This is impressive. There seems to be a distinct trend for computerization in non-Western nations to be based on operating systems that don't cost an arm and a leg - the case of China is also called to my mind wherein they developed a distribution of Linux complete with the Chinese character set for official use instead of depending on multimillion-dollar site licences for Windows.This will free up funds on a large scale for worthy projects that would otherwise not have been available - a possibly-critical situation in countries such as India, where there is still much poverty and this needs to be alleviated as quickly as possible.
In Western nations the situation is not so critical, but I feel we can learn from these examples of using non-"mainstream" type operating systems in order to free up government funds for small-scale projects on a town-wide or city-wide scale that can still bring benefits to residents; a classic example that could be cited would be the Vancouver Public Library. I think it only costs about an extra $115,000 (Jacob? *Paging Jacob Two-Two to the babble phone, please*) to keep the whole system open instead of having that week-long shutdown in summer. I betcha dollars to donuts if all the new computers purchased by the city had the Windows licence costs taken out, there'd be enough savings to keep the library system open all year without taking something else out of the budget.
That's an operating cost, though, which doesn't really translate into ongoing savings, but a capital cost which might would be freeing up money for sewer or road construction. 
I certainly hope Venezuela uses Linux or FreeBSD 
Email this thread to someone!
posted 30 August 2003 10:41 PM
