Open Source's Battle In Africa 172
eldavojohn writes "The BBC has more details about something we last discussed in 2008 — the showdown of open source versus proprietary software in Africa. When discussing the issue of cost, the piece quotes Microsoft's chairman on the scene, Dr. Cheikh Modibo Diarra, who alludes that open source continually costs you money by saying 'You buy Microsoft software, and you buy it once and for all, the cost that we tell you is the total cost for ownership.' On the other end of the story is Ken Banks from Kiwanja.net who has spent 15 years developing open source applications in Africa. His logic is that 'Today we're seeing growing open-source programmer, developer communities in South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and other African countries. Clearly, if you have this informal programming sector coming up, access to source code is almost critical if they are going to be able to take advantage of these new tools that are emerging.' Well, the battle rages on, hopefully the emerging African developers and users pick the tool(s) that suit their needs the best."
Developers in Africa? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh great (Score:5, Funny)
Cost of ownership? (Score:5, Funny)
Jesus, I've been a fool for using Linux on my personal systems. Why, considering all the man hours I've put into it, I would have saved virtually hundreds of dollars by paying for a quality Microsoft product!
I'm going to run out right away and buy a new operating system! Looking forward to never having to configure anything, and having a bug free system that does everything I want!
(Mods - Joke. Really.)
Silver lining if MS wins in Nigeria (Score:1, Funny)
Does that mean only MS users will get spam from Nigeria?
Re:You buy it once? (Score:2, Funny)
Oh, and I graduate with my MIS degree tonight!
Hats off to you. Enjoy your unemployment and food stamps.
Re:Cost of ownership? (Score:5, Funny)
So you are getting a mac then?
That guy is correct (Score:1, Funny)
I bought Vista once, pirated XP twice, and now Kubuntu hasn't cost me anything!
MS products are cheap and they teach you a lot about Unix and FOSS philosophy!
Re:You buy it once? (Score:1, Funny)
And putting in new formats for the next Office iteration. I had to buy the new Office for home because those who upgraded never remember to downgrade.
That may have been the case in the past, but with Office 2007 Microsoft released a very good free file conversion tool for older versions of office.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=941b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f43-c6bb74cd1466&displaylang=en [microsoft.com]
In fact, the file converter is so good that my company feels no reason to upgrade to Office 2007 (not to mention the learning curve with the new interface).
Hey, be nice to Dr. Cheikh Modibo Diarra (Score:5, Funny)
Of course, my upfront costs keep mounting, but he assured me when he asked for my account numbers that the funds will shortly be directly deposited to my bank.
Re:Silver lining if MS wins in Nigeria (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, but not *just* spam. They will also get new friends with dead uncles!
URGENT BUSINESS PROPOSAL (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Developers in Africa? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Cost of ownership? (Score:2, Funny)
In my experience, solving Windows problems involves a lot of bottle shaking.
Naturally, as a Windows developer, I always have a bottle handy. But I'm unclear as to how shaking the Jack Daniels is supposed to help...
- T
Re:Developers in Africa? (Score:3, Funny)