Open Source and 3rd world countries

[Erik Norgaard]

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