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Free Software for Developing Countries
Mindphunk writes "I just stumbled across
this paper which "makes the political and ethical case for the adoption of free software by Community Aid Abroad and other members of Oxfam International". Some really good content including that UNESCO is handing out Linux in Latin America. There's some interesting comparisons - especially like the "baby milk" and GM [genetically manipulated] food analogies."
> Lacking proper electricity supply, working
> telephone lines, not to mention computers
These and other barriers will disappear rapidly if technology continues to improve at historical rates.
The cost of a general purpose computer can be driven almost arbitrarily low. Right now I see two major issues. Good solid state storage (disks) doesn't scale down well (disk costs $10/GB, but try buying 100MB for a dollar). Various new technologies look likely to fix that, e.g. probe storage*. (Probe storage is one example of why ICs are so wonderful --- they scale down really well.) The other problem is displays. There is a need for a very cheap, passively lit display. The "electronic paper" work might fit the bill.
Likewise, power consumption can go way down. A passively lit screen will really help. It should be reasonable to run a device from solar or muscle power.
The hardest problem is connectivity. Obviously it has to be wireless, at least locally. Then a big problem is that transmission fundamentally requires a lot of power. There are some complementary approaches:
-- broadcast content from satellite
-- "ad hoc" networking; individual units cooperate to forward packets, to reduce the required range
-- some central wired infrastructure serving base stations
-- sneakernet with batched data
I'm confident the hardware will appear. Perhaps a tougher problem is to produce software and content to make these things useful. We're going to have to redefine "ease of use". I'm sure we can at least produce a useful library (with video for the illiterate).
Hey, IPO zillionaires! Here's a chance to do something good AND cool!
Rob
The basic problem with your response is that it misinterprets the quandary. You are right when you say that IMF loans are being used incorrectly. However, they most certainly are *not* being used to further 'Keynesian' policies - how many of these loans support generalised welfare? Shelter? Unemployment insurance? The problem is that IMF and World Bank (you might as well throw the EBRD for good measure) both act to entrench *monetarist* and *classical liberal* policies (cf. Milton Friedman - and an aside to /. editors: It's not 'Friendman!').
I would agree that the imposition of Western labour laws *without* additional cultural memes (democratic practices and freedoms, a civil society amongst others) would be a mistake. But if you suggest that the US government is solely power-politics-oriented and does not pay much attention to economic affairs, then I would say you've made a gross oversimplification that doesn't hold together at all. I would argue that if anything corporations are much more indirectly dangerous than governments are - they're subtle fuckers, and they love a good scam when they see one.
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Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
Let's see, privatization has done such a great job in Russia. Since adopting the economic policies that the IMF forced on them, the Russia's economy has shrunk to a third of the size it was ten years ago.
Privatization has done such a great job in Mexico. What a wonderful way for a corrupt government to give away its taxpayers' assets to its cronies and get accolades from the international community. Gee, I wish I thought of that, but then again I'm not a third world despot propped up by Wall Street interests so I guess it wouldn't matter if I had.
And yes, those $1/day jobs are so good for Indonesia, now that forcing their economy open to global corporations has destroyed small farmers and manufacturers. A $1/day job is better than no job at all, but its the IMF's policies and a corrupt, U.S./Wall Street supported government that destroyed the local economic systems.
Corporations aren't the problem, you say. But it's the corporations who want all this stuff. The notion that Corporate America wants a free market OR a fair market (which IMHO aren't necessarily the same things) is the naivete of someone who's just read Atlas Shrugged. The US Government is evil? Who do you think runs the US government? The corporations! They have for years. Now put down your copy of Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (it's not worth reading anyhow) and take a good long look at who funds our elections and who pays for lobbyists.
Wake up, you dumb Libertarians. I'm sick of reading your ignorant crap. The people who you want to run this country are already running it (and the world) and they're obviously doing a piss poor job of it.
It's a pretty interesting take on the accuracies / inaccuracies of people's view of technology in S.America, has some points I hadn't thought about before.
S. America is not the entire South (one politicized word I think I'll adopt for now), but many of the things he says probably apply just as much to poor Africa, poor Asia, poor Eastern Europe, poor ex-SovUnion states, etc. (I say poor to distinguish from those parts of these places where relatively free markets have made this sort of topic less necessary, like Singapore, parts of South Africa, etc.)
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I am very happy to see that this idea is in the minds of people. I know that when the founders of computing began to develop the first computers they were not thinking "let's make a buck" I think its safe to assume that they had a much more social concept in mind. It is unfortunate that ideas like these are not standard practice. I may be to big of a dreamer, but computing and development for the sake of mankind is a wonderfull concept and practice. I only wish more people agread.
The Problem With The Gene Pool Is That There Is No Lifeguard.
