[Fsf-india] free soft/foreign aid/finland

[Tere Vadén]

Hello all,

I got your addresses from RMS; the background is that just recently a 
book by RMS and myself came out in Finland, arguing the case fro free 
software. Now, the current Finnish minister for foreign aid & 
environmental issues has taken an interest in how free software could be 
used in bridging/stopping the widening of the digital divide, and has 
asked for a group of people for ideas & set up a preliminary 
investigation of how free/open software is currently used in developing 
countries. My background is in philosophy/cognitive science/new media 
studies, so I have been trying to press the ethical and 
economical/ecological arguments and so on, but I know next to nothing 
about the real issues & facts & complexities of using free software in 
these contexts. So I'm turning to you for any info, sources, examples, 
research etc. that would illustrate the use of free software in foreign 
aid projects, and maybe suggest avenues that Finland could take and 
argue for in the context of the EU.

Thanks for your help,

Tere


Tere Vaden
Professor
Hypermedialab
33014 University of Tampere
Finland
e-mail:fiteva@uta.fi