Microsoft Thinks Africa Doesn't Need Free Software 729
DIY News writes "Microsoft has claimed the cost of software is not an important issue in the developing world. According to MS, while you can give people free software or computers, they won't have the expertise to use it."
No, they don't need free software (Score:5, Insightful)
... Nice (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, you've got to start somewhere.
Training (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:5, Insightful)
We wouldn't want all of that aid money to be spent on expensive software to create the country's infrastructure when it could just be free in both senses of the word.
Just playing devil's advocate.
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:5, Insightful)
>those bases covered before we start doling out the software, shall we?
Sure they need food. But to feed themselves they need a competitive modern economy. To get that, computers can help.
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:3, Insightful)
Other than that
It's just a new way of stupidity brewing (Score:5, Insightful)
If anything - this shows the level of stupidity at Microsoft.
Errr? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, sure, if you give them the software for free they might lack the expertise to use it.
But if you charge them for it instead, then you've gotten a tiny amount of cash, they've lost (~)months of their savings, and they STILL lack the expertise to use it!
-:sigma.SB
P.S. Interesting. Firefox "parses" </?P> tags. :S
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:2, Insightful)
>bases covered before we start doling out the software, shall we?
Seems to me the most important thing is peace. It's kinda hard to eat and drink if someone's shooting you in the head and pushing you into a ditch.
Not just Microsoft are poorly-informed (Score:5, Insightful)
Newsflash: Most Africans do not live in huts on the savannah.
They live in cities and towns. They have access to technology. They're just as smart as you and I.
While I did attend a few hours of BASIC training way back in the dark ages of computing, I learned most of it myself by just having access to my computer. These days, computers are (more) user friendly so the story just strikes me as being stupid bordering to racist.
uhm yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:2, Insightful)
Interpretation (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Gates =! visionary (Score:3, Insightful)
"640K ought to be enough for everyone" is attributed to him but likely an urban legend.
But "Internet is just a passing fancy" was him.
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:5, Insightful)
Typical Slashdot Sensationalism (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:4, Insightful)
Self Determination (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft still doesn't get free software. Free software isn't about the cost, it's about the freedom. Consequently the MS rep is right when he says costs isn't the major issue, and his arguments about expertise strengthen the position of free software.
Free software gives Africans a better chance of learning how to use software and build a local industry modifying it.
I bet the next generation of African mechanics already spend their days under the bonnet of any car they can get access to. These are the people who will own small mechanics business in tomorrow's Africa. Tough luck if your car is a Microsoft car with the bonnet welded shut.
Microsoft's aim is to keep Africa dependent on Microsoft.
Some people are using the 'give them food before computers' argument. The philosophy behind free software is larger than computer software. It's about the abilityto determine your own course in life. I'm sure Monsanto is using the same arguments as Microsoft about the sterile seed they sell.
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:5, Insightful)
B.
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me be the first one to tell you that there are people in africa who have have houses, clean water and food. Furthermore there are people in America who have no clean water, no food and live outside.
So people in Africa need computers, they need industry, they need commerce, they need an economy. WIthout those they will never get enough food for everybody. Of course not everybody will be fed, just like in America not everybody is fed, but you can't wait till everybody has enough food to start your economy.
Something for nothing-piracy. (Score:1, Insightful)
You don't have to go that far. The US is nearby.
Re:... Nice (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is why you're wrong.
In summation: Microsoft can't compete with free.
Actually it can and is
"Microsoft is not a helicopter dropping relief materials; we're there in the field."
Neil Holloway, the president of Microsoft for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said that training in IT skills is the most important issue in emerging markets. Microsoft is involved in a number of training activities in Africa, including the Partners in Learning programme, which helps train teachers in computer skills, and the Nepad eSchools project, which supplies schools across Africa with computers, software, training, networking, connectivity, maintenance and support.
I'm not saying they're the only people doing this, but they are competing. At the moment, I think they're accepting help from anyone they can (although some of the help comes at a higher monetary price then others).
I call bullsh*t. (Score:3, Insightful)
My soon to be wife has lived for years in Africa as a exchange student through her church - West africa, not the tourist spots that get cleaned up to look better so they attrract more tourist money - so I know a little something about this.
