Open Source for Africa?
on Phil Bradfield (The Gambia), 05/Jun/2010 13:16, 34 days ago
(Written 05/06/2010 12:00, RED5, Janjanbureh)In a previous post I mentioned the new PCs which have been donated to the GAMSPAD training centre, which I observed the installation of a couple of days ago. In that previous post, I mentioned that I was going to write a blog post about a potential issue that I’d spotted with the new PCs, and this is that post. The issue in question? The PCs came not with Windows installed, which I’d been expecting, but with Ubuntu.Now, I should say right now that I’m as keen on open source software as anyone. I’d like few things better than for the whole world to spontaneously abandon proprietary software and move to Linux, Open Office etc. As a general principle, I much prefer the open source model of development, mostly because of the fact that the bottom line is the quality of the software, not the width of the profit margin. And of course,someoneneeds to start eating into Microsoft’s profits so that maybe they’ll shake themselves out of their complacency and start producing consistently reliable software.But, that said, GAMSPAD is a public training centre in a West African backwater town. How likely is it that any of their graduates will ever see open source again after they leave? There are few internet connections in the whole of The Gambia which are fast enough to easily download a Linux distro, whereas Windows CDs are easily copied and distributed, and the police have far more important things to deal with than software piracy. All this means Windows is at least as dominant here as anywhere else, and I was expecting that the trainer at GAMSPAD would say that he wouldn’t be able to use them and we’d have to remove Ubuntu and put XP on all these PCs. And reluctantly, I’d have helped him, because he’d probably have been right: the trainer doesn’t know Linux, so he can provide better training using XP, and Linux is of very dubious relevance to his pupils.But, there is a happy ending to this story, at least as far as my ethics are concerned. The trainer, Mr Jarra, decided that he was prepared to try using the Ubuntu PCs and he wouldn’t install Windows on them, for the time being at least. They do have a few Windows PCs already, so I’ve suggested that he make sure his students use both, which will hopefully help them to learn some of the principles involved in computing, rather than learning by rote: “to do this I click here, then here, then here”. I’ve also offered to help him in adapting his training to use the Linux PCs as well as the Windows ones; whether he’ll take me up on that only time will tell.On a side note, I am dreading what will happen when one of them develops a problem though; my knowledge of Ubuntu is not deep. Lots of internet searching on the subject, I suspect, with Mr Jarra involved in the process so that he can learn at the same time. Or maybe that won’t happen until after I’ve left and it’ll be my successor’s problem...