You can’t take Japanese without learning about the shinkansen, or the bullet train. And after you memorize its translation, maybe your professor will tell you what a “bullet train” actually is (or probably not). It’s a train that moves by magnets and reaches speeds of over 300 km/hr (about 190 mph). It traverses all of Japan (which I guess isn’t that impressive since Japan is the size of New Jersey), from the northern tip in Hachinohe to the southwest in Fukuoka. A pass for a week is ~$272. Okay, pretty expensive. But one-way to New York on Amtrak is between $40 and $120!

Okay, then there’s the Eurostar. This thing reaches speeds of 300 km/hr (~186mph) and connects London, France and Belgium. It is also a bit pricey, but very fast. You can get from London to Paris for about $90 if you’re under 26 in about 2 hr 35 min. The Eurostar reaches over 130 towns and cities in England and transports those passengers to Europe.

France’s TGV (Train a Grande Vitesse) is the fastest train to date; it reached speeds of 357 mph (yes, miles per hour!) back in April, 2007.

(Apparently there is some tension between locomotive makers in Europe vs. those in Japan, battling for the highest speed. France has also sold its TGV to South Korea and wants to export it to South America and the States (yay!).)

So compared to all these trains, Amtrak’s Acela Express runs between measly speeds of 75 and 150 mph, according to Wikipedia. The latest news info I could find on Amtrak was an article from 1999 which talked about the American Flyer, a train that could reach speeds of 150mph. The problem is that all these types of trains are tilting trains and, as far as I can tell, that limits their speed (they could fall over, I guess?). This is most unfortunate for circumstances like when I want to go visit my Grandma in Connecticut and take Amtrak nearly 6 hours to Mystic, CT.

The other problem is that the tracks that were laid (during the Great Depression, of course) are only capable of certain speeds (safely). So between tilting trains and old, rusty tracks, Amtrak’s speed is pretty much capped at 150mph, even if people were even looking into improving speeds (which I don’t think anyone is). That sucks. So what I think should be done is rip up all the old tracks (or lay new ones, and then rip up the old ones) and improve the damn thing. It’s downright ridiculous that you could travel from London to Paris (approx 289 driving miles) in 2hrs 38 mins, but it would take you the same amount time (2 hrs 48 mins) on the Acela Express to go from NYC to Washington, DC (225 driving miles). Same time, nearly a fourth less the distance (22%). Amtrak, what the hell?

Not to mention, think how fast it would be to get to the airport on a (non-existent, but we’re pretending here) express R1 – 7.6 miles @ 350mph? I know it’s not possible (yet!) but just imagine if it took you about 2 minutes to get to the airport.

My editor and I were discussing the new look of the two sites; he remarked philly.com looks like a first-year art student’s sloppy final project, where I said it was “trendy,” with the two vectorized buildings and the “L0VE” statue in the middle. Minus the hideously ugly background image that doesn’t correlate correctly with the header, it’s alright. Not great.

As for the Daily News site, my eyes almost rolled out of their sockets when I saw it. Wow, talk about ugly. This, my editor said, and I agreed, looked like some CAD circa-early-2000 project gone terribly, terribly wrong. The header is humongous, way too big for the page, and it has the two “today’s covers” sitting up there, just floating. Ugly. They don’t even match. I think I can get what they were going for; I mean, it’s hard to come up with so many Philadelphia-related designs, and, after a while, it must be incredibly difficult to have new ideas, or points of reference. At the same time, if you’re a paid webdesigner, that’s, like, your job.

But, besides the more-or-less ugly redesign of the websites, the topic most important is this: Do they look like news sites? I don’t think they do. The Daily News, maybe, because it says it at the top and has the covers of its current issues, so that you know when you look at it, “Oh, it must be a newspaper.” But philly.com? It looks like an entertainment or tourist website. What’s the danger in a news site looking like tourist information? I’m not really sure at this point; but I do believe that a newspaper is supposed to look a certain way; like how the Inquirer does: a big bold headline at the top clearly says, “I’m a newspaper,” and then you have the sections of the paper at the top, News, Business, Sports, etc. The WSJ is the same way. By its layout, it is clear to the viewer that it is a newspaper.

