NACI: Gov't of South Africa Pushes Open Source 246
GNU lover writes "National Advisory Council on Innovation in South Africa
has issued a release concering the use of Open Source and the digital divide." The use of open source in the 3rd/2nd world is one way to get around licensing costs - at least more honest then pirating.
3rd world? 2nd world? 1st world? (Score:3, Informative)
Not really (Score:3, Informative)
They DONT use open source stuff, its usually more difficult than Microsoft software and there is not enough education there to, lets say, recompile the kernel. They are in a piracy hipe, you can find full streets of pirated software stores and you can find from screensavers to SQL 2000.
They use Windows and more Windows, all pirated, even small to medium corporations use pirates Microsoft stuff, goverment has so many things to worry that looking for pirated software isnt even in the list.
A discussion about the document.. (Score:2, Informative)
Yes, they REALLY are... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not saying that you shouldn't be able to resell old software,but Microsoft cerainly has [com.com].
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
not exactly (Score:2, Informative)
these terms have more than a political meaning, they have a socio-economic meaning as well. In order to be a 1st world nation, that nation must be a "modern" country. In order to me modern (as defined by the textbook I had for Comparative Politics last semester) one must have attained or be close to attaining the following items:
1.A quality infrastructure (roads, rails, etc.)
2.technology/science/reason (as opposed to religion controlling information)
3.urbanization
4.internatl. trade
5.capatalist/market economy (although on the surface many African nations have a market economy, it is usually highly "regulated" by various strong men)
6.rule by a sovereign majority (can we say military dictator?)
7.emphasis on individual freedom as opposed to enhancement of group/leader of group (again, can we say military dictator?)
8.centralization of government (for the most part the countries in Africa have this)
9.national conciousneses (this is still a long way off with all the tribal identities in Africa)
So, in actuality, many of the African nations are third world, and most of the rest 2nd world countries due to the level of (most often the lack of) modernization.
Re:Open source not for the developing world? (Score:5, Informative)
South Africa is fairly unique amongst developing (esp. African) nations. We have an excellent infrastructure for transportation and communication in most parts of the country. While many people do not have their own telephone lines, there are ongoing projects to remedy this situation.
But far more interesting is the fact that these are a huge number of people living in ghetto-type conditions with no basic services, who are using the cellular networks to communicate. This goes to show that there is money and intent available for electronic communication.
There are several existing projects to get PCs into underdeveloped schools. In fact the hardware side of the projects is quite successful, but they are struggling because of the cost of software and the lack of teachers with computer experience. Linux is not suitable in such environments until it is easy to install and administer with little or no experience.
One of SA's biggest barriers to bringing "computing to the masses" is the commercial attitude: SA is extremely loyal to Microsoft, and to leading-edge technology. Technology more than a couple of years old becomes nearly impossible to get. Few wholesalers stock chips under a Celeron/Duron 800, or RAM chips less than 128Mb. They perceive that there is money to be made from companies, and not from supplying cheaper hardware to more "charatible" causes.
SA suffers from a "nothing but the best" syndrome, which affects development. It is generally unacceptable to provide second-class solutions as an interim measure while working on a long-term solution. This means that, for example, a project to get computers into schools will involve building a secure building for the computers (many poor schools are prefab or have degraded buildings), and the provision of networked multimedia computers.
Having said this, it is obviously not the way to go. There needs to be an attitude change and an acceptance of older technology, alternative technology or interim solutions.
Actually the availability of communications is not important in the use of computing in developing nations. Computers can be used "offline" as teaching aids, and this is probably where investment should be targetted. Education standards in SA are dropping, there is a massive adult illiteracy rate, and computing skills (required in many industries) are lacking.
An obvious and useful proposal would be to develop and mass produce cheap hardware which can run OpenSource software, and start developing (locally) teaching aids in all national languages (we have 11 of them :
Incidently ... the mining sector only accounted for 6% of GDP in 1999 (worldinformation.com [worldinformation.com]), Tourism for 4% and agriculture for 4%. What makes SA an economic power in Africa is its NON-reliance on mineral resources.
Re:Dang (Score:3, Informative)
Oh dear, you must be an American. Try looking at http://www.polity.org.za/ [polity.org.za] which has information about SA, and links to most of the government web sites. We don't exactly need free hosting on Geocities; in fact we have already hosted an online debate on electronic commerce regulations (which is far more forward-looking than most developed nations).
Oh, by the by: [nucleartourist.com [nucleartourist.com]] (South Africa) ESKOM is the 5th largest utility in the world. They operate the 2 Koeburg reactors, each with a capacity of ~900 MWe. They do have a page listing their generating facilities with capacity.
ESKOM also developed and are prototyping pebble-based molecular reactors, which Germany and France gave up (citing as impractical) nearly two decades ago. These promise to provide cheap, clean and safe energy to anything up to a small city, and can be located where needed. They promise to be a solution to the energy problem in the third world.
Re:not exactly (Score:2, Informative)
Comparing the road and rail infrastructures -SA's
road network and quality is so much higher than the UK, but the UK's rail is by far superior to SAs.
Its difficult to classify SA, and I always think of it as a meld of 1st and 3rd world technologies - it is as you suggest, a duality. Open source is the tool to lower the barrier of moving third world stuff to be competitive in a first world arena.
The problem is not internet connection (Score:4, Informative)
Once I saw a documentary about SUN donating an UNIX workstation to an Africa country(don't recall which one, but it's so under-developed) for educational research. The major problem they've got is not being able to connect to internet, their problem is to get steady supply of electricity to boot up the workstation.
But the power of desperate users is unlimited! To solve the problem, they built a dynamo from a bicycle. It's bizarre to see how they use the workstation - someone is bicycling very hard while the operator types very very fast(No X, just CLI, sorry!).
I've never complaint my internet connection since.
(I'm also aware that South Africa is not like the other under-developed countries in Africa, just a thought. ^_^)
Good comments on intellectual property... (Score:2, Informative)