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."

wrong reasons elaborated upon

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.

Yawn, more Libertarian dogma.

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.

Similar GPLed projects

The New Zealand Digital Library project [nzdl.org] 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.

piracy

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.

Agree and disagree

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.

Re:This is a farce

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.

Putting this into context...

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 [apc.org] 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.