Partly, I guess. One the one hand it makes sense to apply one's skills where they can help best, but in the case of the kid in the bush, perhaps some creativity would yield interesting results? Maybe one could build a cheap satellite link or something...
I think that Ian Howards point that the local "computer support person" resented a solution because it was too easy to use is the wrong conclusion. I've found that frequently, people reset linux simply because it's unfamiliar. In remote african villages, I would wager that this unfamiliarity is amplified by the lack of widespread technology in general.
The point that Howards makes seems to be that the unfamiliarity of Linux isn't the problem, inasmuch as the people who 'understand' the complexity of Windows not wanting to be out of a job. After all, if your bread-and-butter comes from keeping Windows running for a bunch of people, you're going to resist any move off of Windows, and as a local in a tight-knit community, you carry a hell of a lot more weight than some well-meaning yahoo from the States.
Or maybe it was just that the "simple" Linux solution wasn't really that simple to the person who didn't already know Linux and the software used there? And the the "complex" Windows based solution was already well known, both how it works and what quirks it has and really quite simple to the person which already managed it.
I've seen ton of Linux people presenting so-called "simple" solutions, which while not mindstaggeringly complex, requires you to familarize yourself with a whole new toolchain, new commands and new concepts.
While they have seen the light in Linux-based solutions, they have also stared themselves blind by not recognizing that a lot of things which are simple or obvious to them are skills that need to be learned.
Basically it boils down to not fixing something which is not broken and sticking to the tools you know.
I'm sick of sensationalist headlines, but this does put across one of the problems emerging technologies have that people often miss: the social issues are often just as, if not more, important than the technical ones.
