and five years, and fines of 10,000 naira ($77) to 1 million naira ($7,700).
Under the bill, which has to be approved by the National Assembly to become law, convicted spammers face jail terms of three to five years and could also be made to hand the proceeds of crime to the government.
"Any person spamming electronic messages to recipients with whom he has no previous relationship commits an offence," said a section of the draft law obtained by Reuters on Wednesday.
Under the proposed law, service providers who aid and abet cyber crimes and fail to cooperate with law enforcement agents could be fined between 500,000 and 10 million naira.
The draft law empowers law enforcement agents to enter and search any premises or computer and arrest any person in connection with an offence.
The advance fee e-mail scam, known as "419" after the relevant section of the Nigerian Criminal Code, is a computer age version of a con game dating back hundreds of years and is sometimes called "The Spanish Prisoner."
Typically spammers send millions of unsolicited e-mails around the world promising recipients a share in a fortune in return for an advance fee. Those who pay wait in vain for the promised windfall.
President Olusegun Obasanjo has been keen to clean Nigeria's image as a country of spammers and one of the world's most corrupt nations since he was elected in 1999, ending 15 years of military rule in Africa's to oil producer.
He set up the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in 2003 to crack down on e-mail fraudsters who had elevated scamming to one of the country's main foreign exchange earners after oil, natural gas and cocoa, according to campaigners.
The anti-fraud agency is investigating hundreds of suspects and prosecuting over 50 cases involving about 100 suspects.
The agency got its first major conviction in July when a court sentenced a woman whose late husband masterminded the swindling of $242 million from Brazilian Banco Noroeste S.A. between 1995 and 1998, one of the world's biggest e-mail scams.
The agency signed a deal with Microsoft last week to help fight spamming, phishing, spyware, viruses and counterfeiting.
Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
To start, I’m African, in fact a Nigerian. To say Africa does not need open source or lacks the necessary expertise to support opensource or other licensed platforms, is a total MISCONCEPTION. I'm also disappointed @ Gerald Ilukwe, the general manager of Microsoft Nigeria claims. I have worked as a freelancer programer both in the grassroots and the corporate level, and I can tell all not to be misconstrued by the "poverty commercials".
There are people, i mean professionals, who can match up. So much development has been happening here in Nigeria, Much of the business processes these days are computer streamlined and backup by either local and Open source software.
Almost all web applications used in Nigeria are developed locally. Almost all customised software, including Opensourced is developed locally, so what’s Microsoft’s problem?
Africans are survivors. African can survive and would do anything to survive. We do not have Natural Disasters like the west; all we have is Human disasters. The Govts have been criminal these years past, leaving Africa impoverished.
The poverty level is high, but that’s stale news. Most Nigerians have put that (poverty issue) behind them, in a bid move on. So they result to different mediums like software piracy (Apart from Spam and scam mailing, Nigeria is a den of software piracy), spamming using advance-fee fraud and so and so.
Would you say that someone who knows how to hack and crack a piece of software with a long list, and someone who goes to buy this software knowing its use the implications and how to bypass it, IT Illiterate?
Or would you categorise some one who knows how to cook-up a good story, sniff out a looooooooong email list and start a criminal spamming business as illiterate?
In the wake of the millennium, SPAM was king here in Nigeria (This has dropped drastically, as govt is out with different schemes as a crackdown). In those days when there where no Law enforcements, you would see young people, aged 16, 17, in their teens sending spam mails in cybercafés. a lot of them.
I am not saying these criminal activities are justifiable, but does Microsoft expect Nigerians to buy software with their entire monthly salary? Microsoft claims to be supportive through NEPAD; I’m sorry, i disagree! Microsoft Makes a lot of money from direct sales to corporate office in Nigeria (NO WONDER THEY ONLY OPENED A SALES OFFICE IN NIGERIA NOT EVEN ONE FOR SUPPORT), they also have anti-piracy networks and other surveillance systems. They make Money from their sale of software! A lot of it. So for them its all about more sales!
The grassroots are not affected in anyway! How many people can claim they benefited from Microsoft generous offers? Rather people scramble for pirated windows software that they can afford, scramble for junk computers and IT components gladly donated by the west at a price or buy IT components all brought in from Taiwan. Let microsuck make these softwares affordable and people would buy!Let them get involved in grassroots support, projects, and people would appreciate them.
The openSource Cloud here is enormous for example close to 80% of cybercafes in Nigeria use LINUX boxes for their routers. If Microsoft says they want to keep their pitch, let them go ahead, the open source is an alternative with a lot of local support.
According to me, while you can let people buy MS software or computers, they won't have the expertise to use it.
And why do you think you are as smart as I am?
I've never met a single American who thought that. I think you're misquoting (or have heard misquoted) polls that said half of Americans believe that Saddam has had ties to terrorism.
The only reason that number wasn't 100% is because most Americans don't know Saddam's history. Look at what he was doing in 1959 and tell me he probably did not still have strong terrorist ties.
Please do not listen to Microsoft's fud - and do not use their software. Go with Linux. I prefer Ubuntu but that is your choice as to what distribution to use.
Microsoft is a convicted monopolists that locks their competition out in the name of innovation. Linux is free and gives you the chance to really learn how to do computers right. Not wrong like Microsoft.
Please do not think that Microsoft represents America and that is all we use here. There are millions here who use Linux and live without Microsoft everyday. You do not need Microsoft and do not let them tell you you do. They spend millions in marketing and lies so do not believe their hype. They make crooked deals with vendors in the U.S. so the only OS we can buy with our computers is Windows. This still does not deter millions who use Linux everyday and have no need for Windows.
So please do not buy Windows or their FUD (Fear Uncertaninty and Doubt). You can and will more than make do with Linux. So please choose Linux and you will never regret it.
Bill Gates doesn't care about African people, or US people, or Europiens or anyone who is not whole heartedly feeding his corporate empire. I wasn't aware that this was still an argument.
