URL : http://www.corante.com/mooreslore/20030601.shtml#39263

Pakistan Putting Money Into Linux

[map-pakistan.jpg] Our Pakistani correspondent, [49]Tariq Mustafa, writes to say that the new Pakistani national budget has $2.5 million in it for Linux.

It's all part of a $54 million (Rs 3.25 billion) proposal covering 120 different projects in Information Technology and sciences for the coming year, according to the [50]Daily Times of Pakistan.

Linux even gets its own line-item in the IT budget, according to the Daily Times story.

You may remember a few weeks ago that I wrote about how India's President faced down Bill Gates over the issue, saying that his country needed to control its own computing destiny and that software controlled by an outsider (i.e. Windows) could not provide that.

The big news here is that Pakistan agrees. Now perhaps they might settle their other differences. (I know, Tariq -- it's not that simple. But just [51]Imagine...)

[52]Dana Blankenhorn

49. http://pakistan.blogspot.com/ 50. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_9-6-2003_pg7_41 51. http://www.merseyworld.com/imagine/lyrics/imagine.htm 52. http://www.a-clue.com/