Water is a rare resource there. If you get bitten by a bug for example, you wipe the bloody sore on the wall to scratch it because if you use your water for the day on it, you dont drink.
A person can live - barely - on about 2 bucks american a day for food and basic needs - and no that does not include toothbrushes or soap as they are luxuries - in Africa if they have a home; Unfortunately most dont even have 50 cents american per day.
It is a fact that electricity is only available in the larger cities if at all, and without electricity you are not going to be able to boot a computer much less use any software on it open source or not. The African people are cunning in the way that they can usually do what it takes to survive - survival of the fittest being a cruel but true thing in the extreme land and political environment and all the civil wars they have gone through - but they can not use electronics without electricity.
But they do know how to use the tools when they are available. The biggest thing over there - and the one thing every African knows how to use - is the windows based computers at the internet cafes in the larger cities. People walk days just to use them. Saying that they do not have the knowledge to use computers is not only an insult to them and a racist comment in itself, but completely goes against the standing facts that keep Spam filters against Nigerian - yes Nigeria is in Africa - Spam from hitting your inbox.
My fiance has personaly known some of these africans and talked to them, and do you really think that nigerians would be sending you spam and trying to get money from you if they where not so damn poor with no other option? Sure once it works it may just be greed that keeps them going, but in such a sorry state of existance and in such a poor country if it works and keeps them fed and clothed, what else are they going to do to survive? I am not saying spam is good - its bad and the people who send it have very low to non-existant ethics - but what other choice do some of these people have thanks to companies like microsoft not even wanting to try to help africa be developed enough to be self supporting?
Microsoft is just splitting hairs and insulting people, as well as lying through there fscking teeth. They have the power to make not only Africa as a developing natuion but the entire world a better place, and they will not do it because they are too damn greedy to think of anybody else but there own profit margins. The funny thing is they say they are against spam, so you would think they would want to help develop africa - and nigeria - enough to allow the spammers alone to have other options. That in itself would make the world a better place.
Re:It's just a new way of stupidity brewing (Score:3, Insightful)
I believe you are right (Canonical being based on the Isle of man, and linux
I did a Google search http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=ubuntu+lin
Which pretty much the top few sites stating it was developed in south Africa
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:1, Insightful)
How convenient (Score:2, Insightful)
That's quite a biased way to put the very real problem that flooding a country with extremely low-cost foreign products means that local producers can't even hope to compete. You know, investing resources to produce something you can't sell is not exactly financially smart. You're better off doing nothing.
And this sort of stuff has happened in the USA, too, and in an even more absurd manner--the stereotypical economic depression scenario where there's a food shortage in the cities when agriculture overproduces, because the price that could be obtained for food is just too low to justify spending more on production and distribution. Which led to those New Deal government incentives for farmers to actually reduce yields...
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:3, Insightful)
There isn't only one Africa (Score:1, Insightful)
Do people really live under the dillusion that there is only one Africa and that people don't have drinking water, food and shelter throughout the whole continent?
Please tell me that isn't true, though this seems to be the perception of many people, as posts like yours show.
Africa is a whole freaking and diverse continent and while there sadly are areas where providing basic means of survival must be the only priority, this simply isn't the case in the vast part of the continent (thank god).
And believe it or not, in vast areas of this continent people do need better education and better access to global knowledge and that's where technology can and should play a role and I think free software is best suited for these goals.
Re:What does Africa Need? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank you! (Score:1, Insightful)
Thankyou Sir for pointing this out. Sterile seed is the dark side of capitalism: it creates artificial scarcity in order to maximize profits and should be fought against with any method.
I kind of agree (Score:2, Insightful)
While Bill is write that the price of software is not important (in fact software/hardware in general), he is talking about the educated elite in these countries and not the farmer working 12 hours in a field somewhere for 6 bucks a month.
Food, water and shelter are a good start, but so is education. What is the west afraid of (or is THAT a silly question)...
Karem
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:3, Insightful)
Remember that those states that are at the very bottom of the GDP/person ranking are among those that have been exploited the most by the West during and after the colonialist period, not to mention racked by war, disease, famine and natural disasters.