I guess the difference that bothers me is that a non-newspaper is reporting news and claims:

Award-winning news, sports and commentary from the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News

I guess I just think it’s weird that the Inquirer and Daily News don’t have their own websites, but are hosted off of philly.com. It links them, and associates philly.com with the two news sources, so that philly.com has a built-in source of news it can brag about. But shouldn’t a newspaper be its own independent entity? Isn’t that was newspapers are all about?

(Note: The box on the right side, “Today in Philly,” I think is awesome. I realize it’s only two colors, but if the entire site looked like that, I wouldn’t have any complaints. I think that’s a really cool idea and really well done. I guess the skyline is as cliche as everything else, but I think that section is really well-engineereed, it looks different, gets your attention, and isn’t confusing.)

The discussions have also involved a nonprofit given $25 million to help address the digital divide. Scot Rourke, CEO of One Community, said Tuesday that all of the parties working to take the network back from Earthlink aren’t “aligned.”

One Community (.org) is a nonprofit that connects companies/non-profits/schools(?) in NE Ohio, and has plans to connect people in over 22 countries, which sounds kind of ambitious. I guess they’re like the Internet version of the XO Project, which gives laptops to children in Africa and third-world countries.

It would be spectacular if a non-profit came in to help the whole Wi-Fi Philly project out, but I still think it’s fundamentally flawed.

The people in this video sound just like what people sounded like at the onset of the Patriot Act: It’s better that we be inconvenienced for safety; if we’re not hiding anything, then it’s okay to search, and if you don’t agree to be searched, then you are hiding something. Not that I’m against security measures, obviously; I use 30th Street Station and want to feel safe as well.

But what I fear at 30th St. isn’t terrorists and bombs, but all the shady characters who lurk there at night, who sleep on those filthy benches, who pick through garbage cans and ask me for money when I’m just trying to eat my sandwich. If Philadelphia really wants to make this city safer for its residents, then it should be thinking about the real and very tangible threats that the city goes through every day, not fictional “orange level” threats from “terrorists.” Yeah, I’m still scared of the monster under my bed, but I know he doesn’t really exist.

I’ve seen bums harassing people trying to eat lunch in 30th Street Station before, and the police just let them walk on by. There’s nothing they can do about that? Philadelphia’s rampant (what’s the politically-correct term here?) vagrant problem is more dangerous than imaginary terrorists, especially in and around 30th Street Station. My perception of this problem isn’t just from observing 30th Street Station, but Center City as well. Perhaps our own Mayor sums it up best: Mayor Nutter says when day turns to dusk, Center City becomes “a Philadelphia version of a South African shantytown.” (And kudos to the Inquirer for covering this topic. This piece is a really interesting and question-raising piece about the problem.)

It seems harmless to let people sleep in 30th Street Station if they have nowhere else to go; but it is still against the law in Philadelphia to use public space as living space. However, it’s hard not to get the feeling from police that it’s just too difficult to combat the homeless problem, and so they aren’t too stringent with dealing with it at all. I guess I can’t blame them; panhandlers don’t have anywhere else to go, if police kick them out of 30th Street, they’re only going to wait and then come back later.

The problem of safety here is that 85% of Center City’s homeless population (I don’t know what percentage in the whole city) are mentally ill, addicts, or both. While I know that the mentally ill are more likely to hurt themselves than others, it’s still a scary notion. Today, a homeless man punched a car right next to me; a second later, a homeless woman called me a slew of filthy words – and all this was right on Drexel’s campus, “policed” by our esteemed “bike patrol” and right in front of 7-11 (although, admittedly, this is probably the worst place on campus in regards to the homeless). A friend of mine has been followed home by a group of homeless men and attacked with a 2×4. I know several people who have been mugged. It is a problem, even if no one has a good solution. It needs to be talked about. And things in front of 7-11 aren’t that different than they are inside 30th Street Station, especially when it’s not during business hours.

