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Getting Open Source to the Dialup Masses

Posted by timothy on Tue Aug 02, 2005 06:39 AM
from the those-laurels-are-getting-downright-restless dept.
GNU is Not Unix
WillSmith writes "South Africa's Mark Shuttleworth Foundation has a solution to getting open source out to places with low broadband : the "freedom toaster". The idea is simple : a bring-and-burn software kiosk."
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  • Any Costs? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by kaellinn18 (707759) on Tuesday August 02 2005, @06:43AM (#13220506) Homepage Journal
    As I can't get to the mercilessly Slashdotted site, maybe someone who did can answer a question for me:

    Are there any costs for the user associated with this? The main allure of open source software is that it's free. Although I'm sure if there are costs, it will be comparatively cheap compared to Microsoft, but when you start talking about third world countries, even small costs can be prohibitive. Will people be able to donate CDs to this project so that the project will not have to charge money to reimburse itself for the CDs?
    • Apparently you bring your own CD-Rs to the kiosk. I didn't notice anything about donating CDs, but I didn't read the entire site either. You might be able to find something over at The Shuttleworth Foundation [shuttlewor...dation.com].

    • Re:Any Costs? (Score:2, Informative)

      by maxilion (825701)
      From the homepage:

      What is the Freedom Toaster
      The Freedom Toaster is a conveniently located, self-contained 'Bring 'n Burn' facility, where users bring their own blank discs and make copies of the open source software they require.

      But why do we need th

      • Living in South Africa myself, I can attest to the need for this.

        I pay R1000 (+-$150) a month for my 512k ADSL, and that is capped at 3gb per month. Though more and more options are springing up with bigger caps, none of them are cheap by international sta

  • Another Simple Idea (Score:2, Funny)

    by katana (122232)
    I call it "the mail." Each house gets a local kiosk called a "mailbox." Whenever someone needs Open Source software, a central "server" sends the software to the "mailbox" in "trucks."

    Someone should totally do this.
    • The Ubuntu foundation already does do this--they will mail you (a reasonable number of) Ubuntu CDs for free, no questions asked.

      This is just another way of spreading it.
  • It seems to me that OSS in Linux distributions need some form of update that doesn't require downloading the entire application again.

    Apt and Yum seem to be the main software update mechanisms in use at the moment on Linux, but both seem to require you to
  • Haven't read the article since the server's gone already, but what's to prevent someone from say downloading warez and burning that onto a CD? Would they get into trouble if someone did? Personally I don't think it should, but then again, considering how
      • Y'know, getting this in the universities across the world might be a good idea. I have a lot of friends who'd love to try something FLOSSy that goes beyond Firefox, but they just don't know where to get it.

        Of course, I could use the joke of "Does it run L

  • This is a good idea (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ajs318 (655362)
    In some parts of the world, broadband internet has a somewhat lower priority than things like clean drinking water and efficient sewers. {Even though you have to admit the logistics are simpler}.

    The bandwidth of a Ford Transit packed with CD-Rs should c
    • I guess it would be overly cynical of me to point out that Ubuntu routinely pushes out several hundred megs of updates every few weeks ... and the installer insists on downloading them if you have a network connection, wanted or not.

      I don't think any dis

  • ubuntu + dialup? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MichaelSmith (789609) on Tuesday August 02 2005, @07:01AM (#13220575) Homepage

    I have literally just got back from upgrading my sister in-law's pc from RH 9 to Ubuntu. She just got an iPod and I decided to upgrade the OS before installing gtkpod.

    So there I am all ready to apt-get gtkpod and...

    ...where is the ppp dialer? It's not there. Now I know that ubuntu tries to be lightweight but surely something could come out to make way for a gnome ppp program? Not being able to get on line pretty much ended my quest to get the ipod working.

    It seems to have wvdial so I could probably have got online that way. But that is not going to help the mums and dads, though.

    • You see, you can't really expect Ubuntu developers to be among the modem-using crowd. They are the kind of people for whom available ISPs can be a factor when buying/renting a home.
      I still remember the day when I finally got rid of a modem [angband.pl].

      You don't reall
      • System -> Admin -> Network settings. Select "modem".

        Thanks, but how do you tell it to dial? Is this another case of gnome simplifying something to the point where it can no longer be used?

        BTW I have never been able to figure out how to use the cd b

  • If the OSS community could convince AOL to add a Linux distro to their ubiquitous CDs, I'm sure it would reach a lot of people. AOL may not be blanketing the world with disks like they used to, but they are still everywhere (in USPS change-of-address pack
  • RMS has many times said that the GNU Project isn't about Open Source.
  • the "freedom toaster" is toast!

    • Why doesn't /. just mirror such links to sites where possible to prevent the /. effect from crashing the sites. Listing a site on /. is becoming a defacto DOS attack on it.

      • Re:Site go boom (Score:2, Insightful)

        by xappax (876447)
        And why stop at distros?
        There's plenty of free/oss media out there - music, software for other OSes, games, independent films...

        In an area where money is scarce and software/media is expensive, I can see a "free media" kiosk being in serious demand.
        Imagi
    • Who pays for the hardware for this?

      Mark Shuttleworth perhaps?

      Who pays the rental for its location? No point placing it where no one can find it? Need to be in a mall or something.

      How about the back of a car or 4WD?

      Who insures it against all thrid p
    • Erm, well the funding, design, maintenance and so on is handled by the Shuttleworth Foundation. This, if you were not aware is a group set up by everyone's favorite South African multi-millionaire and Astronaut, Mark Shuttleworth.

      As for being a pipe dream
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