This is another thing that Linus mentioned during his keynote speach at comdex, the fact that countries not as well off as us are adopting open source. Using open source enables a lot more freedom and less dependance on corperate software. Spreading this kind of technology to people who in the past couldnt afford it helps them to catch up. Another reason why free software is so adoptable to foreign countries is (as Linus mentioned) that there is more support for things like internationalization and seeing as the code is open, anyone can modify it to fit the users needs.
_joshua_
Yeah, you might regard this as a farce, but, let me tell you: To us living in the 3rd world, this might be the only chance to catch up with youy guys in the developed countries. If you think commercial software is overprice, try an imagine what it would be like to buy this software when you make 500 bucks a month. Yes, we dont have the great infrastructure you guys enjoy but thats not not our fault, Remember its american, canadian and european companies who have been bribing our government official in trying to land a contract that makes up for the lost revenues caused by increased competence in the home countries. To us, OSS is, even if a lot of people down here do not realize it yet, our only chance to jump into an information society. We dont have the time to go thru the learning curve you guys went thru. Next time you open your mouth, be sure your tongue is properly wired to your brain and this brain of yours is on!!! Cheers!!!
Im glad to hear this is happening. I was wandering if anyone knows of any organizations that donates computers to projects outside of the United States for eductional use. I am looking for computer donations for a rural school in India. This is a nonprofit group that has built an all girls school (mostly for the lower caste) with great facilites and dedicated teachers. The plan is to get about 20 pentium class machines running linux. These girls lack any type of formal education. The goal is for them to learn the basic skills (reading writing math) and also delve into the sciences and hopefully computers (these donated computers would be the first in the town!!). If anyone has any info or could help please email me at vikas98@hotmail.com and I would be happy to send more formal information on the project.
At the UK, at some Universities, we have a thing called the "Milkround", where large companies come and give presentations to persuade you that you want for them. Several Milkround presentations by Nestle have been disrupted by activists protesting about the whole baby milk fiasco.
:-)
Is it possible that, by analogy, in the next few years we'll see geeks staging similar protests at Microsoft presentations to complain about their use of closed standards?
Gerv
The parable holds true. The objection to Nestlé's distribution of milk powder is partly that it encourages dilution with polluted water, but mainly that it robs mothers of their self-sufficiency: the ability to breast-feed.
While the distribution of free software may seem misguided, when there are more immediate issues to address in the world's poorest countries, doing so provides people with the means to empower themselves through technology.
The promotion of shared technology is at the heart of most aid agencies' work: the provision of food, clothing and shelter may be more visible, but that's usually a last-ditch attempt to stave off a human disaster. If we're happy to encourage the building of wells and schools, and training in agriculture and manufacture, then why not computers?
The New Zealand Digital Library project has been involved in similar projects, for similar reasons.
We have made web-sites, and created CD-ROMs, for collections like the United Nations University documents and the Humanity Development Library (both available at the URL above), and some ongoing work for the FAO. They like our "Greenstone" software because it is GPLed (and excellant, fun-to-hack software, but that's another story).
The GPL means Greenstone is free in both senses: it is available at no cost and can be passed on to people who can't afford to license commercial solutions; and it is free-speech free, which is consistent with the aims of organisations like UNESCO.
Someone mentioned that it is pointless giving software to developing nations, because they have no computers. The real headache is that many people are slightly better off than this - they have computers, but they're lousy 286s running windows 3.0, and your software has to work with *every* version of windows from then on (we develop on Linux, and run on all-sorts). And it's network software - a lot of people lost a lot of sleep over that, let me tell you, before they finally rewrote the early Windows networking... but i digress.
Disclaimer: I work on the NZDL project, but have done little for this software.
So called software "piracy" is obviously an option for those unable or unwilling to purchase
software, and indeed it is a common choice throughout the South, where copyright law is
often poorly enforced. But this places users at the mercy of the law, increasing their
vulnerability to those rich and powerful enough to use it to their own advantage. Also,
development organisations themselves are vulnerable to enforcement in their home
countries, so they can not support or encourage such practices.
And this is exactly what the software companies are banking on.
If you notice, though companies like Microsoft, do occasionally make some noise about rampant IP abuse in third-world countries, the companies rarely do anything real to try to prevent it. The reason is the same there as it was here ten years ago: let the populace "pirate" the software, get hooked on the company's closed platform, and then when there's a critical mass of addicts who are far enough along that they actually have the money to pay for the software, step in and start enforcing copyright laws. This is the same rationale followed by crack dealers and cigarette manufacturers who give out some amount of product for free at the beginning in order to get an addicted population who is then beholden to them for their fix later.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
There's no such thing as "propietary software". Nobody pays for their windows, or MS Office. Maybe big companies do, but all small and medium business, and especially home users don't. When you buy a computer, you get it with a pirated windows installed.