So where does that leave Amtrak in the midst of these new “safety measures”? While I have never once been scared that my Amtrak train (whose tickets cost me a hefty $60 one-way to Penn Station) is going to be bombed, I have been scared about being in 30th Street Station alone by myself, taking a train to the airport early in the morning, or to Newark. I think that the safety measures Amtrak is implementing are great, just misplaced, like so much else that Philadelphia does. And while funding for this probably happened through Amtrak, not through Philadelphia, it is the Mayor and the city who need to deal with the real problems in 30th Street Station. Until then, I guess, the trains are safer to ride than before. And that’s a positive note, at least. Maybe Amtrak addressing safety will encourage the Mayor to do the same.

I won’t call myself a subway or public transportation expert, but I’ve ridden a few very different systems in my lifetime, and I have to call SEPTA’s the most deplorable. It’s dirty, it smells, bums sleep everywhere and no one does anything about it. No one ever seems to be working on it, the signs don’t make any sense. I once asked 10 people how to get from the 15^th St El platform to the trolley stop. Not one of them could tell me. What is supposed to be a “free interchange” actually costs you another $2.

When I was in Brussels, we took the metro everywhere. It was beautiful. You could eat dinner off the floor of the metro in Brussels. Here are some pictures of it:

It’s beautiful. The people who ride it aren’t those who can’t afford cars or who work minimum wage jobs like I feel like it is in Philadelphia (but maybe I’m wrong? I know I ride the trolley to work because I work an unpaid co-op and can’t afford a car). The subway there is taken care of, it has art and shops; the space is pleasant to be in and around; it doesn’t smell; bums don’t sleep there. The trains that go in and out are fast and they come often.

Then there’s the metro in DC, which is also clean, fast, efficient. People know where they’re going, they know because everyone rides the metro and because it’s well-marked and people are helpful; riding the metro is par for the course. It isn’t “better” to drive because the metro is dependable and clean.

Houston’s very measly transportation system is even worth mentioning. Last I checked, no one really used it very much, because the only form of transportation that goes into the suburbs are buses, and I’ve never written one, but the metro line that runs along Main Street is clean and even architecturally friendly: the metro goes through a runway of sprinklers, almost, that squirt water over the train, kind of like a show. It’s fancy, and it was designed to look pretty. Now Houston has had a lot more time to develop not just public transportation, but a lot of things, so it’s easy to say that Houston’s public transportation didn’t really develop out of a desperate need for it, and therefore was planned in advance, etc. That’s fine. But still, it’s nice. It isn’t scary. It’s cheap.

Boston’s T is clean, efficient, and is free going outbound. Not $2. And it’s pretty, dependable, everyone rides it, etc.

Okay, a lot of cities have SEPTA beat in terms of usability, cleanliness and friendliness. But SEPTA does have a lot going for it. It can connect you to just about anywhere: Atlantic City and the airport through the RRs; South Jersey as far as Lindenwald through PATCO; the rest of Jersey through NJTransit; trolleys can take you nearly anywhere; the El runs from 69^th St to Spring Garden and even further than that. So yes, it’s extensive, and it works. It’s just not comfortable to ride – which is why it’s great that this guy Kim Scott Heinle was just appointed an advocate for customers in a position that was just created. He aims to make SEPTA “available, responsive, honest and open.” I don’t know how he’s going to do it, but he was just appointed Friday, so we’ll see in the coming months how things improve.

It’s pretty cool, too, that SEPTA recognizes its faults and is prepared to fix them. One thing, though, that is also in the news is this business about SEPTA’s miraculous budget surplus for the first time ever (okay, maybe not ever, but for the first time in years). And instead of using this $81.5 million surplus to improve things, SEPTA stashes it away in case of a rainy day. This, I suppose, is understandable since Harrisburg has had to bail SEPTA out of bankruptcy for the past however-many years.

But Act 44, passed last summer, protects SEPTA from future budget deficits in Harrisburg and makes SEPTA’s funding more secure. It is strange, therefore, that SEPTA would choose to take its $81.5 million and stash it away when for the first time in history, SEPTA’s future funding is actually guaranteed. Why not take this money and use it to make the kinds of improvements that Heinle finds are necessary? To make SEPTA “available, responsive, honest and open”? Not to mention, clean it up a little!

