What is Digg?81 Comments
- rsdouglas, on 10/12/2007, -2/+27Er... I care? Considering I'm South African...
There's a pretty diverse group of people on digg and the fact that this is on the front page means plenty of people care. Anyway, feeding the troll I suppose. - nonsapiens, on 10/12/2007, -3/+27I hate troll-feeding, but...
(1) I am South African
(2) Mark Shuttleworth is South African (of Ubuntu fame)
(3) It's good to see the country of his birth adopting something he's put forward for ages.
(4) There is more to this world than what goes on in the US/UK. Yes, I'm looking at you, all you short-sighted little gits who posted above me. Get your head out of your ass, acknowledge that there is more out there than Planet You.
That is all. - Miktar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19Why is it every time South Africa appears in the news or on Digg, it's like a free invitation to the trolls to come prove just how utterly retarded they are, with the worldview of a 15-year-old who lives in the basement and believes Fox News is the most credible news source on the planet?
Hi. I'm South African and I'm black, I have AIDS, I have a pet lion I ride to school and I hate black people too, so I'm a racist. I also think all Americans are obese and all British are pompous. My Australian cousins agree.
*rollseyes* - roadkillkid, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19This is a good move for what is still considered to be a developing country. Although their infrastructure is arguably the best in Africa and the major centres such as Johannesburg are on a par with major first world centres, the South African government can follow the lead of other emerging markets such as Brazil and India by going open source and significantly reduce the cost of getting much-needed computer equipment into schools and community centres. Let's hope they keep the local flavour by choosing to go with native South African Mark Shuttleworth's Ubuntu linux.
- byrons, on 10/12/2007, -4/+21It means, you're a troll.
Captain Obvious to the rescue... - schestowitz, on 10/12/2007, -7/+23I bet sweaty Ballmer is already packing a suitcase and prepares to fly there. They play whack-a-mole with Open Source.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+22The trolls are out early!
- UberMoo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13OMG!! you have a lion? I always wanted one, but could only afford a zebra.
I'll drink a black label to that. - schestowitz, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12In another story (seen this morning) it explicitly said that the cabinet will use GNU/Linux. Just like Venezuela and France, the cabinet sets an example and begins the chain reaction on the desktop. Call it domino effect...
- despreocupado, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10orion26... meet my block button, your views are too narrow, and self centred for me to give you the few seconds of my precious time it takes to read your pointless rants....
bye bye XD - ray901, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8hier kom die bokke ... err.. ok, that sounded better a few years ago. (still recovering from Kamp Staaldraad I reckon....)
- denhamcoote, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Currently #1 :)
- denhamcoote, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Hear hear.
I've gotta go whip my domestic worker - I just saw her looking at my silverware in a suspicious manner. Then I'm gonna go feed my buffalo. - denhamcoote, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9You're confusing SA with Zimbabwe... Get your head out of your ass. It's not a great country, sure, but I can think of far worse places to be. Living next to someone as ignorant as you, for one...
- SAGuy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Funniest comment I've seen in a long time.
"and I'm black ... and I hate black people too" HAHAHA
Very perceptive of foreign views! - yashSharma, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8they do have a cool cricket squad...
- flag564, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Well Ubuntu was pretty much born in S. Africa. Ubuntu is an African (S. African?) word, and Shuttleworth is from S. Africa.
It would be really weird if they didn't use it. - robmcm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7That's good, hopefully they can prove to more governments about how much they can save, rather than waisting out tax money.
- sufferwell, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8One thing cool about SA is their music...
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=68175140
Number 1 rock band in SA in ATM - despreocupado, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@dle5 its more complicated than just high taxes.... the governments need money to run, the inherent inneficiency and corruption within the governments does mean that they require alot more money to get a job done than neccesary but cutting taxes without first creating an open and clear system to monitor and approve fund use would only result in less being done... and fundamentally a reduction in the present levels of infrastructure....
- ilitirit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I'm actually waiting for the "OMG THEY HAVE TEH INTERNETS IN AFRICA?1!!" comments.
- denhamcoote, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8@orion26:
Hey Andrew...
Well done on promoting yourself as a ignorant, self-centered idiot who probably couldn't find Africa on a map and thinks that Africans ride to work on ***** donkeys and hunt for their food while avoiding lions...
Now, where was that survey that shows just how stupid the average 18 year old kiddie from Indiana is. Oh, wait, I don't need it. All we need do is look at your (excuse for a) website. - BrainInAJar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Who said they were going to use Linux? Seems a bit presumptuous to assume "Free software" automatically = "Linux", especially considering there's a not-insignificant number of other free operating systems (the BSD's, Solaris, etc)
- SilverCode, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6They just did about 2 days ago.
"Unexpected tax relief for the 11th consecutive year further sweetened the package for taxpayers, along with the scrapping of tax on retirement funds from next month"
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=594&art_id=vn20070222045234441C783945 - prieurdp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"I'll drink a black label to that." no no no, how about a Castle? To satisfy a South African thirst. And the Eland like it too.
- duzbin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I live in Gauteng...
I work in Marsheltown, Johannesburg..
That is right in the center...
I don't think the crime is that bad... okay it's bad, but I don't think it's worse than other similar cities around the world.
If you go to SAB or Horror Cafe in New Town, you won't even know you are in the city... - dilbert, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5@Bladeva, welcome to my Block list!
- stou, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Well the US government uses a lot of OSS stuff too... most of the labs run on Linux... yes it's science... but it's still government (DOE). CERN and Fermilab's clusters are all running SL (basically enterprise redhat rebuilt from source)... and even the accelerator controls in some labs (LBNL's Advanced Light Source for sure... don't know who else) are running weird embedded linuxes... Oh yea and the NSA contributed a lot to SELinux (right?)... and if you look at where all the cool stuff as far as MPI and numerical computing comes from... it's all government labs.... I even saw a plugin for eclipse written by some people from Lawrence Livermore...
- duzbin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I read somewhere that the word utbuntu is used anywhere south of the sahara.
We used to use a word bantu, in south africa, but I don't know if we are still allowed to say it. - roadkillkid, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@Rjune
You should be ashamed of yourself, promoting such blatant and genuinely repulsive racist propoganda. As a white South African who now lives abroad - for reasons not even remotely to do with that website you just advertised - I am personally offended at your choice to champion what can only be described as 18th century overt racism.
Do you usually refer to black people as 'savages' and 'apes', such as on that site? In that case, brother, you have some deeper psychological problems which I sincerely hope you are able to one day overcome.
If you are indeed a South African, then I am truly sorry to call you a countryman. - denhamcoote, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2No, the reason for that is simply poor design. Regardless of what type of monitor I'm using, a web page shouldn't make me want to claw out my own eyes for fear of have an epileptic fit! That's just a shocking look and feel. Nice car, by the way. :)
- raynevandunem, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3'Cause apparently, that constitutes the majority of whatever we're hearing in the Northern Hemisphere from SA.
With websites like these:
http://crimexposouthafrica.net/crimexp/
http://africancrisis.org
http://southafricasucks.blogspot.com
providing all the combustible fuel that is needed by the neocons here in the United States, and no one from the South African government saying or doing anything to counter the prevalent "crime capital of the world" stigma which is being visited upon YOUR COUNTRY BY THE DAY, whatever can we think up here?
Furthermore, this also gives fuel to the view that South Africa is being ruled by "violent, animalistic apes" who turned South Africa from a white utopia to a black jungle.
No suitable response has been voiced against such FUD (other than screaming "racist" until we're blue in the face), especially not by the non-whites in South Africa.
And you know who is affected by all this? **We African Americans in the United States.**
Yes, we suffer from racist FUD up here, believe it or not. The situation in South Africa not only weakens the rationale behind the demand for African independence and majority rule, but also weakens the rationale for basic civil rights in the United States, especially for both African-Americans and other minorities.
This isn't helped by the fact that the majority of the computing population in South Africa - the ones who will be most affected by the switch to FLOSS - is of European and Asian ancestry (this includes the South African diaspora). Very few blacks in South Africa own a computer, or have Internet access (blame it on Telkom), so they can't speak for themselves except through the national or provincial governments as outlets (Mbeki, for example, uses the ANC newsletter as his personal blog).
This only makes for a worsening of the common Western view on South Africa, which is already skewed by racial politics into either the "Rainbow Nation apologist" view or the "Crime/Rape/AIDS Capital" view; this especially applies to South Africans, both residential and in diaspora.
And this is why Americans see South Africa the way that they do. It's not fair, but it won't change for the foreseeable future, especially not for your country's 2010 World Cup. - denhamcoote, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Looks better now, Andrew.
http://www.myspace.com/orion260062 for those of you that missed out. - denhamcoote, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3There are a lot of very readable myspace sites. The constraints (not restraints, btw) of myspace are not nearly as bad as your website would make it seem. That, I'm afraid, is effort on your part...
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@Stou
Um, no the US government does not use a lot of Linux. Trust me. You are just looking at a few area's of the US government. The bulk of the entities that make up the US government, and the most populated entities from a head count perspective (CDC, Dept. of Labor, etc, Dept. of Energy, Dept of Education etc.) are all almost 100% MS shops.
Sorry to burst your bubble. - stou, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@Crazyz
No bubble burst... what I was referring to is the fact that almost all of US government science uses Linux... or a commercial Unix variant.... (except the Blue Gene clusters that have their own OS)... some of the CDC also uses OSS for their statistical analysis. Sure the bulk of the government is an MS shop... but the 'smart' parts are using OSS... - fremeer, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5good stuff. They will probably go with ubuntu for refurbished comps, edubuntu for schools and more customized distros for work places.
- duzbin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Free as in Beer....?
in Johannesburg, go to SAB...
It's R10 to get in, but you get 2 free drinks... - oobuntu, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5Note that it doesn't say they are moving away from MS on the desktop, they just want to use standards more in their software. Will it move ALL current software including OS to FOSS? i don't think so.
I guess we'll have to wait for a more detailed story - Logo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@Rjune
My question about the power was a joke, which if you stayed in SA you would have caught on to.
So why don't you keep your racist pig headed propagande to yourself. If you hate SA then so be it, but don't try and bring all white South Africans down to your uneducated idiotic level. Some, if not most of, us are willing to work hard for this country, in this country and we don't want or need your ideas, why don't you report about the latest speech that Mbeki made on the crime levels to tribal elders on that page ? Or will that just not suite the message that you are trying to bring across with that lame excuse for a website.
Why must all posts and reports about South Africa always come down to two thing race and crime, there is alot of other stuff that is good going on in this country but it just doesn't sell like blood and guts now does ? - discourse, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i think this move may have been brought about because of the insanely high price of vista. what most americans don't realise is that people across the poorer regions of the world pay the same $ amount for Microsoft software as people in the richer regions despite earning significantly less. the only thing that linux lacks over windows and os x is video editing and i don't think most government departments need to edit video :)
- tilleyrw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Cue the line about Free Software and an Enslaved Populace.
Even lip service given by a world government to the FOSS movement is a good thing. - astun02, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0South Africans suck!
- Logo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Very good move from the government I think, but in my view there could be one huge stumbling block in their way. Alot of the software that they are currently using are custom written stuff outsourced to more than likely the cheapest bidder. I cannot see them replacing MS with Linux entirely within the next 5 years. New projects will more than likely start off with Linux while older custom written software will take a bit longer to be switched to Linux, more than likely requiring a complete re-develop rather than port. I just wish that ICASA would have this kind of forward looking mindset instead of regulating communication into the ground.
PS, will there be power to run the new Linux system ;-) - physik, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Free ≠ Better
- astun02, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Let me tell you one thing. Most South Africans are lazy by nature, I mean, 4 weeks vacation a year, many public holidays, bad services.
In the United States this wouldn't/dosen't happen!
The average American get's 2 weeks PTO per year (Private Time Off), which includes sick leave.
The Malls are open till 9:00 - 9:30 PM, you can get your car serviced on a Sunday at Sears motor department, you can take a driver's test on a Saturday, public transport works in major cities/towns
we have proper broadband unlike in SA, with cable broadband, we can get upto 35MB and on DSL we can get upto depending on providor, 16MB
on Verizon Wirless, we get just over 2MB Broadband on the nations leading network which is a UDDMS network that will only work in the USA and Japan.
South Africa is far behind in all technologies, prices are high, to much crime, yes there is crime in the USA but only in the ghettos', South Africa is a ghetto through out.
Perhaps you should come to the USA and see for yourseld, or are you just jelious of what you people don't have!!?? - astun02, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0In Johannesburg, people get raped, murdered and car jacked for free, beet that for a good way of life. Anyone who belives Johannesburg, or SA in general is a good life, needs to get thier heads read ASAP!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1So they actually haven't made any switch yet right? This is just the high level guys talking right? How's Munich coming along? It's been what 4 years now?
- Orion26, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1......@denhamcoote
- denhamcoote, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1If you really insist on dragging this on...
There are a lot of very readable myspace sites. The constraints (not restraints, btw) of myspace are not nearly as bad as your website would make it seem. That, I'm afraid, is effort (or lack thereof) on your part... It's kinda unfortunate - we live in a third world country, you live in a reality that's sadly close to Dumb and Dumber... -
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