Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 11:42:53 +0100 From: Erik Norgaard <norgaard@locolomo.org> To: Kristian Vaaf <vaaf@broadpark.no> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Open Source and 3rd world countries Message-ID: <4411582D.2030307@locolomo.org> In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20060308211347.02261468@broadpark.no> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20060308211347.02261468@broadpark.no>
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Kristian Vaaf wrote: > I'm writing this thesis on the benefits of integrating > open source software into third world countries to boost > their economies and the knowledge of their people. > > I will also write about a detailed scenario, where, ofcourse, > FreeBSD plays the lead role. > > However I can't find all that much information on Google. > I think the material I'm looking for doesn't exist as articles > on websites but rather documents. > > Would anyone mind giving me a few pointers? Well you have the much hyped green laptop announced by Nicolas Negroponte, MIT. It received much publicity at the resent UN summit in Libia, and it has been designed to address exactly what you are writing about. There are tons of stuff on initiatives in developing countries to move to OSS, I have seen particularly South America hitting headlines while Africa seems to lack more behind. Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Venezuela, AFAIK, have passed laws to move to OSS. Congress member Villanueva have hit headlines worldwide for his work to move Peru onto OSS. His letter exchange with Microsoft in Peru have been translated into many languages. http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,54141,00.html And there's the Brazilian minister of culture who offered to license his music under an open content license. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.11/linux.html China have long ago announced a national flavour of linux - red I assume :) Unfortunately FreeBSD doens't make the headlines like Linux does, so FreeBSD is almost never considered as an alternative - in particular when initiatives are made by politicians, I think they largely understand OSS as Linux rather than a class of alternatives. Cheers, Erik
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