"article is about lack of expertise"
The article is pointless. Building a countries infrastructure on proprietary software is dumb enough. Building a country on another countries proprietary software is national suicide. Witness just about the entire worlds realization of this as they invest heavily in Linux localization and application development. Whats right for the first world isn't appariently right for the so called third world?
The lack of expertise argument is one that could be solved very easily if Bill Gates simply donated a few million to educating people in Africa about OSS. But then Bill really doesn't give a scandisk about people now, does he?
Kind Regards
"A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
Contrast withe US and other Markets where MS believes that yes you can give away free MS Software to unexperienced uses such as in USA, INdina, and etc?? MS BOLD FACE LYING AGIAIN
Fred Grott(aka shareme) http://mobilebytes.wordpress.com
Sure, poor nations don't need to spend a lot on software, but they sure as hell don't have a pool of talented administrators that can handle Unix. Outsourcing high-tech jobs is political suicide for poor countries, so they need people that can run their systems. I don't think that anybody here would dispute the fact that windows administrators can be trained faster, starting with less experience than unix admins.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
They changed the article, the original is here:
Microsoft Thinks Microsoft Doesn't Need Africa
---
"Microsoft has claimed the cost of software is an important issue in the developing world. According to MS, while you can offer people expensive software or computers, they won't have money to buy it. It's clear that Africa is not profitable area for Microsoft so we are not going to expand there."
Well, I've got to get back to work. When I stop rowing, the slave ship just goes in circles.
Billy can go on and think that. I'm far from a fan of Ubuntu, but even Ubuntu could teach Microsoft 101 things about how to make software. Africans should do a similar study to see if anybody in Redmond can understand software on *their* level.
GNU/Linux used to promote internet use in Namibian schools. There is a link to a pretty cool informational comic at the top left.
http://www.schoolnet.na/
This is the grassroots people based rollouts, that are making a difference right now. Similar to Extremadura and Brazil among others.
So Free Software and openness is the new way for clear communication around the world. However some are still working to maintian the closed old ways:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg
roll on the Free future
Cost of software is not an important issue in the developing world because you will hardly find any legal copy of Windows there...
While I'm willing to slag MS on Windows Vista, beating down the little guy, etc... One area I will give Mr. Gates his due is in the donating department. He's perhaps the greatest philanthropist of our time!! When was the last time YOUR Fortune 500 CEO gave $100 Million to fight HIV.o hn_Chambers.php
I don't think the head of Cisco Systems (for one example of a really really un-poor person) has given nearly that much (unless it's in soft money):
http://www.newsmeat.com/ceo_political_donations/J
~jennifer.k~
Typical Microsoft banter...
"Umm... nothing to see here.... move along..."
When I was young, my parents bought me my first computer and when we set it up, it was truly the first time I had ever sat down in front of one. With no instruction, I learned. Look at me now! I can do all sorts of tasks, like post of slashdot, that Microsoft would be shocked to see me do. I've even been known to dabble in some of the more advanced computer tasks, such as check email and instant message. Maybe I'm an anomoly, or it's a miracle, but I'm thinking some Africans could pick it up just as quickly as anybody else.
Finance tutorials and more! Understandfinance
Comment removed based on user account deletion
....but if you don't get them computers they can afford (IE, very cheap and/or free), then they will never be able to DEVELOP the expertise to use them. Its all circular - you can't learn to use something you don't have access to, and you can't use something that you've never learned how to use.
I like how the same people accusing Western civilization of generalizing a remote continent as educationally inept are themselves generalizing the education of Western civilization as inept. ...kinda like the pot calling the kettle black.
-1 flamebait
-1 troll
etc.
People need to worry about the AIDS, hunger, and other related medical problems before anyone worries about whether they should use OSS or commercial software.
Free software does nothing to help a starving family or a child turned into an orphan because of AIDS.
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An no, I don't want to give you money from my former prince/master/dictator whatever. I'm South African, I haven't lived in SA for over 15 years, but I was an IBM mainframe operator there in the 80's and I still visit regularly and have family and friends there. The plus side of the racist white minority rule in SA is that the country got the best infrastructure in Africa, which it still has except that the current government caters to more than a small white minority and thus has other pressing problems as well to deal with.
South Africa is the original home of Mark Shuttleworth and his foundation Ubuntu has an ongoing task in South Africa to teach and install Ubuntu in schools (Hint to Microsoft: It's one fuck of a lot cheaper than a Windows solution). I chat regularly with my mom down there who has a Windows PC. South Africa's biggest problem is a monopoly telecommunication company that refuses to allow competition or lower prices on internet access, thus ensuring some of the highest access prices in the world.
However, if you go accross the border to the north, in Zimbabwe, which is in total financial ruin with an autocratic president who hates whites and the blames everyone but himself for the crap that is going on there, you'll find an infrastructure that was similarly built up by the original white minority government, but one that has almost no new investment since Mugabe came to power ensuring that growth in the IT sector there is non existent.
And that is the case all over Africa, you have some countries which have fairly decent political systems, such as South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, etc and you have others which are either run by despotic tyrants, plagued by tribal warfare or thoroughly corrupt or a mixture of these.
In those countries where there is a semi decent system, the education is usually quite good. In those which are chaotic the people are lucky if they can read or write and those who do know the internet, know it usually from an internet cafe.
Linux has advantages due to its flexibility and low price. Claiming that teaching people Microsoft is better because there are more Microsoft trained people is only true if there really are trained Microsoft people around. Usually, the level of trained Microsoft people doesn't reach the level of even an MCSE, since we all know what an MCSE POS costs, so that advantage is null. Training people from scratch with Linux is in my opinion better since a basic grasp of Linux will enable someone to manage in extremely difficult circumstances where hardware and other constraints would make it extremely difficult to keep a system running with Windows.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-09-06 -poll-iraq_x.htm
That'll be 1000$ shipping costs and enjoy this PC XT we cant egonomicaly dispose of. Look at the free software :D
"Don't forget that Africa had less than a tenth of the population about 100 years ago."
