LANCOR v. OLPC Case Continues In Nigerian Court 281
drewmoney writes "According to an article on Groklaw: It's begun in a Nigerian court. LANCOR has actually done it. Guess what the Nigerian keyboard makers want from the One Laptop Per Child charitable organization trying to make the world a better place? $20 million dollars in 'damages,' and an injunction blocking OLPC from distribution in Nigeria."
expect anything different? (Score:5, Insightful)
Cut to the chase (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:expect anything different? (Score:5, Insightful)
The silver lining of this truth is that the fewer computers Nigerians have the better off the rest of the world is. It would have been difficult and politically incorrect to boycott Nigeria from the OLPC, with a litle luck they just might boycott themselves.
Re:Why don't the Nigerians just (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No Reason to Pity (Score:5, Insightful)
They didn't answer but they still want $20 million dollars.
Corruption is part of the culture of Africa (Score:5, Insightful)
You know all those "relief funds" that go to poor/starving/fucked African countries? Yeah, most of those funds end up in the hands of the corrupt government leaders and/or military, who are MORE than happy to let everybody starve if it means more cash for them.
The problems with Africa can't be solved with donations. They can only be solved with armed revolutions. Of course, the U.S. and most of the rest of the world is making too much money off of the exploitation of Africa to actually want to fix things.
Does the third-world really need laptops? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe they aren't ready for a mass introduction of technology - they certainly have shown a compunction for abuse so far. Nigeria is already synonymous with Internet-based moneymaking scams. Does the third world have other, more important priorities instead of laptops, such as basic infrastructure, and a stable and responsive democratic government (most of the world's poorest countries are still ruled by dictators). Complain if you will about the governments of first-world countries such as the US, but if so, you likely haven't seen the corruption of others up close. Visit Mexico for a fine example of what happens when a country with significant potential is rife with corruption from top to bottom. Corruption tends to poison and overshadow even the benefits of democracy and capitalism, as it tends to keep power concentrated in very few hands.
On the other hand, perhaps an opening of information can help to educate the next generation - to give them more options, and more information, more hope. Just as wireless technology is leapfrogging the old, expensive landline-based infrastucture in many countries, perhaps an infusion of technology can help jump-start an economic surge in places that need it most. I just hope they choose to use it wisely.
Nigeria (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Die OLPC, Die. (Score:3, Insightful)
Describe, in your own words, what IP has been infringed.
Re:Corruption is part of the culture of Africa (Score:5, Insightful)
So, 3.8 million deaths weren't enough [wikipedia.org]?
Re:Corruption is part of the culture of Africa (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Does the third-world really need laptops? (Score:4, Insightful)
Our culture at one point had an answer to that:But now, quoting Thomas Jefferson is likely to get you put on a suspected terrorist no-fly list.
Re:Corruption is part of the culture of Africa (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Die OLPC, Die. (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's a problem for you: patent a keyboard that can render all the strange facets of written English: upper case letters, lower case letters, diacritical markings, punctuation, etc. Come back to me when coding language rules is considered to be innovation.
Re:Don't do business there (Score:4, Insightful)
"Don't deal with black people" is racist. "Don't deal with African Countries, unless they're white" is racist. "Don't deal with country X that has a history of corruption, and happens to be black" is no more racist than "don't go down Johnson street, there were fifty murders there last year."
Re:No Reason to Pity (Score:3, Insightful)
Further, countries still have their pride, and for us to come in acting like they "need help" is a kick in the ego. By roughing up the westerners a bit it restores a sense of control over their world (even if it may harm them in the longer run). Even starving people want a sense of control (and those doing the activity may not be the starving ones).
Re:Does the third-world really need laptops? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:expect anything different? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:expect anything different? (Score:5, Insightful)
For all you people that want to pick on Nigeria, not everyone that comes from there is a scammer or a crook. As it happens, my girlfriend is from there (emigrated to the U.S. about 25 years ago) and is a remarkable individual. I consider myself lucky to have her. As an American, I tend to get irritated at all the foreigners here on Slashdot that like to make uninformed generalizations about the United States and its people. Anyone who's ever read any of my posts along those lines knows that. Conversely, I figure it's only fair not to paint everyone in a given country with the same brush, even if they do it to us with monotonous regularity.
That said, I wouldn't advise answering any Nigerian emails that show up in your inbox.
Re:Corruption is part of the culture of Africa (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Question Mark (Score:5, Insightful)
Q: Should you place a comma in the sentence "Tutorial, continued..."?
A: Yes.
Q: When using the dash as a separator for an unordered list, should you place a space character between the dash and the first character of the list item?
A: Yes.
Q: Should the sentence following a sentence ending in ellipsis be capitalized?
A: Yes.
Q: Can someone "trend towards perfectionist"?
A: No. One can either trend towards perfectionists or trend towards perfectionism, the latter presumably being your intended meaning.
Q: Should you place the period inside or outside quotation marks?
A: Inside.
Q: Are there any exceptions to the above rule?
A: No. Exceptions exist for exclamation or question marks (depending on whether the mark applies to the quote alone or to the whole sentence), but never for commas or periods.
Q: Are any of the above rules relevant to Slashdot comments?
A: No, as I stated previously. The objective of communication rules is to facilitate maximally convenient communication between parties, and the rules vary depending on the medium and circumstances. In the case of Slashdot comments, the time required to analyze and correct spelling, grammar, punctuation and stylistic errors is unjustifiably high compared to the meager benefit it provides to the readers. Slashdot articles themselves, which are more formal than comments, have a greater time period to be written and checked, and are read by more people, have a justifiably higher standard applied to them. Still, they will have a lower standard than a formal academic paper. Similarly, in cases where communication speed is much more important than rigorousness, such as instant messaging or online game chat, it is perfectly acceptable that the sentence "lol kthxbye" has a better cost-benefit ratio than the sentence "That was amusing; all right, thank-you, and good-bye." The very definition of a "Grammar Nazi" is not simply one who uses formal grammar, but one who expects its use in situations where the expectation is not justified.
Re:expect anything different? (Score:3, Insightful)
You should work on your reading comprehension. Try again, and you'll discover that I was making the point that there are not inherent racial differences between (for example) Nigerians, Americans, and Mexicans, but that rather the perceived differences are caused by the fact that we get a skewed sample (immigrants vs. non-immigrants).
Luckily, I don't have to generalize to realize that, because you automatically equate simply mentioning a particular ethnic group with being racist, you're the one who is obsessed with issues of race and is thus racist yourself!
Re:Corruption is part of the culture of Africa (Score:2, Insightful)
So once again it's the White man's fault. You know how sick I get of hearing that shit? Africa's / Nigeria's problems are caused by Africans / Nigerians. It's time you liberal fucks got that through your thick heads.