In fact the thinking has been going at the World Bank for some years that debt relief is the best way forward, to the point that world renowned Marxist-Trostysk-Leninist way way wayyyy to the left of the left (not) Paul Wolfvowitz, our new president of the WB, has taken upon himself to implement this idea and recently succeeded [startribune.com].
The idea is that those poorest states certainly have made mistakes in the past but that there is absolutely no reason why the new generations in those states should continue to pay forever for them, since they are already given a raw deal to start with.
If you think about it the same reasoning goes for welfare, to the point that even in one the most conservative and market driven economy on the planet, when decision makers sat down and thought about possible solutions, no one came up with a better solution.
You can't continue punishing people for mistakes they haven't commited forever. Doing so is inhuman and counterproductive.
Best.
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, it's not as if AIDS isn't a problem in US, albeit not as bad, so maybe you should keep doing the research on that.
(just assuming you post from the US, but the point still stands if it's somewhere else)
On topic, I think it's unfortunate that MS don't want to donate software, but then, it's not the end of the world. I hear there are pretty good OSS alternatives...
This is a blatant logical fallacy (Score:4, Insightful)
Aquiring the expertise to know how to use computers is a necessary prerequisite to being able to benefit from computers and the software that they run, regardless of whether that software is free or proprietary. Microsoft is correct in stating that these people would not be able to benefit from free software at this point, but then they're no better equipped to be able to benefit from anything Microsoft has to offer either.
Listening to Microsoft when it comes to computer software is like asking Ford or GM what brand of car you should buy.
Lee
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with this argument, of course, is that the people who now have the debt on their back aren't the ones who caused it in the first place. Now, one can make an argument that the current people inherited the original debt-makers, and therefore inherited the debt too; however, the debt was not caused by their actions, so I fail to see what this issue has to do with personal responsibility.
You do realize that welfare exist for the benefit of the well-of, do you ? After all, if someone has the choice between starving to death and attacking you and stealing your wallef in the street, the latter is always a better option for him, no matter how high the chances of capture or how severe the punishment - certain death vs. almost certain death, in worst case. You don't want to put the poor to the situation where all they have to lose is their chains, but they have the whole world to win.
That welfare also keeps bodies dead from starvation from littering the street, and provides a safety net - which is always a good thing to have, no matter how sure you are about your own abilities - is simply a nice side effect. But its real function is to stabilize the society by making its continued existence a better option than its violent overthrow even for the poorest members of it.
Besides, trying to carry your responsibilities and succeeding in that task are two different things. Not having the safety net of welfare turns lack of success into a death penalty.
Microsoft getting back to its old self... (Score:3, Insightful)
Just like the cost of food isn't important to those who want to grow up healthy?
even though he admitted that the average annual salary in the West African country is only $160 (£91).
Yes, I'm sure that Africans wouldn't mind starving for a few years, so that they can buy Microsoft's software - which I'm sure Microsoft would offer at a discount rate for the first year.
"It's not about the cost of the software, it's about how you take your expertise to people. We are sharing our expertise, particularly with governments in emerging markets. Cost is not the barrier here -- expertise is," said Holloway.
Most commendable. My hat is off to Microsoft, having ripped off those who can afford its software, it spends some of the excess on locking poor people into its proprietary solutions.
If Microsoft was to give everybody in Africa free PCs running the latest version of Windows, what would they do when they had to upgrade? And, if they couldn't afford to upgrade, what good would their expertise in an old, out-dated operating system do?
Microsoft seems to be getting right back into 'Linux is a cancer!' mode with this textual outburst of desperation.
The thing is, many Africans have time to spend learning how to use software, but they don't have money to spend buying software. Using Open Source seems the better option, especially when there is a need to keep up with upgrades.
Re:uhm yes (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a very small hadful of relatives that have no electricity and no running water. They live in the mountains of East Tennessee (Appalachia). But, they are far from uneducated. While they are not too up on modern stuff - theater, pop culture, music, and generally "new" stuff I would bet on them for reading, math, and history over the average "educated" person in any western world (not the top, but the average). It may not be hard to beat me (see my sig), but they are quite good at the basics and thier idea of basics are higher than the vast majority of high schools.