SEPTA has focused recently on cleaning up its environmental act, even if its top concern isn’t the cleanliness of cars and stations: SEPTA announced its “Go Green” theme in late February, which is an initiative to use cleaner buses and also to make riders feel better about using public transportation: one promotional poster reads: “One SEPTA rider consumes about half the amount of oil than that of a private commuter. Imagine what a busload can do.” Yay SEPTA riders.

]]> http://ac3632.wordpress.com/2008/04/28/the-mess-that-is-septa/feed/ 0 Ali http://ac3632.wordpress.com/2008/04/26/wifi-philadelphia/ http://ac3632.wordpress.com/2008/04/26/wifi-philadelphia/#comments Sat, 26 Apr 2008 22:06:25 +0000 Ali http://ac3632.wordpress.com/?p=5 ]]> Oh God, here I go on an open-source pro-Linux/Ubuntu rant again, but really. This entire project centers its ideals around the concept of Digital Inclusion, which is the following:

Digital Inclusion is the initiative that helps people who are not online gain access with affordable hardware, software, tech support/information, and broadband Internet service, so they can begin to use this technology to improve their lives. (http://wirelessphiladelphia.org/digital_inclusion.cfm)

I’m sorry, affordable software, tech support and information? WHAT DO YOU THINK UBUNTU IS? It’s really just becoming annoying how little people know about technology; people in big places who SHOULD know about technology before they go around trying to fix problems and not having the vaguest idea what, exactly, the problem is.

Can I introduce you to my paper from last term about Africa and Ubuntu? About free and open source software? About operating systems that are free, yes FREE, completely free, 100% no strings attached, and how they actually run BETTER than Windows and (ugh) Apple? I won’t go into my whole “Bill Gates has this country brainwashed into thinking that you have to pay to get a quality product” rant, but it is rather annoying when huge ($22 million) projects such as WiFi Philly fail because they are trying to reinvent the wheel.

It would be one thing if they were just trying to offer wireless Internet, which is what I originally thought was going on. But they’re not. Of course, EarthLink, worst ISP ever, is trying to profit off this mess and that’s why they offer these “cheap packages” for hardware, software, tech support, information, and, of course, Internet access. But Ubuntu, every version, already offers free software, and tons of it, tech support, and more information than you could shake a stick at. A very large stick. So why try and invent these things over again? It’s like no one even KNOWS what’s out there, but they’re trying to come up with these answers that are so short-sighted and ignorant, I wonder how these people can be in charge of the whole city! Maybe that’s what’s wrong with it. Everyone is so technology ignorant. Grr.

Let’s back up a step as I get off my soapbox. WiFi Philly offers these Digital Inclusion packages to low-income families as a way to bridge the “digital divide” (the same problem in Africa, hmm) in Philadelphia. I think that’s entirely the wrong way to go about it. Now, obviously EarthLink, being a greedy corporate America company, has to profit somewhere in this scheme; but why did EarthLink have to be involved at all? First off, that technology now is so out of date, there’s no way anyone who could afford to pay for Internet would chose to pay that ISP for Internet; it’s slow and it’s always jam-packed because it’s public. If the city of Philadelphia was going to take my tax money, and $22 million dollars to dump into this project, it sounds to me like EarthLink is profiting pretty well.

Now I applaud the effort to try and connect the entire city to the Internet; I think the Internet is one of the best learning tools out there, not to mention it just makes life easier, communication easier, information more freely available, etc; I don’t think I need to tout the brilliance of the Internet for a class project where we are using the Internet to enhance our learning. It’s pretty self-sufficient. So yes, Internet for lower-income families, I’m all for it.

But in the state it’s in, it’s such an awful bloody mess. The EarthLink guy who was in charge died apparently, and now EarthLink wants out. And Nutter thinks that this is Street’s mess and doesn’t want to touch it. But, as this article points out, wouldn’t it be great if Nutter fixed it? What a legacy. You picked up the ball that the previous mayor dropped. It would be great if the WiFi Philadelphia project weren’t just a huge waste of money.