Assuming that's true, there's no way that it's because contraceptive use has decreased.
Just put Africa back how it was.
We need to get agricultural production back down to pre-industrial levels.
AIDS isn't good enough because it's too selective. We've got to get malaria, etc. back up to the proper levels.
Intertribal warfare is doing alright in some areas, but it needs to be more widespread.
Sacrasm aside:
There are two main differences between the opression indigenous populations around the world by modern Europeans and the oppression by indigenous populations of other indigenous peoples.
1. The Europeans have proven more militarily and ecomonically powerful, and so came out ahead in all their wars of subjugation.
2. The Europeans were often not as thourough. Many indigenous populations still exist, and are allowed to complain without death being a direct result.
Disclaimer: Bad behaviour on somone else's part is not a valid excuse for bad behaviour on my part (or yours).
Note: I'm sure that someone will construe this post as defending the oppressive behaviour of some group(s), which it's not.
Damn right. That expertise is the critical factor; you can't do squat with computers without high-priced training and consultants.
That's why Bill Gates' recognized expertise, formal training, and extensive hands-on experience with the Altair the critical factor that made his implementation of BASIC such a success.
In the same way, his vast experience with OS development was the critical factor to IBM selecting him to produce MS-DOS 1.0 as the OS for the IBM PC.
And that's just how it happened. Bill Gates says so, so it must be true.
[insert loud, long raspberry here]
Why should anybody spend money in commercial software when that money could be better spent in paying for the training you will obviously need?
I'll remember to ask my friends and relatives this question the next time one of them asks me to fix a Windows box.
There are 110 types of people in the world - those who grok negabin and those who don't
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There are many issues to be worked out here. I was on the main road across the country last week, however it was tortuously rough pavement with car-eating potholes.
There is a huge unemployed population here. Most businesses employ more people than they need. You go to the greengrocers in the city and someone will push your cart, select the best produce, and carry your bags to your car -- for the quarter tip you give them -- which is likely what they work for.
The two people we employ in our house went through 8th grade(standard primary school), speak at least three languages, read what they can (although a newspaper costs an hour's wages). We pay them a pittance by North American standards, but they work well and happily and are glad to be employed.
A friend has set up one computer center to help give some kids a leg up in the job world. He has funding for 9 more, but construction is going a bit slow. The school it is at has no water or electricity. The center is solar powered for 10 laptops, and the kids are thrilled to have a chance to learn.
Does Linux make sense? Absolutely! Why should Kenya be paying the US for something that it can get for free? Is my friend using Linux? No. I couldn't convince him to do that, he worked for Compaq and Oracle and believes that windows is the future.
On the other hand I was given a new Linux mailserver to administer this week and there is certainly some expertise in the country to use is, I just wish education of Linux could be more widespread.
Oh, and I'm on a 256kb connection for about 1000 users. We are doing some testing with VSAT connections, but politics and Kenyan procurement seems to stretch things for weeks and months.
Michael
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Being from Africa (South Africa to be precise) I feel compelled to add some perspective. South Africa is considered to be the most advanced country on the continent and we have access to all Microsoft products.
There is a Microsoft regional office here that provides training and seminars. We even have a launch event scheduled for VS 2005. The point is we have most infrastrcuture in place.
The biggest problem that is holding us and other African countries back is internet connection speed and connectivity in general. Even here in technologically advanced South Africa ADSL is ridiculously expensive. Currently a 512k connection costs roughly the equivalent of $100/month plus the line is capped at 3GB.
Getting to online training sessions and even just MSDN is a major problem for most rural communities that still use modem connections since our main telecomunnications provider (Telkom) http://www.telkom.co.za/ also charges per minute for phone calls.
I think to help with training and advance Africa a better option would be to help local telecommunication companies reduce costs so that internet connections can become cheaper.
This sort of idea seems to turn up a lot in Africa - too many people making the wrong gestures instead of worrying about more serious problems like malnutrition, AIDS, and genocide. It's a shame we can't get some of the great business leaders of the tech world to focus on African relief. If we could get leaders like Bill Gates and Larry Ellison in there working on things they might be able to do a much better job than all the whiny bureacrats who won't stop genocide in Sudan because they're afraid of offending Chinese arms dealers.
Also for those of you that RTFA, did anyone stop to think that maybe Gerald Ilukwe, the general manager of Microsoft Nigeria would know more about needs in Africa than your run of the mill Slashdot user?
Just try to analyze the whole situation before you cast of Microsoft as the evil one here. Also for those of you really interested in computing in 3rd world countries, I do enjoy reading about this invention from MIT
Be sure to remember the Programmers Prayer
...maybe then it will be Africa's turn.
Where else will China outsource its manufacturing?
Your a "boomer," aren't you? Looking for some excuse for a little personal debt relief? There's this concept called bankruptcy: when your debt gets to the point you can't pay it back, you can declare bankruptcy. This is better for society, as it keeps people from sinking into abject poverty. Keeping people from sinking into abject poverty is a societal good, as it keeps society stable.
IMHO, give it twenty years and the US will be the one screaming for debt relief, at least if the current crop of borrow and spend Republicans get their way.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I mean, if people have been doing it forever, it's natural, and it must be okay, right? After all, we can't change anything about our nature.
Honestly, people aren't infinitely perfectable, but we can change. People can be taught to look out for their long term interests, delay gratification, and not give in to short sighted desires. But I guess it's "cool" to be cynical about human nature. It's an attitude that can excuse a whole lot of inaction. "ah, fuggedabout it, that's just how humans are. Nothing we can do, you know?"
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Africa doesn't need their free software
In other news, Microsoft claims nobody needs free software, and that they are offering a bundle package combining Windows Vista and Office 12 for the price of a small air-conditioned car.
