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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."
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.
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
This is exactly where Open Source community should come in and fill the gap and jumpstart the whole thing.
I don't know if the "Open Source community" has jumped in, but people using open source software are training people. FTA:
Microsoft is not the only organisation involved in IT training in Africa. There are a number of organisations that run open source software training projects across the continent, including SchoolNet Namibia, The Shuttleworth Foundation and the East African Centre for Open Source Software.
Is it too much to ask people to RTFA?
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!"
Why not? After all, jews are still whining about the Holocaust.
Do you know that today foreign aid is mostly used as a tool to force poorer nations to implement the policies (e.g on energy) that the rich nations want
How is this a bad thing? Sounds like any other contractual agreement to me. If you don't want to implement the policies, then don't accept the aid. It's not as if the nations who're offering aid are obligated to do so just out of the goodness of their hearts.
And let's not forget cancelling the US farmer subsidies, which do cost billions too (way more in fact), so that agricultural societies in Africa and elsewhere can actually sell their food at a competitive price AND market their way out of poverty?
And let's not forget the reason the American government exists in the first place is to SERVE AMERICANS, and that to put the interests of the citizens of other countries ahead of the citizens who elected and pay for the government would in fact be an act of treason. Just as the Nigerian government exists to serve Nigerians, and the French government exists to serve the French, and so forth.
The fact is that on the world scene just as in Western society the rich make the rules.
And that would be different from any other time in history how? Excepting, of course, that people who live in republics have more freedom now than their ancestors ever did, or could expect? I'll take "I'd much rather be alive today than 500 years ago" for $200, Alex.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Say that your buying out foreign governments
You mean, just like the Europeans are doing? Not to mention the Japanese, the Chinese, and now the Russians - so eager to learn?
Say that you're exploiting the desperation of impoverished countries to help yourself get richer.
The desperate and impoverished created by centuries of European despotism, genocide, slavery, and all-around nasty behavior. We're saints in comparison.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Ah yes the Typical Anti-American response. All of us Americans live in caves. We only come out to watch CNN and Fox news. Give it a rest. There are plenty of us Americans (especially those on this site) we read quite a lot about the world.
"Let me be the first one to tell you that there are people in Africa who have have houses, clean water and food. Furthermore there are people in America who have no clean water, no food and live outside."
That is quite the ego you have. You actually believe you are the first one to tell us stupid Americans such things? Sheesh.
The truth is that quite a few people in African countries ARE starving and don't have much food. Many more than here in America. However microsoft is off base with the crap they are spewing. So the average west African makes $160 a year, but the cost of windows ($99) is not to much? Bull crap. Give people the tools and they will learn how to use them. Many African countries need a better infrastructure than they already have. They also need training in IT. They also need a lot of help doing this. They don't need some damned greedy corporation trying to figure out how to extract a couple of million dollars on license fees. What they need are charitable corporations who believe in pushing the Human race forward.
what?
I live under an African government which respects the rule of law, has a stable economy, upholds human rights, and where people don't live in fear of disappearing in the middle of the night because of the kind of books they've been taking out of the library. None of those things can be said about the USA.