If Philadelphia were connected the same way Drexel is – Internet is free, the wireless works about 90% of the places you need on campus, and you never have a problem with too many people on the network already – which is how I originally thought it would be, I would be very excited. It would be awesome if on the way to the airport on the R1, I could check the status of my flight, or be sending emails, or just browsing Facebook, which is probably what most people would do. But as it is, the technology is out of date, the networks is always overclogged, and I don’t know one person who’s ever successfully used the public wifi.

I think the project was a good idea, but when people start wanting to profit off the idea, that’s where it gets sidetracked. It should be offering only free, public Internet to residents of the Philadelphia area. If you want to have another project that offers laptops, hardware and software (Ubuntu or not), and tech support to people, then that’s great and I’m all in support of that, too. Everyone should have a computer, and as the FOSS (free and open source software) people believe, everyone has the right to software. But that idea and WiFi Philly are two entirely different projects, and they should never have been lumped together in the first place. Maybe they could even have succeeded separately, instead of failing miserably.

I will say this, though: that the idea was good; lower-income families could in no way afford to buy computers and pay for Internet every month if they’re worried about rent and utilities. And the idea to try and give those families computers and Internet access was a great one; I just don’t think that something that philanthropic should have been ruined by corporate greed or government short-sightedness and technology ignorance.

http://www.wirelessphiladelphia.org

-sgk

So I’ve decided to do my blog on engineering and technology. One of the first topics that I definitely want to talk about is this myth of free wi-fi around Philadelphia. But other than that, I’m not really sure what else to talk about.

The word ubuntu has a variety of different meanings; respect, community, sharing, unselfishness are just some of them. In the computer world, the word is also the name of a type of operating system that runs on free and open source software, which might have the power to help Africa make the “technology leap” that is so essential to its success in the future. Ubuntu, a Linux operating system distribution, adheres to and embraces these ideals of the African word, and that is what sets it apart among the many Linux distributions that exist, and makes it the most popular. Ubuntu has the potential to help countries in Africa not only by supplying free and open source software, but by helping to overcome the language divide, as a free and legal means to eliminate Internet software piracy, and as an alternative to Microsoft Windows; the operating system has already proved to be a great tool, demonstrated by the project One Laptop Per Child, which uses an open-source derivative similar to Ubuntu to power low-cost laptops for children around the world.

The word ubuntu is derived from the Bantu language, which is spoken in southern Africa (Coughlin 1). It is also a word close to the heart of Nelson Mandela, the first democratically-elected President of South Africa. He explains in a video posted in the “Ubuntu Blog” in June of 2006 that the word has multiple meanings (“Meaning” 1). He gives the example of some travelers who arrive in a village and the people there bring food for the travelers without even having to be asked (1). He says that this is:

one aspect of ubuntu. But there are various aspects. Ubuntu does not mean that people should not address themselves. The question, therefore, is: Are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you to improve? These are the important things in life. And if one can do that, then that’s something very important to be appreciated. (1)

This message is central to the philosophy of the operating system and those who are involved with it, and this ideology is what sets Ubuntu apart in a world of different Linux distributions. Dennis Brutus, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh, author of 12 books of poetry and recipient of various poetry awards, and whose work was also banned in South Africa, writes that it is through oral history that “we learn how Mandela’s mission to gain ubuntu (humanity) for all South Africans began in the days of his rural childhood” (Brutus 144). So the concept of ubuntu, humanity, is at the core of Mandela’s beliefs and his philosophy for Africa.

