Linux and 'Third World' Countries
Henry Joseph Story
yet seen the following argument.
The main problem, still, everybody knows, with Unix is that, unless
well set up (and even then) it requires time to learn, requiring always,
at some stage or another, technical advice, and quite possibly a lot
of that. But why is this a problem?
The reason is simple economics. To buy Unix you not only need to buy
the system (which in the case of Linux is free) but also, and
especially, the expertise to run it. On big systems, with many users,
the economics of scale prevail, and Unix has its place. On small systems,
on the other hand - ie. your small buisness - the same economics have
favoured Mac Os and Windows (or Windoze). And will continue to favour
them in many areas, and for a long time: Bill Gates and the like act
as your world wide Computer Support Staff, in effect. The lack of
flexibility of these systems is compensated for by their size. The lack
of flexibility at the lower level is compensated for by the increased
flexibility billions of dollars provide.
What Linux brings to this equation is not as obvious therefore as some
may think. The two types of systems cannot be compared for flexibility
in the same way. The cheapness of Linux ( = 0$ to buy) has to be
compared with the time it takes to learn to use it properly and the
cost of the teaching involved (certainly compared with Mac OS) which
in the Technologically Developped World does not come cheap. But
here comes my point...
In many regions of the third World labour is cheap and money is scarce.
I heared that 75 people could be employed in Malaysia for every person
employed in Japan (at least). These same countries often are very short
of money - if they are not massively in debt. For these countries then
labour cost is not a problem but hardware and software costs are. For
these countries the competitive advantage of Windoze and System 7 is
near nil. The competitive advantage of LINUX is overwhelming.
-1- it costs nothing
-2- it runs on cheap hardware (hardware that will be soon
thrown out of windows in Economically plentifull
countries).
Just think: do programmers in the 3rd world really X? How many VT220's
could be hooked up to one 386? 486? Pentium? for data entry
purposes? (Please could someone answer this question)
Next fact: Where are most of the programmers in the future going to
come from? Fot a start: Where do most people in the World live?
First World or 'Third World'?
What will these programmers do? -Program.
What will millions of more programmers do? -Write 1000000 of progs.
Which operating system will be the best serviced, then?
This seems to be on overwhelming argument to get the big Unix vendors
to promote Linux in the Third World countries. They can't afford
a sun Station now... but wait and see how they grow.
So, what is being done at present to get Linux know in those countries?
Dan Pop
>So, what is being done at present to get Linux know in those countries?
Linux is known in those countries. The real problem is the scarcity of
386 (or better) PC's there.
Russian physicists from Dubna have ported large parts of the CERN
program library to Linux and if you have a look at the LSM of the
GIT package, you'll see:
Title: GNU Interactive Tools
...
Author: tu...@cs.pub.ro (Tudor Hulubei)
pi...@cs.pub.ro (Andrei Pitis)
Maintained-by: tu...@cs.pub.ro (Tudor Hulubei)
Primary-site: pub.pub.ro /pub/git
Dan
--
Dan Pop
CERN, CN Division
Email: dan...@afsmail.cern.ch
Mail: CERN - PPE, Bat. 31 R-004, CH-1211 Geneve 23, Switzerland
Max Southall
>The reason is simple economics. To buy Unix you not only need to buy
>the system (which in the case of Linux is free) but also, and
>especially, the expertise to run it. On big systems, with many users,
>the economics of scale prevail, and Unix has its place. On small systems,
>on the other hand - ie. your small buisness - the same economics have
>favoured Mac Os and Windows (or Windoze). And will continue to favour
>them in many areas, and for a long time: Bill Gates and the like act
>as your world wide Computer Support Staff, in effect.
The cost of buying and running a single user Windows PC over 5 years for any
organization is $35,000 to $40,000. This is because we're not just talking
about initial cost of hardware, but training, software, upgrades both
hardware and software, maintenance, data loss and recovery, and the endless
lost productivity and time spent by personnel futzing with the system.
These figures are the standard ones used in industry for evaluating computer
costs, and we in our organization have determined them to be accurate.
Robert Hepple
: I have read many reasons for and against Linux and Unix but I have not
: yet seen the following argument.
cut, cut ...
: here comes my point...
: In many regions of the third World labour is cheap and money is scarce.
:
Interest point - here's something else that you may be interested in.
In China the dominant form of mid-range computing is not AS400, VMS,
IBM/360 or other architecture - it's - wait for it ... Xenix.
Hard as it may be to believe, up there in the definitive third world
country, they have 286's and up running Xenix with 640Kb RAM and half
a dozen (locally made) terminals. Runs just fine.
Now, one big problem. All that Xenix is ILLEGAL and the PRC government
(as elsewhere in the 3rd world pirate software heavens) are busy
tightening up their act. (Standover tactics from US Govt, BSA activists
whatever). What are all these guys going to do? Shell out US$1,000 of
precious foreign exchange (yes - the US$ is foreign there!) to satisfy
Mr Gates?
OK - what about upgrade the CPU to 386 (they still sell in PRC!) and then
a modern Operating System? NT, OS/2 - no good. Don't run terminals (Chinese
language Terminals) and one 386 per user - give me a break!!
Solaris, Novell UNIX - what at US$x,000 a pop? Maybe not, but at least
the old software will port easily and keep using those terminals.
Ah - Linux. It's free, it's legal and it does just about whatever
the other UNIX's do and a whole lot more than OS/2-NT-Warp.
Ho Ho Ho. We might just find that China (and Russia, Africa, India too)
become the next great wave of computing advances on the back of Linux.
For all the above as well as your excellent reasoning.
Now, what should I do about this sitting here in my luxury flat in
decadent Hong Kong? Gotta be a buck in it somewhere. Sell my services
as a Linux hack? Who knows ...
What do YOU intend to do with this intruiging line of thought?
--
Bob Hepple, Hong Kong
Ph: +852 2849 7538 Fx: +852 2849 4801 email: bhe...@glink.net.hk