All of them have homemade generators, water purification systems, a good personal library (no TV means lots of reading), and working vehicles (including farming stuff) that they totally maintain themselves. They have a pretty good understanding of biology and botany - better than quite a few "educated" people I've known. In short, they are humans - just as smart as anyone else just not educated in the same way we are. In fact, given that they do not have access to alot of our non-brain usage past times they seem to be beter adaptable. They understand advanced Comp Sci algorithms MUCH faster than my other non-CS friends, they find uses for them that would never occur to me, and many other things. They interact with the "modern" world quite a bit - a few of them electricity is just a few hunderd yards away (the terrain precludes them from getting it though), they are not backwards. If you ever met them you wouldn't know, other than they don't really know much about survivor, Microsoft, or other popular culture bits. However they are very knowledgable about things that are covered in periodicals, newspapers, and other written material - much more than the standard American.
I have little to no experience with rural Africans, in high school I had a friend from Ghana and in college a person from Nigeria - both were amongst the most intelligent and educated I've ever known. But, given that humans tend to be, well, humans, I would expect that the vast majority are fairly intelligent and not far from my relatives. Maybe not educated from a perspective of a city person, but then in many ways better than those from the city (just as a country person wouldn't get along in a city, the city person doesn't really get along in the country either - they are just different).
Re:I call bullsh*t. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's language like that that keeps people ignorant. You could have informed everyone reading about how things are in a specific west African country. At the very least they might have learned the name of a country they never knew existed. But now people will read it and come away with 'all Africans have no water but they are all cunning and know how to use computers'.
Re:uhm yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The easiest way to get free software to Africa (Score:2, Insightful)
But yes, we can do without free software from MS. What we do need is broadband... The other day there was an article about the US whining about how they have no bandwidth. Well recently the number of "broadband" subscribers in South Africa surpassed 50000. Thats out of a population of probably 50 million. "broadband" also means any form of ADSL. I write this now from an ADSL 192 line (for which I pay around $50 USD for line rental, no bandwidth. That 50 is on top of another $20 just for the POTS line. Bandwidth next month will be around $12 per GB). If you want to check this out go to www.telkom.co.za (our ONLY telco, bastards) and www.hellkom.co.za
I dont think thats it at all. (Score:0, Insightful)
admin@nonmudnane.com
Appropriate technology (Score:1, Insightful)
The same applies to computers. The software is a one off cost that anyone could donate. Maintenance is an ongoing cost, and without the expertise to maintain the software, the software becomes a liability. In developing countries it really comes down to the right tool for the job, they don't have the money to waste on failed second rate systems like we do. Right now, giving them software won't help a bit, so the cost is irrelavent. It's not until they have the expertise that the cost of software will matter.
The same old free/Free argument (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What does Africa Need? (Score:4, Insightful)
When the United States industrialized, we did it on our own. Even though all the major industries were owned by robber barons, at least they were American robber barons. The products and the profits stayed here.
So now we have all these little African countries trying to have their own industrial revolutions. But instead of enriching themselves, Africans are working in factories owned by Asians, making products that will be shipped off to the United States. That's why they can't "bootstrap."
Freedom is most important (Score:3, Insightful)
And while, Free (as in Freedom or Independence) is helped along by Free or Open Source Software, open protocols and data formats are the foundations of that. Most importantly open protocols and data formats can allow both open and closed source systems to work together, even an egregious example of the latter as MS.
Re:Not just Microsoft are poorly-informed (Score:3, Insightful)
No shit, Sherlock. And most Americans don't wear cowboy hats and rustle cattle. And most Australians don't hop around in the pouch of a kangaroo. What's your fucking point?
Re:I call bullsh*t. (Score:3, Insightful)
Unlike every other commercial company?
Re:Please RTFA, article is about lack of expertise (Score:3, Insightful)
But here's the difference: giving third-world countries Microsoft is "giving them a fish" because it is closed. Giving third-world countries Free alternatives is "teaching them to fish", because it's Open. Just as it initially costs more to teach fishing than to give away fish, so it costs more at the start to set up Linux et. al. than to install Microsoft stuff. But the end result is no dependence by the Mauritians on Microsoft.
