Interesting times ahead for Education, ICT policymakers and OSS advocates in developing countries

The announcement by PC manufacturer Acer Computers a couple of weeks ago thatit was going to focus on linux-based PCs, laptops and notebooks presents interesting opportunities for ICT policymakers and users alike in developing countries. Given the low markups that prevail in the PC business, it makes a lot of diffrerence to manufacturers whether they install MS Windows for a charge of up to 100 $ or linux, for close to nothing. Dell has shown the path with Ubuntu on its some of its laptop and desktop models, HP has followed with Novell Suse.

Although Red Hat has left the linux desktop market, its Sugar operating system for the OLPC might find its way into several of the emerging umpc designs.

We are going to witness a prolification of low-cost comuting devices, education PCs, all running on open-source software.

It remains to be seen, whether policymakers and government officials will exercise objective evaluation and unbiased judgment in making purchasing decisions. Are they going to cave in to demands and pressure from huge incumbent proprietary software developers & marketers or act in the interest of those excluded from the gobal village by the digital divide, to a large extent attributable to the plays and practices of purveyors of closed-source software.

For us at THE FIRSTBYTE PROJECT, the choice is clear: we prefer free and open source software with all its uncertainties to guaranteed serfdom under proprietary software.

Kudos, Dell, HP & Acer!