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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.
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.
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.
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
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
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 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.
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
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.
When the United States industrialized, we did it on our own. Even though all the major industries were owned by robber barons, at least they were American robber barons. The products and the profits stayed here.
So now we have all these little African countries trying to have their own industrial revolutions. But instead of enriching themselves, Africans are working in factories owned by Asians, making products that will be shipped off to the United States. That's why they can't "bootstrap."
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.
Well, this is akin to the "give a man a fish or teach a man to fish" argument. I think that there is a scarcity of Microsoft expertise in Mauritius too, causing it to be too expensive anyway, let alone payed-for Linux expertise.
But here's the difference: giving third-world countries Microsoft is "giving them a fish" because it is closed. Giving third-world countries Free alternatives is "teaching them to fish", because it's Open. Just as it initially costs more to teach fishing than to give away fish, so it costs more at the start to set up Linux et. al. than to install Microsoft stuff. But the end result is no dependence by the Mauritians on Microsoft.
“Our opponent is an alien starship packed with nuclear bombs. We have a protractor.” — Neal Stepnenso
... 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.
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.
See, you're just as bad. They want you to talk about cost. They want you to yell from the rooftops that Linux is cheaper than Windows. They want you to waste time doing analysis on total cost of ownership and employee training. Every time someone mentions the freedom to share software with their neighbour, Microsoft will claim Windows costs less than Linux. Every time someone mentions the freedom to hire a programmer to fix a bug instead of waiting for the next service pack release, Microsoft will claim Windows has better support than Linux. Every time someone mentions the freedom to understand how the software they use works, Microsoft will claim Windows is more secure than Linux. It doesn't matter whether or not all these pragmatic claims are true.. all it matters is that we're talking about them instead of talking about what really matters: software freedom.
How we know is more important than what we know.
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.
Just look at China: It was much worse off than many African nations after the war (and the civil-war that followed) and the Japanese were also much more brutal. But did China wait for handouts? No. They tried to do it themselves and failed first (Mao's big leap forward has made matters even worse) but they learned from their mistakes, got the population under control and exactly those regions that were "colonized" by Japan over 60 years ago are now the most wealthy and industrialized.
Similar stories can be told for Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore.
All those nations built up an industry almost from scratch in less than 20 years and a very healthy economy in less than 40 years. Actually Japan, Germany and to a lesser extent France and Italy were also almost completely destroyed after the war and also were able to built up an adequate industry in less than 20 years. (Athough the apologists will say that Western Europe and Japan had the know-how, that isn't true for Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan and coastal China: All these countries were mostly agrarian 50-60 years ago)
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).
I agree with your post and most educated africans do too. However, as long as we are in a global economy and the intelligent and educated africans (read sub-saharan africa) have the opportunity to leave their countries, they will continue to do so in record numbers. I'm nigerian and live in the U.S. and I can tell you that in nigeria there are probably less than 5 neurosurgeons, but there are nigerian neurosurgeons all over the world. The same goes for experts in every field including IT.
Why don't they go home and build their continent you ask? They don't, mostly because of self-preservation (it only costs about $50 to hire an assassin in Nigeria and a country whose attorney general was assassinated without fear of reprisals is not a country anyone with a choice wants to live in).
Let me break it down for most people who don't get it like this. The dictators and political elite so-called that rule in most African countries KNOW that, most people don't want to die for a country they don't have a stake in (wrong but common perception due to the fact that they don't see the gains of those who died before them) but they are willing to kill to hold on to power. As long as that imbalance exists, sub-saharan africa will continue to be the beautiful wasteland that it presently is.
The fault as much as some would like to make it is not the Wests (it's expected that they will look after themselves first i.e. the purpose of a business is to make profit all other considerations come after), it lies solely at the feet of those of us who keep quiet or run away because we don't want to die. Or as one, now dead, but popular nigerian musician (Fela Anikulapo-Kuti) once put it in a track apprioprately titled "Sorrow tears and blood", 'My people sef too dey fear, den no wan die....' .
All straight things must come to a bend
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 :-)