There is no good internet. Local phone rates are _very_ high, and the international comunications are monopolized by some company (Telintar), because of some 'transition' law (the gobernment managed comunications until 7 years ago). I installed Debian on a box yesteday using dselect, only because I can pay $125/month for a cablemodem. And connections to outside Argentina are very slow and crowded during the day (even with cablemodem).. It's very difficulr to find a place to buy CDs to iinstall linux (at least close to me)..
I remember that professional programmers were _very_ lame, until we got internet (around 1996). Linux would be great..
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Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
As everyone knows, US has been discreetly thumbing its nose at UN. I personally noticed an anti-UN sentiment rise in US public, and I frankly am not surprised -- if US is indeed the superpower it considers itself to be, the gut reaction of many US citizens is "What the fuck do we need UN for?"
Of course, my personal take on this is that ignoring UN will actually lead to steady diminution of US political influence in the world (not that that would be such a bad thing, mind you).
OK, back to the topic. The reason I am saying this, is because I am seeing interesting paralleles between US/UN relationship, and commercial closed source companies and OpenSource. Just like US, if the commecrial software providers don't shape up in terms of their social agenda, they will simply lose relevance, despite the fact that such a move will benefit them in the short run.
Add to this the fact that a huge number of major closed software companies are headquartered in US, and you will suddenly realize that we are living through the major shift of political scenery, an emergence of a New World Order almost -- an order that is based on principles subtly but radically different from dog-eag-dog ones that has been in evidence so far.
Vivat la liberté! (or something like that)
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Victor Danilchenko
I hate it when people make posts like this, because they have the right conclusion for the wrong reason.
I don't think our government should be giving out loans, and it certainly shouldn't be forcing other countries to do damage to their economies to get those loans. In general, the economic politicies of the IMF have done more harm than good, and countries would be better off without IMF "help."
But with that said, I am bewildered why you would be opposed to countries that "deregulate markets, privatize state run industries." This is precisely what these countries need to do if they are to develop economically. History and economics have shown us over and over that state-run industries and regulations are detrimental to the economy.
Furthermore, the idea that corporations are "exploiting" workers in countries with "lax" labor laws is nonsense. You don't want these people to work at those jobs. What alternative woould you suggest. The whole point is that these countries and their people are dirt-poor. How do we help them by denying them the only jobs they can get? If we were to impose US-style labor laws on third world countries, the result would be that it would cripple those countries' economies permanently. The fact is that those countries don't have the resources to provide jobs at US-level wages and in US-level conditions. The reason that these people choose to take these jobs is that they are the best they can get. How would you be helping them if you "protect" them by forcing them back onto the unemployment lists?
"Corporations" are not the problem. The US government is. Certainly, corporations sometimes lobby for some of these actions, but the government is still the ones with the power. What is needed is for our government to stop sticking its nose into every world conflict, to stop propping up dictators and assasinating leaders they dislike, and to stop using IMF loans to impose stupid Keynesian policies on third world economies.
This may come as a surprise to the majority of slashdot readers, but computers can be used for things besides Surfin' the Net and listening to MP3s. They can be used to track inventory, manage financial accounting, design things with CAD, and more! They can be library catalogs, medical records archives, and cash registers.
You know, when the first computers were in use, there was no network of any kind to hook them together, and nobody had even thought of online pr0n sitez. Yet people still had uses for them. Amazing, isn't it?
So I would say that people in the third world could definitely use computers. And if you think every single person in the third world is a dirt farmer who lives in a hut, you need to be smacked around a bit with the clue stick. The third world includes some very large cities with electricity, phones, highways, factories, schools, television, and all the other things that you'd expect in most major cities. These are the people who could use free software.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Miguel de Icaza (of GNOME fame) from Mexico? Granted, Mexico is further along than much of the world, but how many useful free software contributions are we missing out on because talented people haven't been exposed to the technology?
This really isn't true. I work throughout Latin America, and there is plenty of good infrastructure. There is also pretty good penetration and distribution of PC's. Here are some of the problems:
1. Pricing of connectivity. Most internet service is metered. That is starting to change - in Brazil, Universal Online has moved to undercut AOL. However, connectivity charges are still higher down here (I'm in Caracas at the moment) than up in the states.
2. The quality of education in Latin America, while still much better than the GNP's of these countries might suggest, has been slipping over the past couple decades, and schools can't pay for talented educators who make better money in foreign companies or overseas. It's one of a number of vicious circles that are all a product of the fact that the US still controls a massive proportion of the world's resources. The drive towards reduced public sectors, and increasing corrpution in the public sector that is left, has dried the revenue base of the educational infrastructure in most Latin American countries (this is especially tragic in the once excellent Argentine system.) Also, the politicization of the universities continues to be a problem, as in the UNAM strike in Mexico.
