(Linux vs. Microsoft) vs. (Digital Divide)

The news is all over the web about Linux and mobile phones as well as Microsoft and Novell. While the Microsoft and Novell agreement has reverbrations across the internet, and while everyone and their penguinista abuelas are talking about the use of Linux in mobile phones, that's not altogether new either.

When MobileActive got together in September of last year, a few of us talked about that. We knew about it. It was happening before then. Before the media got a clue, it was out there in the open. The OLPC tried to leverage Linux, but as I mentioned many times on the Digital Divide email lists - mobile is the future, and the future is now. The $100 laptop is already antiquated and it's not even in production.

Here's the interesting part. While the Digital Divide remains an issue, mobile phones have been on the rise throughout the world, and Linux has become increasingly used in mobile phones and related technology. Is that a coincidence? Is it a coincidence that people around the world are leveraging accessible technology? That Free Software/Open Source is more accessible is not rocket science; it's economically for accessible and it is accessible legally through more networks than proprietary software - copying is encouraged.

Take a read of Global Report 3: Linux masters the mobile market (skip the annoying ad):

Featuring free source code, no licensing fees, and zero per-unit royalties, the Linux operating system has captured the attention of product developers around the globe. To date, Linux has done remarkably well in the Web-server and embedded-systems markets and has built a reputation as a stable, reliable, and crashproof operating system compatible with a wide range of processors. This solid reputation, along with its modular architecture, has also turned Linux into the fastest growing operating system for today's hottest convergence device: the mobile phone...

...This phenomenal growth has been mostly at the expense of the market-leading Symbian operating system. Symbian's smart-phone market share had dropped from almost 80% to approximately 50% by the end of last year...

And while I spoke of the future being mobile, and how [t:digital inclusion] would be better served by mobile phones, some said that 'the small devices are too complicated'. And yet:

...You can directly attribute the rise in Linux popularity with designers to the buying public's insatiable appetite for more features in a smaller package. Mobile-phone users are no longer content with a device that has only a single function, so manufacturers must constantly pack more and more features into every new product to compete for market share...

Why should that surprise people? Maybe people working on the digital divide really don't know the people that they are trying to help as well as they think. And while that point was argued back and forth... it happened.

Microsoft and the Digital Divide

Bill Gates is urging for more 'IT Fitness when it comes to the digital divide, and even gave a good quote:

..."IT fitness and the practical knowledge of knowing how to use computers forms the foundations of global competitive ability," Gates said during a speech at the Audi Forum in Ingolstadt, ahead of a two-day conference held by the Redmond, Washington-based software maker aimed at small- and mid-sized business users...

Bill Gates is often right when he says such things - but where Microsoft shoots his words in the tongue is... exactly where Open Source and Linux wins every time he talks like this. Accessibility is a necessary part of fitness and practical knowledge when it comes to Information Technology, and to do it legally, one cannot take part in 'software piracy'. To compensate for that, software piracy is selectively prosecuted in developing nations - and to compensate for that compensation, every new version of Microsoft Windows has a lot of time and money spent on assuring that people don't copy it without paying for it. And people compensate for that by - copying it anyway.

While all that compensation is going on, a smart person has already set up a LAMP server and is working on something new. Less talk, less time... less money. Accessible.

When it comes to the Digital Divide, Linux and Open Source wins. When it comes to the businesses of the future - open source wins. And no matter how how much Microsoft 'works with' any company as far as open source and Linux, until I see Steve Ballmer and Richard Stallman sharing a room at Motel 6, it doesn't mean that much at all.