Slashdot Mirror
Open Source's Battle In Africa
eldavojohn writes "The BBC has more details about something we last discussed in 2008 — the showdown of open source versus proprietary software in Africa. When discussing the issue of cost, the piece quotes Microsoft's chairman on the scene, Dr. Cheikh Modibo Diarra, who alludes that open source continually costs you money by saying 'You buy Microsoft software, and you buy it once and for all, the cost that we tell you is the total cost for ownership.' On the other end of the story is Ken Banks from Kiwanja.net who has spent 15 years developing open source applications in Africa. His logic is that 'Today we're seeing growing open-source programmer, developer communities in South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and other African countries. Clearly, if you have this informal programming sector coming up, access to source code is almost critical if they are going to be able to take advantage of these new tools that are emerging.' Well, the battle rages on, hopefully the emerging African developers and users pick the tool(s) that suit their needs the best."
Come on, everybody knows that there are no developers in Africa. It must be Nigerian scam!
Ezekiel 23:20
Oh yeah, that's exactly what they need in Nigeria--more programming skills.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The total cost of a windows box, the entire cost of ownership, is the up front cost of the MS software? Really?
Jesus, I've been a fool for using Linux on my personal systems. Why, considering all the man hours I've put into it, I would have saved virtually hundreds of dollars by paying for a quality Microsoft product!
I'm going to run out right away and buy a new operating system! Looking forward to never having to configure anything, and having a bug free system that does everything I want!
(Mods - Joke. Really.)
Does that mean only MS users will get spam from Nigeria?
Oh, and I graduate with my MIS degree tonight!
Hats off to you. Enjoy your unemployment and food stamps.
I bought Vista once, pirated XP twice, and now Kubuntu hasn't cost me anything!
MS products are cheap and they teach you a lot about Unix and FOSS philosophy!
And putting in new formats for the next Office iteration. I had to buy the new Office for home because those who upgraded never remember to downgrade.
That may have been the case in the past, but with Office 2007 Microsoft released a very good free file conversion tool for older versions of office.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=941b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f43-c6bb74cd1466&displaylang=en
In fact, the file converter is so good that my company feels no reason to upgrade to Office 2007 (not to mention the learning curve with the new interface).
He was kind enough to set me up, via email, with a very lucrative business deal where I stand to make huge profits.
Of course, my upfront costs keep mounting, but he assured me when he asked for my account numbers that the funds will shortly be directly deposited to my bank.
Dear Sir, I am a minister in the Office of Software. A recent license audit has uncovered $1.6 billion (ONE BILLION SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND USD) of software licenses in an account at the ministry. The account was for a project that was killed in a planning accident on the way to implementation. Since there was no next project for the licenses the licenses have gone unclaimed. I am asking your assitance in getting the licenses out of my country. As teh minister I can certify you as the regestered lincense owner. For your troubles I will give you 20% of teh licenses. If you are interested in this offer please reply.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.