Developing countries and OSS; Sri Lanka and Free Software Day

[Irfan Khan <khania2@super.net.pk>]

[The following was posted by Anuradha Ratnaweera <anuradha at linux dot 
lk> on the slashdot at 
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/30/0444238&tid=117&tid=190&tid=1&tid=218 
]

<quote> Coming from <http://www.linux.lk/%7Eanuradha/> [linux.lk] a 
developing country <http://www.linux.lk/> [linux.lk], I know that there 
are many `inexperienced' users around, but certainly most of them are 
not `idiots'.

We had a nice time promoting the localized GNU/Linux 
<http://sinhala.linux.lk/> [linux.lk] (site not upto date with the work) 
on the Free Software Day 
<http://softwarefreedomday.org/wiki/index.php/Sri_Lanka> 
[softwarefreedomday.org]. The response was phenominal, and we can see 
more and more people and commercial organizations are coming forward to 
help us take the message across.

And we make it clear that FOSS is better not because of the cost, but 
because of the flexibility, freedom and control that comes with it, and 
the mindset change from dependence to independence. <end quote>