Geekomon

zdnet link

Jesus frackkin christ. Read the article. Or not. It's kinda dense. Let me sum it up for you. They think that Africa's barrier to the Information Age is directly tied to the lack of expertise and not the high cost of software.

Now, any government competing globally needs FASTNESS. In everything. Roads, information. Now, who builds, owns, levys and traffics the highway infrastructure?

The Government.

Now who builds the system, maintains, structures, the information?

I hope to god Africa is smart enough to use Open Source Software to do their smartjumping to the Information Age. How are you going to give U.S. the finger when an U.S. company owns your computational power?

Have you ever read Vernor Vinge's Fire Upon the Deep?

Africa, be careful of the High Beyond and the recipes you find. Powers are rarely friendly.