Obvious Man Says: Microsoft claims someone does not need free software, and adds in a quip about the end user's lack of experience neccessary to use it anyway. If the salvation army or goodwill was saying this, I'd understand the confusion, but this is Microsoft. The company that ignores web standards that make it easier for blind people to view the web.
While microsoft has some good and functional software, they have always been known for having the worst business tactics, so I don't see the impact of their statment reguarding Africa. Africa is much smarter and better off than we think they are (they still have problems, like most countries, but they aren't in the dark ages like National Geographic portrays them as during Sunday afternoon specials). In fact, they would probably choose Open Source solutions over Microsoft if they needed free software, and maybe MSFT doesn't feel threatened by that. Arrogance breeds ignorance, and Bill has the biggest head I've ever seen.
"Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed." -C.S. Lewis
The MS claims are complete bs as I recall reading a research article in which computer terminals were placed on the streets in the poorest neighborhoods in India. People were mostly illiterate and had no knowledge of English, or any previous PC experience. Within days the kids in the neighborhood had figured out how to work with the mouse, open programs (MS Paint springs to mind) and do other "fun" things.
PS: If anyone remembers this article and has seen it online I'd appreciate them posting the link.
In Africa, like much of the world, Microsoft products are free. You call up your cousin Julia, who is more than happy to burn you a CD, or you go to the town market where you can buy Windows XP Pro for $1.25 US on a CD or you go to the internet cafe where they will sell you a XP Pro CD for $1.25.
You can get Adobe photoshop for $1.25 too!
The only people in third world countries who pay for Microsoft products are government bueracracies who's managers have a cousin who is the Microsoft rep for that country.
In the third world, Microsoft and Linux compete toe to toe in the same market, freeware!
> Microsoft has claimed the cost of software is not an important issue
> in the developing world.
This is true, but Microsoft's reason ("they won't have the expertise") is irrelevant. If they have computers, they'll develop the ability to use them (for the few hours a day when they have power). The real reason software licensing costs are a non-issue in the developing world is because copyright law is (viewed as) a non-issue there. They think nothing of installing one OEM copy of Windows 98 on every computer they can get their hands on. Any phone-home stuff Microsoft might build in doesn't make any difference either, in a world where getting to a phone line means an all-day journey to the city.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Your are incorrect, but the reasons are complex. First of all, many countries are able to feed their people. Lets ignore them though, and focus on the rest.
In some cases, those who are unable to feed the people are in areas where the government is intentionally starving people. Sending food will result in a photo-op of some starving person (perhaps a few hundred so the photo looks like masses are eating) eating that food on the docks. Then the reporters will leave, and guards will force everyone away from the food, while it rots on the docks.
In the other areas, good is being given to them. This means the farmers who do grow plenty of food, have to compete with free food! They of course can't do this at a profit. They have enough food for themselves, but are unable to sell any food to pay their taxes, so the government takes their land, thus compounding the problem of starving people!
Note that the second may lead into the first.
Thus the best way to encourage Africa is to make sure developed countries use all their food, and have demand for more. (but be careful that the governments don't go the opposite way, starve their people to export food)
Therefore I run ethanol in my car (I don't have a diesel, but bio-diesel would be good as well). It may not be energy positive (though I believe the studies that make that claim are flawed), but it does use local food supplies. If more people would do this, it would create world demands for more food production, and Africa is one place where plenty could be gained in food production, which would lift their people.
You only have to look at some of our achievements to see how misled the average westener is. Ask yourself these questions: Who was the *second* space tourist (and the first to perform actual useful scientific experiments for the kids in Africa)? Who developed the safest nuclear reactor (the pepple-bed reactor) in the world? Who pioneered and actively uses a process to generate fuel for card from coal? Who has developed the technology to create the deepest mines in the world? These are but a few of the many things coming out of Africa.
Africa has the most beautiful landscapes in the world, not to mention rich vistas of animal life. We receive 1000's of tourists that come to see real african elephants, lions, rhinoceros, etc. The western world has to come here for that experience.
Africa has many well-established, modern cellular networks that operate on a single standard (the GSM standard) in just about all the african countries. South Africa alone has 43 million people of which more than 20 million have cellphones. Does this sound like the "starving kids" picture you get fed by the media every day?
Countries like South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia, Uganda have stable and growing economies. There are sore thumbs to the picture, but they remain thumbs, and they will be sorted out by the rest of the body that is Africa. If the west would stop meddling in African affairs, the corruption level would be a lot lower, since there wouldn't be any bribary money to throw around.
More on topic: if Microsoft thinks that Africans don't know how to operate OSs and software, they (MS) have another thing coming. If they don't want to market and make money here, there will be 100's of millions of Africans growing up with Linux, learning to rather work with Linux (or any other manufacturer that bothers to market their stuff here). I agree with another poster in the thread.. MS's assumption is simply racist.
Africa is certainly not utopia, but it's not nearly as backwater as people are led to believe either. Let's rather say it has healthy diversity :-)
Tell that to the Nigerian scammers!
(8-DCS)
Not that someone high up at Microsoft appears to be an ignorant racist.
Ignorance and racism are never good.
But at least the African people may avoid a certain economic slavery that will inevitably follow having Microsoft own their computing infrastructure.
thats pretty ignorant... I mean... why give a kid a microsoft computer? after all .... he/she won't know how to use it...
so... why not give them a bunch of mac minis w/darwin and xfree86 or full out OS X... or.... a PIII of some sort w/ubuntu linux on it.... thats super friendly... people who live near me sit down to use it and like it, in most cases they have only vaugly heard of leeenux...
and no... to whoever said sarcastically that this'll fix every problem in africa... or anyplace else for that matter. no it won't, but it will help students get access to ebooks, wikipedia.... university websites.... having a win xp computer won't stop you from stepping on a landmine, but it might help teach a student to learn to read, help them to learn mathamatics/physics and eventually inspire change...