Ubuntu, in addition to being an ideology central to African community and culture, is a type of free and open source software (FOSS), which means that using it, in any form, is free, and redistributing it is also free; people anywhere, at any time, can download the operating system and use it. Ubuntu is released under the General Public License (GPL), which states what it believes as the four freedoms every user should have, which are the following:

· the freedom to use the software for any purpose,

· the freedom to share the software with your friends and neighbors,

· the freedom to change the software to suit your needs, and

· the freedom to share the changes you make. (Smith, 1)

Most importantly, the GPL states: “Nobody should be restricted by the software they use” (1). When software, like Ubuntu, follows these four freedoms, it is called free software. Brett Smith is the author of “A Quick Guide to GPLv3,” and a Free Software hacker, writer and speaker for the GNU Project, which was launched in 1984 to develop a free, Unix-like operating system. Smith writes in the online guide to the GPL, regarding software, that:

you should be free to redistribute copies, either with or without modifications, either gratis or charging a fee for distribution, to anyone anywhere. Being free to do these things means (among other things) that you do not have to ask or pay for permission. (1)

To really understand the concept of free software and the GPL, according to Smith, “you should think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer” (1). Every user has a right to use software; it is a matter of “liberty, not price” (1). As such, no one should not be able to afford to use software, and this is why Ubuntu is free, and its licensing guarantees that freedom. Oddly enough, the entire GNU.org webpage can be translated into a plethora of different languages, one of which is Afrikaans. Ubuntu is only one in a long and diverse chain of other and older operating systems that all agree on these principles of freedom.

Unlike Microsoft Windows, Ubuntu doesn’t charge money for its use and never will, saving hundreds of dollars per user. This could be especially important in African countries, where there is painstakingly little money to be spared on technology or computers. Christopher May, a professor at County College South, Lancaster University, in Lancaster, England, writes that the “most obvious reason for Africans to consider the option of open-source software is cost: countries in sub-Saharan Africa currently pay around US$24 billion each year to (mainly US-based) software companies to secure the use of proprietary products” (May 123). But running Ubuntu would eliminate those costs. This kind of free availability to computers could be a factor in the “technology gap” that African countries are facing in a world of interconnectedness among other countries. Ubuntu and FOSS could help these countries make the “technology leap” that they need. In February of 2005, there was a meeting among the leaders of African countries in Ghana to come to some sort of agreement about their technology needs in the future. The meeting was a preparation for a later convention, the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), a United Nations Summit that was set up in two phases: the first, to “foster a clear statement of political will and take concrete steps to establish the foundations for an Information Society for all, reflecting all the different interests at stake”; and the second, which was primarily to “reach agreements in the fields of Internet governance” (“World” 1). The first phase took place in Geneva, and the second in Tunis. The Summit had more than 11,000 participants from 175 countries (1). According to Dr. Gado Alzouma, a postdoctoral fellow in the Global Media Research Center of Southern Illinois University:

For a number of these participants, the Information Society is unquestionably perceived as a chance for Africa, a chance to blend into a world of economic opportunities and social well-being. They think that information and communication technologies (ICTs) are the instruments through which the growing marginalization of Africa can be tackled. (Alzouma 339-340)

According to Alzouma, there are many perceived benefits of opening up Africa to computing and technology, but he isn’t convinced that the world of computers will be the panacea to all of Africa’s problems. He writes that, with regards to ICTs, “it is not the first time that grandiose hopes of leapfrogging development have been attached to a new technology” (340). May agrees: “Although the deployment of ICTs may have specific advantages in certain areas, this is different from the general panacea sometimes presented. Computerisation is seldom, if ever, the most pressing developmental priority: health, welfare and education are much more serious problems” (May 127). However, if African countries or Africa as a whole could be helped developmentally by opening up to technology and being able to participate in the world of online economic activities, there is no doubt that Ubuntu can bring that type of technology to more people. So while Ubuntu may not solve the crisis of health and welfare, it certainly offers a partial solution to the problem of technology in African countries. And while technology alone will not fix all of the problems facing African countries, closing the “technology gap” between these and other countries is just one way that African ones can begin to connect to the rest of the world.