3. The previously mentioned Nestle Milk syndrome, associated with the above-described crisis in education funding. The prestige of American software companies and the associated aura of success make the penetration of free software, and the move from a consumer to a producer mindset, difficult.
Here are some advantages and strengths that this region has, too:
1. Latin America is not simply reducable to the 3rd world stereotypes. Much of the population is much better educated than you might expect, and in many places the populace is taught better critical thinking skills than in the US.
2. Latin American has always held engineers in great esteem. "Ingeniero" is a proudly-held prefix, like "Doctor" or "... Esq." The brightest and best are as likely to enter technical fields as they are law or business.
3. There's the leap-frog effect, which allows countries to skip intermediary infrastructure, and, for example, bypass copper wire for fiber optic. Brazil is leading in this.
4. Communalist cultures - information sharing is much broader (despite the myths here, you really are more on your own in the US even in the Linux culture). CyberCafes are a frequent fixture, which allows members of a community to share access to (usually low bandwidth) connectivity on old machines for a very low price. As such, communities are able to teach other things like linux.
5. The BSA is cracking down on piracy throughout the region. Piracy campaigns are part of US software companies' sales strategies - they LIKE finding lots of software being pirated, because they can then often cut a deal for a huge settlement. Often, software companies will get in bed with major industries and government agencies to target antipiracy campaigns against politically unpopular sectors (Ah, even silicon valley joins in the plunder of the continent. The more things change...) However, the market here, unable to afford the nominal prices of things, is starting to jump ship proactively. I hear a lot of people in surpringly high places talking about linux.
I would like to mention here that developing countries often are disadvantaged both in relative and absolute terms in comparison with the West. This is relevant in that infrastructure is often lacking when considering Third World concerns. I believe that while using free software in this manner is no doubt A Good Thing, you often have to presume a great deal for this method of intellectual diffusion to work.
Having suitably-equipped machines with access to the Net is one. Cheap unmetered Net usage is another. And of course these two conditions predicate a whole slew of others, such as telephone infrastructure, electricity and water access, and so forth.
From what little I remember of my polisci courses, most of the disparity with regards to industrialised countries vs their developing neighbours has historically resulted from the siphoning-off of natural and human resources from the South to the North, under the rubric of imperialism, colonisation, and decolonisation. While the argument has been made in recent decades that 'leapfrogging' intermediate stages of development should be possible by southern nations, it has only been with further integration into the Western-dominated system that some countries have been able to prosper. This argument was perhaps most cogent with the Asian Tigers' hypothesis of ten to fifteen years ago. OK, so far so good.
But, [and you know there has to be a 'but'] this thesis of leapfrogging has a problem. I would argue that as worthy as giving away open source stuff is, it just simply is not enough. Too many things are taken for granted for the statement of 'Giving away software outside of the West is no question a great idea' to be effective. Take everyone's favourite OS. It's not quite there for normal desktop use. Still. In order to get it to normal usage one still has to spend a lot of time figuring out how to use it. What was that quote from the Unix-Haters' Handbook? 'Linux is only free if your spare time is worthless.'
I think this statement is probably even more applicable to other countries than it is to the West.
I would be interested to see what the Association for Progressive Communications would make of all this. They comprise a network of ISPs dedicated to spread and enhance Net-enabled communications between NGOs, ordinary citizens and the UN. They were responsible for handling telecom services during the Rio Summit and other international conferences.
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Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
It is always encouraging to see efforts to improve the conditions of thrid world countries. However, free software by itself, can do very little. I believe one of the most interesting developments (although now very new) is wireless networking.
I know that Pakistani internet users have to pay huge fees (for lower middle class, atleast) just to make voice phone calls. It costs about $15 (last time I checked) to have internet access for 5 hours/A MONTH! Wouldn't a completely wireless network (spread spectrum or whatever), which bypasses POTS dramatically bring down costs and allow more people to use the internet.
If more people have cheap internet, even more will buy computers...a feedback loop of sorts. There is the question of hungry people buying computers. From an economics point of view, easy availability of internet breaks down communication barriers and leads to more effective markets (I know, VERY simplified).
Another big problem is that of local interfaces. for example, ubiquitious internet is not possible unless user interfaces and content in local languages is available. Technically, it is even more difficult for people who have non-roman alphabets (for example, national language of Pakistan, Urdu is written in the opposite direciton of English, has different character shapes depending on where in the word it apprears...etc., tec.).
All in all, there is great potential.
Rather crude analysis but contact me if you are interested in this more: chaudhar@umich.edu