DeLay's corrupt fundraising is what has kept many marginal Republicans competitive for their Senate and House seats, enabling Republican majorities that have stopped hearings over the the Bush administrations war "mismanagement". (That's the politest word I can use.)
Hundreds of thousands of people are estimated dead, tens of thousands, maimed, blinded, or amputeed because of this war of choice, founded on untruths and manipulation. And you're trying to tell me that no one died because of American corruption?!
It is amazing that anyone has the balls to think that software is so fucking great it is going to solve the all problems in the world.
I've always said this about the Palestine conflict... If you were to give every single Palestinian young male a playstation then they'd be less likley to become a suicide bomber.
Why?
Because as a teen you don't have anything else to do in a poverty stricken nation and no way to let your aggression out in a society who is very repressive towards sexuality and other issues.
Sure, what they really need is land and jobs and freedom, but if they can't have that then maybe they need something to better occupy their time.
Let me tell you this... If we spend on a Trillion dollars worth of food and aid for africa is won't solve a damn thing.
We need to build their economies and infrastructure. They need factories and roads and water systems and power plants. They need TVs, air conditioning, and other things to make them enjoy life as much as possible.
The Soviet Union didn't collapse because its people weren't well fed and had jobs... It collapsed because its people wanted the nice things found in the west. They wanted rock and roll cds, cars, tvs, and blue jeans!
I hope this doesn't sound crass... But people want more than food and standard living conditions... (Which of course everyone should have)
They want to do something with their life.
Even if it is just wasting their time with trvial things... This is why free technology and free software will help them.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
> DIY News writes "Microsoft has claimed the cost of software is not an important issue in the developing world. According to MS, while you can give people free software or computers, they won't have the expertise to use it."
Sort of link in India and China. They don't have expertise but they are cheap. So don't give them software, let them write it and ensure that there will no longer be any American and or European programmers.
This is the third article on Microsoft today...Regardless of if we like or hate it, this company is THE one to beat...Hope some day, a linux company can also become this strong. I don't see in current trends but nothing wrong in hoping!!
I hate the way Africans are portrayed on the Western media. Tom Delay gets convicted of "campaign finance irregularties" [...]
I hate the way Republicans get portrayed in the Western media, too.
In case you hadn't noticed, Delay hasn't been convicted of ANYTHING. He has been Indicted. (That means he convinced a grand jury that there might be enough evidence to justify actually holding a trial.)
If being indicted means he's guilty, it means Clinton was guilty when he was impeached by the House (the equivalent at that level) and they didn't need to hold the trial in the Senate that acquitted him. It also means you're guilty of anything the traffic cop says you did once he writes that ticket.
Delay was forced to step down by Republican party rules that won't let someone under indictment for a felony hold a leadership position. (If Democrats had had a similar rule for Presidents, Clinton would have had to resign and let Gore run the country when he was impeached.)
Delay's indictment was driven by a prosecutor who has a long track record of using his office to prosecute his political opponents in either party. Who had to go to multiple grand juries before he could find one that would actually indict. And who then had to go get ANOTHER indictment after it was discovered that the stuff he CLAIMED Delay did WASN'T A CRIME at the time he claimed he did it.
Meanwhile, the Western Media continues pushing their own propaganda templates: All (not just some) African leaders are corrupt. All Republicans are crooks/racists/male chauvanists. All users of peer-to-peer tools are thieves. All hackers are crackers/pirates/vandals. All rural/southern people are booze-swilling, negro-lynching, low IQ "good old boys". All legal gunowners are foaming-at-the-mouth rambos. All violent felons are just misunderstood kids who had a hard childhood. All US citizens refuse to do the jobs they USED to do for decent wages in now-long-gone unionts that "undocumented immigrants" now do for less than the minimum wage contractors are ALLOWED to pay someone who has a paper trail. And so on.
They use these templates because they sway minds and advance their political agenda. Look how they swayed your mind: You thought Delay was convicted and that his behavior was typical of Republican politicians, didn't you?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
i think i'm the only one....all it was saying is that Microsoft believes that training on the system will help more than just giving it to them, which is why they believe open source isn't as good because nobody is there showing them how to use the systems......so, since Microsoft is there helping...then they are better.....
that quote was taken totally out of context and I think that they are right, sure there will be a few who can pick up the open source stuff on their own but nothing compares to hands on training by a professional
Man, I wish my uncle had put up his journals about bringing computers to Africa. He and his partner Donna have spent the past several years collecting unwanted machines (exclusively Macs, since that's what he knows) to bring to South Africa and distribute to schools. He spends a great deal of his time and money collecting and fixing machines, configuring them, shipping them, and then teaching the educators there how to use them. He has written regular emails to freinds and family about his adventures that are riviting, inspiring and sad.
It is a noble effort, but it is a terrifically uphill battle that often ends in disappointment. In this case the cost of the computers is completely free -- but the social structures there just don't make things work. The government is so restrictive it's difficult to get them into the country in the first place. Transporting them results in unofficial payoffs to alleged "inspectors" who will stop transports on quiet roads and threaten to sieze the goods. Once in the schools, few peole know how to make the most of them, and allegedly trustworthy people (teachers and administrators) have been known to steal computers -- not to use them (since they often don't know how) but simply as a status symbol to keep on their desk.
I can't do the adventures justice, but suffice it to say that the cost of software is the least of the problems in Africa, even if we're limiting ourselves just to the discussion of computer usage.
That said, I think it's great work that does touch many people there, opening to them possibilities they would not otherwise be aware of. It is a rough environment for those rare gems, but worth it.
Cheers.
Africa going M$ or Linux .
Linux is free in the way of money .
Training for M$ in the developed world costs money, the ONLY reason they are offering it
for free in Africa is because they want to prevent total linux dominance of an entire
continent .
"Just my opinion"
Ballmer ranting about killing google, and the halloween memo speak to their truth in
their heart of hearts .
I think some cheaply made, easy to copy VHS tapes, DVD's, Cd's and any other format in
the native tongue would go a long way to helping adoption of Linux in Africa .