Another problem facing Africa as a whole, and even African countries individually, in the digital age is language. The majority of the information on the Internet is written in English or European languages (345). The Regional Conference of Africa, which took place in Bamako in May of 2002:

insisted in its conclusions on the need for Africa to address the economic, technological and political aspects of the use of African languages on the internet (production and maintenance of websites in African languages, training of African data-processing specialists, etc.). In this context, software in African languages, automatic-translation software, online dictionaries for African languages, African-language tablets and graphics, and multilingual internet names have been created and are managed by dozens of projects. (345)

Part of Ubuntu’s appeal is that it can be re-written and repackaged for free, allowing users to translate it from one language into another, say from English to Afrikaans. Unlike a product from Microsoft, which would cost users money, Ubuntu is free and translating it into another language is completely legal. Stephen M. Mutula, author of several articles on Africa, writes that it is important for governments to help subsidize the cost of computers and technology education in schools (Mutula 494). Additionally, he believes:

governments in Africa should be vigorously lobbied to waive duty and other taxes on computer software and hardware to make them more affordable and accessible to the schools. Similarly, governments could offer rebates and subsidies to educational institutions to acquire ICTs. (494)

What Mutula is basically suggesting is that governments should lobby against paying taxes and fees on software and hardware, but governments – or anyone else – can already use computers and software for free using Ubuntu and the repository of programs that comes with it – all of which is also free and open source. This repository of software that comes with Ubuntu is not amateurish or somehow less useful than any software buyable from Microsoft. According to James R. Hood, Founder and CEO of ConsumerReports.com and a veteran journalist, in a glowingly positive article he wrote about Ubuntu:

Today, Linux and other UNIX systems power most of the Web servers that keep the Internet running. And there’s really no reason they don’t power the world’s desktops and laptops, except that Microsoft has sold the world on the notion that you have to pay for software, then pay some more to keep it updated. … Make no mistake — there’s nothing amateurish or low-grade about Ubuntu or most other open-source software. In fact, because it’s open source, it’s constantly being improved, unlike Microsoft and Apple’s operating systems which are upgraded rarely and then for reasons having more to do with damage control and corporate profit than anything else. (Hood 2-3)

Ubuntu is not a crutch for third-world computing; it is not a less-powerful operating system than Windows; it is not, in some way, defective or incomplete because it is free. So Mutula, who was advocating that African governments lobby for tax-free software, is basically arguing the benefits of Ubuntu and FOSS without even knowing it; and the benefits of using Ubuntu would be exactly the same as using software that cost money. Mutula later concludes that a basis of framework in Africa must be established, and there is a long list of other problems that need to be addressed to enhance Internet uptake and usage, such as the “[r]eduction of tariffs, modernization of bandwidth, use of open software to overcome the language divide, the problem of IT illiteracy, marketing strategies to create awareness and imbalances in the telecommunication infrastructure between urban and rural areas” (Mutula 496). But, Mutula ultimately concludes that by “stimulating Internet growth and uptake” and providing good technological infrastructure could help Africa “leapfrog into the information age” (495).

In the ongoing debate between Ubuntu and Microsoft operating systems, some people already realize why Ubuntu, or any Linux distribution, gives African countries an advantage. In a Wired article written in November of 2000, Nick Wachira, the Managing Editor of the newspaper Business Daily in Nairobi, gives some startling figures about the expenses that a Windows-user would incur in Kenya:

the Windows operating system costs around US$100 and the Windows Office Suite applications may cost as much as US$800 in Kenya. In a continent where the average annual per capita income is less than US$250, proprietary software — with its accompanying licensing difficulties — is a major drawback for would-be Windows users. (Wachira 1)

