Open Source, Free Software Opens New Windows to Third World Computing

Policy planners, IT experts and plain computer users across the Third World have a way out. No more do they have to choose between being labelled 'pirates' or foregoing the use of potent software that enhances their productivity manifold.

GNU/Linux, the alternative 'free' operating system and the tonnes of useful software that comes along with it, is clearly attracting interest from a range of quarters. From Pakistan to the UNDP, from Africa to Malaysia, and even in the Philippines or Thailand and Nepal, GNU/Linux is being closely watched, studied and adopted in a range of interesting experiments.

Created and propagated largely by volunteers, most of GNU/Linux's growth simply isn't based on giant billion-dollar spinning corporations that have the resources to promote its cause. So, such success stories from the Third World could largely go unnoticed.

In large parts of the world where the average per capita income is often less than the cost of a computer, the current phenomenal price of software turns millions into 'pirates'. In these parts of the globe, words like 'free' or 'low cost' are not necessarily associated with low-quality, but on the other hand offers to include millions who otherwise would be simply left out in the cold.

Because GNU/Linux is 'free' -- in the sense that its code is freely available to anyone who wishes to work on it further, or adapt it, or just reproduce it -- there are no mountains of secrecy blocking the easy-replicability of such software.

This means, prices of the same fall to a point which is dramatically low compared to 'proprietorial' software... and thus suddenly become affordable to the millions.

For instance, a couple of hundred thousand copies of GNU/Linux have been distributed across a country like India, through local popular computer magazines, at a price of just around $2. That includes both the cost of a slick magazine, and CD. This software can, of course, be legally copied across as many computers as needed.