The point is Mr Watson.... (Score:5, Insightful)
People may have their stereotypes about the US, but I think roughly are better informed about how the US really is (we would not assume that having computers or access to technology is an imposibility for most USians) than USians are about Africa.
Just check this thread later. The comment "but they need food/medicine/whatever first" will inevitably show up.
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the price they pay for aid. They can have the aid and the strings, or freedom and no aid. Apparently they've opted for the former.
Max
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:3, Insightful)
Everybody knows the old saying, "give a man fish and you feed him for a day, teach him to fish and you feed for life". Well, I always think of U.S. aid to Africa being, "give a man fish and take away his fishing rod"
The foreign aid policies are designed to:
That way there's lots of money to be made from Africa without the possibility arising that Africa will become economically independent and start posing a threat to the U.S. economy.
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:3, Insightful)
(playing devil's advocate as well
That being said, there is indeed no reason to pay for a resource when a free equivalent is available.
And to further debunk the MS argument, there are several ongoing efforts where NGOs are "on the field" as well with free software to provide with the basic expertise to help get the users up to speed with the new tools. So Gate's point is moot.
For users, the skillset in using current desktop machines isn't very complex anyway and despite what the article seems to claim, outside of the bush a lot of people already have that basic skill (or so I witnessed last time I was in western africa, don't know about the situation elsewhere). And internet cafes are everywhere and are widely used. You get an hour of computer use for the price of a few postal stamps.
Which when you think about it (Score:3, Insightful)
Which in my experience, really, is exactly what happens in the first world...
Re:It's just a new way of stupidity brewing (Score:3, Insightful)
Thank you for pointing this out - sometimes it almost appears that, as far as 'developed' countries are concerned, Africa is a country that can be classified under one big umbrella.
Wake up, people! Africa is a continent with many different economies, where you get everything from the poorest and most corrupt such as Zimbabwe and DRC to reasonably well developed countries such as South Africa.
You will be amazed to know how many technological breakthroughs have historically come from South Africa, for example Ubuntu Linux which has been hugely successful. Which makes it in my view plain and simply arrogant to say 'Africans' don't have the skills to use free software.
Oh please, how naive is that. (Score:4, Insightful)
The initial barrier of entry is the cost of the infrastructure, and nowadays the software (the commercial one I mean) is perhaps the biggest cost of having a working computer.
This is even more true if you consider that you can have preety cutting edge machines from a computational point of view in old hardware with the lastest FLOSS software.
Assuming the cost of training is the same no matter what software you use (I will ignore the wide availability of training, help and advice in the FLOSS world) then at the end all goes down to cost.
If you use second hand hardware (the most likely situation if you are trying to introduce computing in a poor country) then you are only faced with the cost of which software to use.
And this makes it a no brainer, you can get a FLOSS OS, with any kind of application you can think of for $0. Windows (or MacOS, when it shows up for generic x86 boxes) will set you a substantial amount of money.
When you realize that very often the price of one license of WIndows is the equivalent to one month salary of a trianed person in some countries, then the argument of this individual (and by extension yours) collapses like a house of cards.
Why should anybody spend money in commercial software when that money could be better spent in paying for the training you will obviously need?
To say that this guy's argument is stupid, self serving and contradictory in the view of the existence of FLOSS is an obious understament.
Re:Training (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, the general standard for patent laws excludes the government: the government is allowed to use any patented invention they feel like for their own purposes (e.g. feeding their citizens).
Now copyright's a different matter entirely, but isn't relevant here.
Re:Badly constructed long-term strategy ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The point is Mr Watson.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Dude, they're Americans. This is the country that gave us creationists. They think democracy is intrinsically linked to capitalism. Half the population thinks Saddam was responsible for 9/11. I wouldn't waste my time worrying about what they think.
