Free as in free milk
A first draft of this article has been sitting for months in my hard disk. I decided to finish it after reading that Microsoft will offer its operating system and office suite for $3 per machine to developing countries. That made me think of the way the giant software company “helps” these countries by giving licenses of its proprietary software almost for free, and that in turn made me think of free milk. Let me tell you about it.
The Nestlé boycott
In 1977 a boycott campaign was launched against Nestlé to protest for its marketing of breast milk substitutes. To make a long story short, Nestlé’s commercial agents in developing countries gave free samples of the infant formula to mothers shortly after they had given birth. They would shamelessly lie to them about the alleged advantages of the substitute product over breast milk, encouraging them not to breastfeed their babies. Since lactation is interrupted if the mother doesn’t breastfeed for several days, this forced a dependency on the substitute: when the mother ran out of free samples she found out that she couldn’t breastfeed her child any more, and had to buy more infant formula.
The use of breast milk substitutes in developing countries has been found directly or indirectly responsible for several health problems of infants.
Microsoft’s free milk
For some years now, Microsoft has conducted an intensive marketing campaign in developing countries to make sure that its software is used in educational institutions. This includes negotiating license discounts with governments, providing training for educators and even giving their software away for free.
- Login or register to post comments
- Printer-friendly version
- 1288 reads
- PDF version
More in Tux Machines
- Highlights
- Front Page
- Latest Headlines
- Archive
- Recent comments
- All-Time Popular Stories
- Hot Topics
- New Members
digiKam 7.7.0 is releasedAfter three months of active maintenance and another bug triage, the digiKam team is proud to present version 7.7.0 of its open source digital photo manager. See below the list of most important features coming with this release. |
Dilution and Misuse of the "Linux" Brand
|
Samsung, Red Hat to Work on Linux Drivers for Future TechThe metaverse is expected to uproot system design as we know it, and Samsung is one of many hardware vendors re-imagining data center infrastructure in preparation for a parallel 3D world. Samsung is working on new memory technologies that provide faster bandwidth inside hardware for data to travel between CPUs, storage and other computing resources. The company also announced it was partnering with Red Hat to ensure these technologies have Linux compatibility. |
today's howtos
|
Recent comments
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago