South African dairy farmers are starting to use open source software to improve their farming techniques and outputs. ACS Online has developed a range of dairy farming-specific modules using PHP, Apache and MySQL running on Sun boxes with Solaris 9. The modules currently available include financial management, a sustainable pasture management system, livestock management and [...]
The global LinuxWorld conference and expo is to be staged in both Johannesburg and Cape Town next year. The show, which is already staged in ten countries, will be co-located with the Futurex exhibitions in both cities. At an official launch of the LinuxWorld show in Johannesburg this morning, Exhibitions for Africa director Aldean Prior, [...]
The University of the Western Cape (UWC) has received a R3.7 million grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada to establish a network of African universities to develop free software for use in higher education in Africa. The money is largely earmarked for the African Virtual Open Initiatives and Resources (AVOIR) which [...]
The future direction of technology is shaped at universities which is why it is important that students are exposed to operating environments which are set to become commercial standards. That\’s according to Joe Ruthven, IBM Business Development Manager: Linux and OSS, who was speaking at Rand Afrikaans University in Johannesburg earlier this week. Speaking during [...]
The University of the Western Cape has established the Free Software Innovation Unit (FSIU). Melissa Benn, who heads up the unit, said the unit\’s mission is to \”achieve excellence in the development and application of Free Software with a focus on higher education in Africa.\” Derek Keats, executive director of Information and Communication Services at [...]
South Africa\’s Mark Shuttleworth today announced the first release of Ubuntu Linux on behalf of the Ubuntu Linux team. In an email to the various Ubuntu mailing lists, Shuttleworth wrote: \”The warm-hearted Warthogs of the Warty Team are proud to present the very first release of Ubuntu!\” The earlier beta version of the Ubuntu OS [...]
From as early as the second week of November consumers in South Africa could be buying brand new Linux-loaded PCs from their local supermarkets for just R1500,00. Novell SA MD Stafford Masie said during a presentation at this year\’s South African Oracle Users Group conference that the company also hopes to more than double the [...]
\”It\’s becoming so confusing! All these licences – which one do I choose?\” This is something I hear often when I talk to people in South Africa about Creative Commons. Many people think that Creative Commons is trying to replicate the Free Software Foundation\’s GNU General Public License (GPL), but there are distinct differences in [...]
As introduction to every review I write, I give an overview of my walk with Linux up to date, in order to set the scene. Here goes. The first distribution I ever installed was RedHat 6, in March 2000. Since then I have used, tested, or played with around thirty different distros. From five-CD enterprise [...]
The French ministry of foreign affairs and Mandrakesoft have announced a plan to provide a network of sixty public Internet access points throughout Africa. The project, known as Aden, plans to set up the access points as well as train instructors. The access points will be run using a version of Mandrakesoft\’s Linux distribution. In [...]
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