Feed it via ISO's on bit torrent and share it out to help them out .
Contact the current African Linux user base and ask them what it would take to get the
message to the ppl about the truth of M$ and Linux, and all that has come to pass .
M$ business practices on the past just make this look like a drug dealer handing out
free samples while hiding their long term intent .
And by the way, I am an american .
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Interesting, how insightful of Mr Gates. How borderline racist.
He says that they people of Africa wouldn't have the expertise to use the computers and software? That sounds alot like the old standby "you dont have enough experience" often heard when applying for a job. How is one supposed to gain the expertise with software and computers if they dont have them.
ITs a shame to see one of the biggest success stories of modern times act like such an ass.
Nuff said...
--- I was far from home, and the spell of the Eastern sea was upon me. -Lovecraft-
Other debates aside, what do they need Windows for? Windows comes with practically nothing. 'Course, if they have an internet connection they can download free and open source software - and run into all the pitfalls of spyware and viruses like every other Windows-user in the world has. And many, if not most, would not even have an itnernet connection at all.
Even the most minimalist Linux distro like Damn Small has more software bundled with it than any included with Windows. Consider one of the newbie-friendly distros like Xandros, Mandriva, etc. What all do you get with that? Office software, multimedia, games, system tools and more. Without thrid-party software on Windows, you can.... play solitaire. Not much else.
'Course, these distros are better with an internet connection than without; you can download updates and add-ons. But it really only requires one person to ahve an itnernet connection (even if temporarily) and cd-burning supplies.
Yes, I happen to like Linux. But I'm not trying to push Linux here because I like it. I was poor (still am) when I got my first computer, which came with Windows. I quickly concluded that it was worthless without other software to run on it. Now imagine that situration witout an internet connection.
In conclusion, the poor anywhere in the world, let alone Africa, don't need Windows. They need free and freely distributable software. And, not being computer experts, they need for it to be relatively easy to learn. Right now, unless I'm mistaken, certain distros of Linux fit the bill best.
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
In many cases, what they need is food, clean drinking water, and shelter.
And condoms, too. Otherwise they will need more "food, clean drinking water, and shelter" tomorrow.
Parent is right, you don't need high technology to be competitive in global agricultural markets. Because of exchange rates, in most parts of Africa, they can produce more cotton, for example, per dollar input, than American farmers using complex machinery. The only reason we have so many American farmers when Africans can do it cheaper is because of big agricultural subsidies. If we would just end them, individual Africans (not corrupt dictators) would get a huge infusion of cash from their crops. (source: some game at libertyarcade.org, but I'm sure you can verify that elsewhere)
::rolls eyes::
So why do we are we subsidizing Africans out of business, when they can compete perfectly fine on their own? Oh, that's right: because if we didn't subsidize American farmers, we'd run out of crops.
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
"According to MS, while you can give people free software or computers, they won't have the expertise to use it."
But labor is dirt cheap, so training people to administer free software, even if it's more difficult to administer, should be cost effective, and still save you money.
Vote for Pedro
The Germans have never successfully managed a genocide - unlike the North Americans!
Define "successful" genocide. The North Americans had diseases on their side (Spanish germs killed more than Spanish steel), and even then took several hundred years to wipe out the local natives--and they didn't do a very good job of it, as they're manifestly still around. The survival rate of Jews in Poland through the Holocaust was roughly one in ten. The Germans may have lost the war, but they were certainly successful in their genocide.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I hope this doesn't sound crass... But people want more than food and standard living conditions... (Which of course everyone should have)
When people refer to the poor in Africa, they don't refer to the people who live in the Projects and eat dog food; they refer to the people who live nowhere and eat nothing and starve to death. I agree with your point about preoccupatory distractions (kind of), but it's more important to accomodate necessities for the starving than to provide luxuries for the impoverished. There is no base standard of living in most African countries to raise; one must be established first before they try to improve it. Free software and access to information is noble and highly beneficial, but the core necessities of life must first be available.
As for your point regarding Playstations and Palestinians, I'm not sure I agree. Sure, the restlessness and sexual/religious-oppression frustrations will eventually manifest into violence, but distracting a few potential suicide bombers will not make the problem go away. They have to understand why their ideologies need a little revision in order to make any significant change in the situation.
Sure, what they really need is land and jobs and freedom, but if they can't have that then maybe they need something to better occupy their time.
This I disagree with entirely. These are human beings; I think it's rather dehumanizing to say that, "well, barring freedom and the other cornerstones for civilization, as least they'll be distracted." I would say it's our duty as a human race to fight for them and help them get land and jobs and freedom.
Slashdot: News for nerds. Stuff tha-- MICRO$OFT IS THE DEVIL!!1
...to distinguish "funny" from everthing else on the list.
Probably the same way people did it before big tractors, harvesters, and bio technology. With animals, long hours, and lots of hard, hard work. That isn't to say that a little technology wouldn't help the situation though, just that it's doable without.
"According to MS, while you can give people software or computers, they won't have the expertise to use it." And how do the people get expertise in Windows? MS is assuming the Africans already know how to use Windows...
Translation: Microsoft doesn't THINK they need it. Then again, they also thought 64kb of RAM should be enough for anyone. Wait, wasn't that Bill? Ah well, same difference.
It's never just a game when you're winning. - George Carlin
This I disagree with entirely. These are human beings; I think it's rather dehumanizing to say that, "well, barring freedom and the other cornerstones for civilization, as least they'll be distracted." I would say it's our duty as a human race to fight for them and help them get land and jobs and freedom.
I know. I didn't mean to across like that. I think what I was trying to say if I personally had a choice between being opressed and not having technology and still be oppressed with ability to use technology to distract myself I would choose the latter.
