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From Innovation:
Lines form at open-source software vending-machines.
 JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - The interior of the massive Chamber of Mines Building, on the west end of the University of Witwatersrand's main campus, is like a dark, concrete maze. Drab stairways, imposing walls, the slightest glimpse of light from an interior courtyard - it's almost as if the architects hoped to invoke a mine shaft. So, when you get to the reception area for the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, it's hard not to do a double take at the shiny orange, vending machine-sized box with the cheerful cartoon logo - the one that proclaims "Burn free, as free as the source flows!" It seems gleefully out of place. "Here it is!" exclaims Brett Simpson, himself an energetic anomaly within the sober walls of this building. He puts his hand to the machine as if slapping it on the back. "A Freedom Toaster." So far, to the uninitiated, the words connected with this man-sized box make little sense. But this is Mr. Simpson's new quest in life, as the head of Breadbin Interactive, the company now charged with producing Toasters: to explain why this machine is a bright spot in the sometimes drab, often challenging, world of African technology; why it can knock down some of the computing obstacles in the global digital divide.
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Re: Bridging the African Digital Divide...with a "Toaster"