While Afrricans (Score:3, Insightful)
There are few reasons to assume if they had access to technical documentation they couldn't develop their own manufacturing and help themselves, even more disturbing is the seeming lack of outside trade, Africa has oil and precious stones which are sold through other countries who pay them a pitance, admittedly the Africans didn't have enough capiltal to start their own industry but if they have access to the technical information at least they'd have an idea of the complexities involved.
Free informtation would be good for progress around the world, it would challenge companies to be original year over year, but the effects on developing countries would me increadible.
Re:... Nice (Score:2, Insightful)
Strange Logic (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:DID YOU READ THE FUCKING ARTICLE? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not just Microsoft are poorly-informed (Score:3, Insightful)
Africans throghout the contininent have a lot of problems, and only the very privledged (relatively) can both have access to computers and use them to inrich their lives. Here are some figures about africa from http://www.conserveafrica.org.uk/ [conserveafrica.org.uk]
# 315 million people - one in two of people in Sub Saharan Africa survive on less than one dollar per day. In a year, this would be half of what I just spent on my fairly modest computer.
# 184 million people - 33% of the African population - suffer from malnutrition. So... maybe a lot of people in Africa really do need to worry about food.
#The average life expectancy in Africa is 41 years.
#Only 57% of African children are enrolled in primary education, and one of three children do no complete school.
#Less than one person out of five has electricity.
Read that last one again, and maybe you will start to see the point. The typical African probably does not see computers as viable or useful in their lives. I'm not going to say "what's the use for computers if you don't have food" but maybe you are being overly optimistic. Yeah, we could bring computers to Africa (which I think is a great thing) but we shouldn't trick ourselves into thinking it will change a whole lot.
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the price they pay for aid. They can have the aid and the strings, or freedom and no aid.
Then it isn't "aid", it's a bribe, and a pretty despicable one at that.
Re:The point is Mr Watson.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Err...right. Because no other culture in history before the US ever thought the world was created through supernatural means rather than through physics.
Re:We all need Free Software (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's just a new way of stupidity brewing (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The point is Mr Watson.... (Score:5, Insightful)
See, to me, those are all reasons to worry about what they think, given that they implement policies (both domestically and internationally) based on what they think.
I'm an American, and lots of my fellow Americans scare the willies out of me.
Bill Gates doesn't care about African people (Score:3, Insightful)
"article is about lack of expertise"
The article is pointless. Building a countries infrastructure on proprietary software is dumb enough. Building a country on another countries proprietary software is national suicide. Witness just about the entire worlds realization of this as they invest heavily in Linux localization and application development. Whats right for the first world isn't appariently right for the so called third world?
The lack of expertise argument is one that could be solved very easily if Bill Gates simply donated a few million to educating people in Africa about OSS. But then Bill really doesn't give a scandisk about people now, does he?
Kind Regards
Re:What does Africa Need? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ethiopia was a colony for only 7 years (1936-1943 under Italy).
Maybe, just maybe, over 60 years after that 7-year period it's time to stop waiting for handouts and start to solve the problems themselves.
Just look at China: It was much worse off than many African nations after the war (and the civil-war that followed) and the Japanese were also much more brutal. But did China wait for handouts? No. They tried to do it themselves and failed first (Mao's big leap forward has made matters even worse) but they learned from their mistakes, got the population under control and exactly those regions that were "colonized" by Japan over 60 years ago are now the most wealthy and industrialized.
Similar stories can be told for Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore.
All those nations built up an industry almost from scratch in less than 20 years and a very healthy economy in less than 40 years. Actually Japan, Germany and to a lesser extent France and Italy were also almost completely destroyed after the war and also were able to built up an adequate industry in less than 20 years. (Athough the apologists will say that Western Europe and Japan had the know-how, that isn't true for Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan and coastal China: All these countries were mostly agrarian 50-60 years ago)
So your claim that it takes longer than half a century is just plain wrong. It takes one human generation to develop an industry (like in today's China) and 2 generations to generate wealth and luxury similar to western standards (like in Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea and Japan today).
Re:The point is Mr Watson.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, this is just wrong. They think democracy is intrinsically linked to capitalism.
This is wrong too. Half the population thinks Saddam was responsible for 9/11.
