The High Price of Computer Systems

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Description

This page is being edited by Piotr Ptasinski

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Still related to poverty, the current price of a computer system is still beyond reach of many people in the world. With many people still struggling to fulfill their basic life needs, getting a computer could never be their priorities or even dreams. In other words, a computer is still a luxury to many people.

A basic working computer system is already expensive in hardware components. Added with the high cost of mainstream operating systems and other commercial software used widely, they create a huge barrier for people to get access to computers for themselves and/or their children. Learning from this condition, the project aims to break the barrier by creating an ultra-low-cost system.

To start with, they think of creative ways to bring the cost of the laptop down. An example of this is to use a cheaper version of display (with a portable DVD player display) and using the open source software including a Linux operating system and all other open source applications.

Enablers

The monopoly and domination of Microsoft

High price of components, mainly monitors

Intellectual property / patents

Inhibitor

• Open source community
• Creativity on coming up with alternatives to the expensive parts

Paradigm

• Open source concept has sprung up in reaction towards Microsoft’s domination and monopoly. These days many aspects of computing software will have an open-source version available for free on the Internet. Although some have surpassed the performance of commercial products, most of these open-source systems are normally not as reliable as their commercial counterparts.

Expert

• Richard Stallman, GNU Project pioneer

Web Resource

• [Microsoft]
• [GNU Project]
• [Unix]