There’s an article at the BBC with some interesting comments in general about open source. There is one section in particular that I think helps to summarize the case for open source in developing countries quite well:

“If you spend a dollar with a local company working on Linux, that dollar stays in your economy,” said Simon Phipps of Sun Microsystems.

“When you spend a dollar with a multi-national corporation as a license fee for a piece of software, that dollar leaves your country.”

“It’s about keeping the money in your local economy, developing skills and developing the local economy to be strong in its own right in a global context.”

And that is why some think open-source could be the way of the future, especially for developing countries.

I”m one of those people who thinks that open source is the way of the future especially for developing countries. The tech industry in the US was really pretty stupid for having put so many eggs in the Microsoft basket. And many of the consituents of that industry unfortunately still just don”t see any problem with the issue (as a sidenote, I think that many of the people I have worked with might actually be Microsoft developed marketing drone bots). It has been known to make life difficult for those looking to innovate. I would be very happy if the currently developing countries didn’t end up making the same kinds of mistakes. So maybe there is some use to Microsoft these days after all, it serves as a great scarecrow for developing countries.