0-for-3 so far. Where are you from, anyway? I wouldn't waste my time worrying about what they think.
Then I guess you should have got off at the last stop, 'cause America is driving this bus. I bet you're still pretty happy to take advantage of American research, technology, and engineering when it's convenient for you.
Newsflash: everywhere you go, you will find stupid people. They're not just in the US. In fact, many countries are so underdeveloped that they don't even have the facility to display the intelligence of their citizens to the rest of the world in a high-profile way. The United States is endlessly scrutinized because it's leading the pack.
What? (Score:1, Insightful)
Assuming that's true, there's no way that it's because contraceptive use has decreased.
Just put Africa back how it was.
We need to get agricultural production back down to pre-industrial levels.
AIDS isn't good enough because it's too selective. We've got to get malaria, etc. back up to the proper levels.
Intertribal warfare is doing alright in some areas, but it needs to be more widespread.
Sacrasm aside:
There are two main differences between the opression indigenous populations around the world by modern Europeans and the oppression by indigenous populations of other indigenous peoples.
1. The Europeans have proven more militarily and ecomonically powerful, and so came out ahead in all their wars of subjugation.
2. The Europeans were often not as thourough. Many indigenous populations still exist, and are allowed to complain without death being a direct result.
Disclaimer: Bad behaviour on somone else's part is not a valid excuse for bad behaviour on my part (or yours).
Note: I'm sure that someone will construe this post as defending the oppressive behaviour of some group(s), which it's not.
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:4, Insightful)
Although I agree its dangerous to paint a whole continent with one brush, its exceedingly hard to find a single stable economy run, by an open government, that upholds 'progressive' ideas like human rights.
Re:What does Africa Need? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why don't they go home and build their continent you ask? They don't, mostly because of self-preservation (it only costs about $50 to hire an assassin in Nigeria and a country whose attorney general was assassinated without fear of reprisals is not a country anyone with a choice wants to live in).
Let me break it down for most people who don't get it like this. The dictators and political elite so-called that rule in most African countries KNOW that, most people don't want to die for a country they don't have a stake in (wrong but common perception due to the fact that they don't see the gains of those who died before them) but they are willing to kill to hold on to power. As long as that imbalance exists, sub-saharan africa will continue to be the beautiful wasteland that it presently is.
The fault as much as some would like to make it is not the Wests (it's expected that they will look after themselves first i.e. the purpose of a business is to make profit all other considerations come after), it lies solely at the feet of those of us who keep quiet or run away because we don't want to die. Or as one, now dead, but popular nigerian musician (Fela Anikulapo-Kuti) once put it in a track apprioprately titled "Sorrow tears and blood", 'My people sef too dey fear, den no wan die....' .
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe iTunes will revolutionize their government or something. I am sure giving them computers instead of food is going to help them a whole lot. We should just stop sending any aid over there whatsoever and let them figure it out for themselves.
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:3, Insightful)
Africa's not as it seems (Score:4, Insightful)
You only have to look at some of our achievements to see how misled the average westener is. Ask yourself these questions: Who was the *second* space tourist (and the first to perform actual useful scientific experiments for the kids in Africa)? Who developed the safest nuclear reactor (the pepple-bed reactor) in the world? Who pioneered and actively uses a process to generate fuel for card from coal? Who has developed the technology to create the deepest mines in the world? These are but a few of the many things coming out of Africa.
Africa has the most beautiful landscapes in the world, not to mention rich vistas of animal life. We receive 1000's of tourists that come to see real african elephants, lions, rhinoceros, etc. The western world has to come here for that experience.
Africa has many well-established, modern cellular networks that operate on a single standard (the GSM standard) in just about all the african countries. South Africa alone has 43 million people of which more than 20 million have cellphones. Does this sound like the "starving kids" picture you get fed by the media every day?
Countries like South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia, Uganda have stable and growing economies. There are sore thumbs to the picture, but they remain thumbs, and they will be sorted out by the rest of the body that is Africa. If the west would stop meddling in African affairs, the corruption level would be a lot lower, since there wouldn't be any bribary money to throw around.