Wachira writes about Githogori wa Nyangara-Murage, a man who holds free computer classes for the public in his office. Githogori, “a former software researcher at the Xerox Research Center, is preaching the gospel of Linux. He’s convinced that the free software model is the only way for Africa to ever leapfrog its status as an underdeveloped continent” (1). His mission to spread Linux to Africa involves “the explosive politics of proprietary versus free, open-source software. In Africa, even with its few computers, this debate is now boiling down to a clash between Microsoft Windows (MSFT) and Linux OS” (1). The expensive cost of Microsoft fuels software piracy in Africa, a topic that is starting to cause international concern, for reasons such as a 90% piracy rate in countries like Zimbabwe (Business 1). One problem that Ubuntu faces in Africa is that Microsoft is already pretty established as the operating system of choice for businesses. “The reason why Linux has not caught up so fast is because most big companies operate on group-wide IT platforms built on Microsoft NT[1],” Sam Nganga, a technology columnist, says (1). He says Microsoft is “relatively entrenched” (1). However, big “businesses are also growing curious about using Linux in Kenya, with giants such as Kenya Airways and Kenya Power & Lighting already evaluating its merits” (2). And as of the year 2000, the Linux User Project, an online counter of the number of registered Linux users, rates South Africa as having the 24th-largest user base in the world, according to Wachira (1) – Kenya, Algeria, Egypt and Botswana are trailing behind. There are several registered users, even in the most remote parts of the continent (1), so the merits of Ubuntu and Linux are a reality to Africans, all across Africa; users are already experiencing some form of Linux. But, according to Nganga, “once businesses get to trust the Linux platform, it will catch on like bush fire” (1).

One great example of how open source projects like Ubuntu is already helping Africa and children around the world is the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project. OLPC’s goal is to “provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment, and express themselves” (“One” 1). The project, nicknamed XO, uses free and open source software to provide children with the opportunity to change anything and everything about the machine. The reason that they chose to use free and open source software, according to the website, is that:

While we do not expect every child to become a programmer, we do not want any ceiling imposed on those children who choose to modify their machines. We are using open-document formats for much the same reason: transparency is empowering. The children—and their teachers—will have the freedom to reshape, reinvent, and reapply their software, hardware, and content. (1)

The website contains stories about children sleeping with their laptops because they treasure them so much. “The laptop gives learners opportunities they have not had before. Tools such as a Web browser, rich media player, and e-book reader bring into reach domains of knowledge that are otherwise difficult-or impossible-for children to access” (1). Part of what makes these laptops so affordable is the fact that they use free and open software. Without a functional but free operating system, the laptop never could have been cheap enough to give away to children who wouldn’t have access to a computer any other way. The purpose of educating these children is at the heart of this project, and Linux and FOSS is a part of that education and enabling process. One section of the website features the children who have received laptops playing with their green, technological toys; all have the serious look of study on their faces as they share information with each other.

Ubuntu, a word for community and humanity derived from the Bantu language spoken in southern Africa, is epitomized by the Linux distribution of the same name; the operating system is an open source project, which means that it contributes freely to the community for the betterment of society as a whole. Nelson Mandela himself believed firmly in finding ubuntu for South Africans, and adhered to the ideology of the word in leading his country. In the present day, one of the best ways for Africans to improve their circumstances, and certainly their understanding and use of technology, is with the introduction of Ubuntu; the operating system could help countries make the “technology leap” that would put them on the same technological foundation as other, developed countries. Because Ubuntu is available as a free alternative to Microsoft Windows, and is just as powerful and effective, just as safe and complete, Ubuntu is an obvious and simple way for anyone in Africa to become acquainted with computer technology. Ubuntu also offers a great alternative for businesses and users who already pay too much money for Windows, or who can’t afford it at all; Ubuntu is also a great solution to software piracy. Many users in Africa who already use Ubuntu advocate its use, and even predict its popularity in the future. Because Ubuntu is free and legal to change and redistribute, it offers a great solution of the problem of the language divide on the Internet; much of the Internet is written in English or European languages, and not languages that Africans would be able to understand, but using free and open source software fixes that problem by making software in the desired language available freely to anyone who would need it. While there are still problems of Internet infrastructure for African countries to discern and standardize, Ubuntu could be the tool that helps these countries finally leapfrog into the future. Free and open source software has already penetrated the market for educating children around the world, not just in Africa, as part of the project One Child Per Laptop. The project, which aims to educate those who could otherwise not be educated due to the socio-economics of their countries, uses an open source derivative to keep the cost of the laptop down. To date, there have been no problems with the operating system; children and teachers alike are even encouraged to make changes to the computer if they feel so inclined by modifying the source code. With so many great attributes – free, infinitely customizable in any language, redistributable, an alternative to both Windows and software piracy, and easy to use, even by children – Ubuntu is sure to help and embrace the ubuntu of Africa in the future.

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