That is a futile outlook on life, but sometimes we have no control over what we are given, but I believe it is technology that makes life better even if it does nothing more than keep you connected to the rest of the world.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
No what Afrika, and most of the world needs is a big ol bitchslap. Computers are a tool. Software is also a tool. Last time I heard some countries in Afrika are doing quite well, like a small one named Egypt-I don't think anyones heard of it. Parts of Iran and Irag were as of 4 months ago located their, and the *stans were their as well (with the constantly changing borders I don't know if that's true still.) However my point is: Geez people just give the world a big old bitchslap first.
We've been saying this for hundreds of years. If it doesn't have wheels, make noise, or look shiny, Blacks don't need it.
I thought Windows, OS X, Linux GUIs were supposed to be intuative. You don't really need much training to know how to work a word processor. Isn't Microsoft striving for usability? Isn't that the goal of GUI designers. If they aren't accessable without lots of training then the UI designers need to go back and actually do what they're paid for.
Or is it just me?
Hey, they're right. If you hand a laptop preloaded with WindowsXP or Ubuntu, your average rural third world denizen will be intrigued by the strangely glowing, slightly warm, and noisey little box. But it would take longer than the 8 hour battery life for them to figure anything out whatsoever.
Instead of trying to neuter microsoft representatives for stating the blatently obvious, has it occurred to anyone that computers for the third world ought to focus on human-centric computing? I.e, make the computer able to understand humans, not humans able to understand computers? That's not a third world issue or a first world issue. It's just how it ought to be.
What is it about Americans that makes them incapable of seeing the things that go on in their own country? And once you successfully point out to them how badly the US steps on the rights of citizens, the American in question immediately points out that the US is better than Libya or China. As if Americans can sleep better at night knowing that there's still a few countries where rights are less respected. Never mind that western Europeans, Australians, and Canadians ALL live better and have their rights respected.
"You can give people free software or computers, but they won't have the expertise to use it..."
Apparently Microsoft assumes just because you life in Africa you must be stupid. Apparently they don't get out much:
Delhi children make play of the net
"In the slums of Delhi, an experiment has shown how illiterate street children can quickly teach themselves the rudiments of computers and the internet.
The aim of the experiment, funded by the Indian Government, local institutions and the World Bank was to see what role computers might play in educating India's illiterate millions.
The results were startling, showing how much children with little or no English and no computer training at all could achieve."
article continues at the BBC: Delhi children make play of the net
At the time of the massive invasion by Stalinist Russia in 1939 Finland was, besides not prepared for war, largely agrarian society, albeit one with stable democracy (universal suffrage already in 1905, second after NZ), good education system and the beginnings of a Nordic-style welfare society. This despite Finland being one of the only countries, if not the only, to pay back WWI-era debts in full.
As you can imagine, the war against the invading Soviet Russia (pop. ca. 200M?, the USSR was dumped out of the League of Nations as a result, the only country ever to suffer such fate) was extremely draining, and while Finland (pop. ca. 4M at the time) miraculously kept Stalin's armies at bay, Russia and Britain (shame on Britain!) decided to deem Finland's defence of her territory as "criminal" and promptly ordered Finland to not only surrender Russia their second largest city Vyborg, but also large areas in Finland's south-western Karelia province (important waterways, hydro-electric power, smaller towns, forests, large inland lake, innumerable farms etc.), central eastern border territories and even Finland's northern access to the Barents Sea (incl. fishing and natural resources) and mineral deposits in the north. If that wasn't enough, Stalin also got through his demand that Finland was forced to pay extremely heavy war reparations to the Russian aggressors and that Finland was specifically not allowed to receive any foreign rebuilding aid (e.g. the Marshall Plan)! Oh, and while this "debt-paying" was taking place, Finland naturally also had to resettle the over 10% of the population which had to be evacuated from their historical native Karelian lands which were forcefully (well, by an Anglo-russian kangaroo court anyway) ceded to Stalinist Russia (and which Putin fiercely hangs onto to this day, denying any Russian guilt for the invasions).
Yet Finland got to work, paid the ransom of untold billions to Stalin in full, paid the wartime debts to the USA (again!), Sweden etc. in full and rebuilt the country within a decade of the end of WWII. By the time of Helsinki Olympics in 1952 (first scheduled to be held in 1940...) Finland had paid off the Russian extortionists and was well on her way to reaching the standards of her Nordic neighbours.
As an additional aside, when the Soviet Russian regime collapsed (although their totalitarian system of government and foreign policy was soon revived by Czar Putin) in the early 1990's, Russia naturally defaulted on their large debt to Finland and in addition suddenly many of Finland's heavy industries found themselves sitting on orders that the Russians still wanted but couldn't/wouldn't pay for. It took another few years of reorganizing but look up Finland in international comparisons again: One of the least corrupt nations in the world, one of the best education systems (free, based on merit), one of the most competitive economies while maintaining a comprehensive Nordic-style welfare and healthcare system. All without any foreign plundering, ever.
If foreign aid, like the Marshall Plan, is a magic bullet that creates rapid rebuilding and growth, one must wonder how well Finland would've fared without having to do it all the hardest way.
