Free software and the digital divide: opportunities and constraints for developing countries

Abstract

Our focus in this paper is mainly on the GNU/LINUX operting system and the advantages that it affords developing countries seeking to bridge the global digital divide. In the early parts of the paper we argue that, although GNU/LINUX can generate substantial savings when used instead of the proprietary alternative in numerous institutional settings, the most telling opportunities for developing countries arise when this system is combined with other ways of reducing computing costs. Policy, therfore, should not only consist of substituting GNU/LINUX for proprietary software in running the latest and most expensive hardware, but also of lowering these latter costs themselves. Later sections focus on the link between the choice of software and path-dependency (i.e. the notion that if one system gets ahead, it tends to lock out alternatives in the manner described by Brian Arthur). We suggest that the problem of proprietary lock-in in developing countries has been greatly accentuated by piracy of Microsoft operating systems and that the result is a stagnation of the technological capabilities in software that these countries need so badly.