More on topic: if Microsoft thinks that Africans don't know how to operate OSs and software, they (MS) have another thing coming. If they don't want to market and make money here, there will be 100's of millions of Africans growing up with Linux, learning to rather work with Linux (or any other manufacturer that bothers to market their stuff here). I agree with another poster in the thread.. MS's assumption is simply racist.
Africa is certainly not utopia, but it's not nearly as backwater as people are led to believe either. Let's rather say it has healthy diversity :-)
Re:No, they don't need free software (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course putting a linux box in a hut without electricity isn't going to make anyone's life better.
I would like to help as many people as possible, but I am neither a diamond company CEO nor the head of a major oil conglomerate. Just an IT person like many of the other people here.
I do think that the places in africa (or any other continent for that matter) that are developed and stable enough to sustain a computer lab could be helped with open source software. It won't have the same effect as overthrowing the area's warlord or sending truckloads of food to a famished area, but its not a bad thing to want to help people in areas of our own expertise.
Indictment != conviction (Score:3, Insightful)
I hate the way Republicans get portrayed in the Western media, too.
In case you hadn't noticed, Delay hasn't been convicted of ANYTHING. He has been Indicted. (That means he convinced a grand jury that there might be enough evidence to justify actually holding a trial.)
If being indicted means he's guilty, it means Clinton was guilty when he was impeached by the House (the equivalent at that level) and they didn't need to hold the trial in the Senate that acquitted him. It also means you're guilty of anything the traffic cop says you did once he writes that ticket.
Delay was forced to step down by Republican party rules that won't let someone under indictment for a felony hold a leadership position. (If Democrats had had a similar rule for Presidents, Clinton would have had to resign and let Gore run the country when he was impeached.)
Delay's indictment was driven by a prosecutor who has a long track record of using his office to prosecute his political opponents in either party. Who had to go to multiple grand juries before he could find one that would actually indict. And who then had to go get ANOTHER indictment after it was discovered that the stuff he CLAIMED Delay did WASN'T A CRIME at the time he claimed he did it.
Meanwhile, the Western Media continues pushing their own propaganda templates: All (not just some) African leaders are corrupt. All Republicans are crooks/racists/male chauvanists. All users of peer-to-peer tools are thieves. All hackers are crackers/pirates/vandals. All rural/southern people are booze-swilling, negro-lynching, low IQ "good old boys". All legal gunowners are foaming-at-the-mouth rambos. All violent felons are just misunderstood kids who had a hard childhood. All US citizens refuse to do the jobs they USED to do for decent wages in now-long-gone unionts that "undocumented immigrants" now do for less than the minimum wage contractors are ALLOWED to pay someone who has a paper trail. And so on.
They use these templates because they sway minds and advance their political agenda. Look how they swayed your mind: You thought Delay was convicted and that his behavior was typical of Republican politicians, didn't you?
Re:Not just Microsoft are poorly-informed (Score:2, Insightful)
I actually LIVED in Africa for a while. I was in West Africa, in a country called the Ivory Coast. I think that makes me more qualified to discuss Africa (the West, at least) than the average Slashdotter.
That said, while what you say is true, even most of those Africans that live in cities (I'm still discussing the west here, not S.A.) have no need of computers, even those with plenty of food. Computers are actually available there, if you know where to look, and there are the odd offices that have one and use it for business. Home computers, however, would be a colossal waste of time, money, and effort. There's nowhere to buy software, no money to spend on it, no internet connection to download OSS/Free Software, no reliable postal system to deliver it on CDs, no reliable electric grid to power them (in some areas). Dialup is a non-option, as nearly noone has a phone line in thier house because they're pay-per-minute and it takes ages to get one even if you have the cash.
I'd also like to agree with you about the average intelligence of an African. However, while they may be intelligent, on average they are much less educated. They are never exposed to the great majority of what we take for granted here. While that doesn't make them less intelligent, it does make them less ..(searching for the right word here)... prepared to move into the technological world.
I'd also like to add that some great part of the ills of the African continent can be laid directly at the feet of the governments of that continent. Whether or not the blame passes through those governments onto the governments of the "first world" nations that have played thier chess games with Africa I'm not prepared to discuss.