I think you're very right on this point, about agrarian economy. But when it comes to tractors, ever hear of horses instead? Horses, or "sun dogs" revolutionized Native American life when they were reintroduced to North America by the Spanish conquistadors. Why don't I see lots of horses in African footages, like I saw in indian/cowboy movies or Amish video footages? Won't horses survive the African climate? Are there other domesticated animals that could be used instead then, like them cows are used in India? The nice thing about horses is that, unlike tractors, that wear out, horses reproduce themselves, for almost free, and you don't need to go to find parts at your local Autozone dealer, all horses need is grass, and someone to take care of them (i.e. keep the stable clean by shoveling the horse manure, which, by the way, is an excellent fertilizer.) Then when everybody got a full stomach, they can start actually paying attention in school, to get an industry going. It's hard to concentrate and learn the alphabet or basic math when you're about to fall over and die from starvation, your classmates having to carry you out and bury you, then get back to class to continue where they left off? By the way, just giving people lots of food, without enabling them to be self sufficient may just end up with a population boom, and now you have to feed 20x more mouths. An interesting phenomenon, that while in extreme poverty couples tend to have 20 kids with a 17 kid mortality rate, 2 of the 20 making it to adulthood (even in Europe during the Dark Middle ages, or just about anywhere on the face of the planet), in technologically advanced nations with plenty of food, there is no population explosion, but to the contrary, the population growth levels down, or even gets negative. When the standard of living gets very high, people end up with 2 kids, both of which make it to adulthood. Wouldn't that be a nicer scenario than when a mother having 20 kids and losing 18, is just a fact of life, and nobody bothers? How can one get sensitive towards other people, other ethnic groups, when you get so callous about your own family members, because 18 out of 20 die, because that's just simply how life is, how things are, and being callous is the only way to get by? I'm not saying simply feeding everyone will stop all war and conflict, because there is also the problem of everyone having a full stomach, satisfied, with nothing left to do, so instead of sitting around bored, people go do heroic deeds to each other and invade and conquer each other, for an ego boost, out of boredom. You have to watch out for that stuff too, so besides creating an easy life where everyone is well fed, you have to keep up with education to teach people interesting activities, to give them something interesting to do, besides bashing each other's heads in. Hopefully they won't just become WWF addicts.
Of course even domesticated animals won't work in places where the Sahara is advancing, like Niger, or the place where Lake Chad used to be, where all you have is a barren piece of rock and desert sand blowing. The only chance for a significant sustainable human population there is what Japan and Switzerland has. When you're stuck on a barren piece of rock, all you can really do is either something really high tech, where they import raw materials, and convert them into something even higher value, and buy food on the difference. (Barren pieces of rock can also turn to the sea, for fish, like Japan used to, but these days there isn't enough fish left in the Ocean - the biological activity in seas, per square mile is a lot lower than on land, or the seas wouldn't be blue, but green instead, when looked at from outer space.)
If we ever get solar panels economically efficient, there is no better place for them than the desert regions - land is cheap, and the biggest resource is lots of sunshine, blue skies, and little cloud cover. Then they could turn all that surplus energy into ore processing - silicon/semiconductor foundries (sand is mostly silicon), a
Accepting any scientific theory as the absolute, unchanging, eternally correct TRUTH is as silly and wrong minded as not accepting the value of scientific theory at all.
Science is an asymptotic (but not monotonic) approach to "the truth". Any claim to the contrary is almost certainly the result of some misunderstanding about the nature of 'science'.
Science is a process, 'scientific fact' is the best guess with regard to any given subject at the current time. This is subject to change.
That ability to change is not a weakness of science, "scientists are always saying they are wrong" is not a valid argument against science. The fact that science changes it's opinion on matters is simply a result of the lack of omniscience of those practicing it.
The sad result that the 'general public' accepts what 'scientists say' as the absolute truth is an unfortunate miscarriage of intellect.A regrettable result of many people merely replacing one system of faith for another.
Building a better backup.
Zettabyte Storage
conceited can Redmond be? There are several really worthy African Linux distributions that can supply all the needs of african schools.
You know, maybe, just maybe there might be one or two people who *are* smart enough to figure out those programs. And hey, they might just be smart enough to start some consulting firms, software development companies, and all manner of great projects which will push the African continent ahead and create opportunity for more. Heaven forbid we may see a middle class emerge to stabilise some otherwise dodgy and delicate democracies. You know it's times like this which make me start to wonder if those old tales about the industrialised nations wishing to keep the "third world" as backward as possible are true...
Who is this delectable creature with an insatiable love of the dead?
Ethiopia was a colony for only 7 years (1936-1943 under Italy). Maybe, just maybe, over 60 years after that 7-year period it's time to stop waiting for handouts and start to solve the problems themselves.
Maybe you should just stop speaking in such grand generalities and be specific. Who exactly do you think "is waiting for handouts"? Are you saying that the average Ethiopian is sitting at home wondering when the next check from their European sugar daddies is arriving? Are you suggesting that the average Ethiopian is lazier than the average American? Or what are you actually saying?
So your claim that it takes longer than half a century is just plain wrong. It takes one human generation to develop an industry (like in today's China) and 2 generations to generate wealth and luxury similar to western standards (like in Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea and Japan today).
China, Japan, and Korea were effectively developed nations already, with most of the social, political, administrative, and economic infrastructure in place.
As for Ethiopia, the fact that it was a monarchy until 1974 (with the interruption of Italian occupation), afterwards was ruled by a military junta, and has been mired in several wars and internal conflicts probably has something to do with its problems. Hard as that may be for you to understand, such political circumstances make it difficult for a nation to develop economically.
As both the US and Europe have shown, it can take centuries to develop and industrialize. And even deliberately planned economic development often fails; Germany has found it impossible to bring former East Germany up to West German standards and is resigned to taking decades longer to do so, and the US is full of regions and social groups that are bigger than entire developing nations and economically just as troubled.
What MS would offer is the tractors but without any instructions about how to service them or modify them.
They would also make you sign a contract where you are specifically forbidden to service your own tractor.
And they would patent the service procedures.
And who knows what else, they would make it impossible to use the tractor without a dependency on them.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
No I will not.
The intellectual laziness of the above comment is so abysmal that deserves no further consideration.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
For goodness sake, get off the Internet square box.
I would be willing to send CDs or DVDs (I think I could afford to send 30 or 40, $3 including posting) with all the software these people would ever need.
One copy per physical location would be more than enough to get them started.
They need no friggin Internet to get started, all the software they could possibley need in the short and medium term is already there.
Let me add that you being there teaching IT and not have carried 10 or 20 CDs with Linux distros is most irresponsible to say the least.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Please refrain from launching ad hominem attacks when you're losing a debate, Barry. It's just bad form. It is often an indicator of a complete debate loss. When one cannot debate on the points of the issue, then one must often resort to name calling, and thus has lost the debate.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.