Social and Economic Technology - 7.2. Technical Aspects
The Desktop software used by Secotek
Secotek must function easily and reliably in the hands of the non technical user. Furthermore, it cannot have on site support from expensive Information Technology personnel. Many would claim to achieve this requires a technical breakthrough that has so far eluded mankind. Yet this is not so. If all the potential deep rural users of Secotek in an area such as a United Kingdom County were brought together into one building, the situation of software as ambitious as Secotek would be competently handled by a moderate Information Technology department affordable by a medium sized company. What is required for Secotek is the innovation to make this support model work where the users are physically spread and probably more autonomous. Users can easily be trained to do the 'finger work' for more technically trained personnel as required, and it is not considered there will be a shortage of such people wanting to work in the countryside. It the conventions under which this happens and the motivations to make it happen that are innovative, under the concept of Secotek.
In actual fact, as users get used to doing their own finger work, a great deal of the support work could eventually become more automated and 'self help' than the conventional company situation. This would encourage the use of computers and Information Technology in the countryside quite outside the ambitions of Secotek, to the benefit of the rural economy generally.
It should be emphasized that whilst the concept of remotely supporting semi-skilled users may be technically feasible, there is currently no business model to cause it to happen. It can only take place using capital aimed at revitalizing the rural economy. The software does need to be designed from the "ground up" to achieve the stability and performance using low cost already available hardware. No software currently on the market is suitable. To do this is does not require a technological breakthrough, it is really no more ambitious than is done by most medium sized companies when they commission software for their own way of working. There is no 'Rural Countryside PLC' to commission it., the equivalent investment needs to be made from the funds made available to make the rural countryside succeed.
All the "clever" and difficult pieces for the proposed Secotek System have already been well designed and made freely available,distributed by the 'Open Source' movement, most commonly associated with Linux. However, Linux is only currently marketed as either a business product, that needs professional IT support, (where there is a return on investment), or as a toy for software enthusiasts where the incentive is not financial, is self perpetuating, and not relevant to Secotek. close source software, e.g. Microsoft, is specifically anti modifying its products to make them suitable for a particular usage class, and therefore attempts to make an issue of the amount of work involved. If the Microsoft monopoly hold on the PC world is ever broken, the concept of using publicly available tools to design software from the ground up specifically for a usage class will probably become quite normal.
Software Funding
The software needs to be initially developed by public funding, because when distributed it needs to be regarded as a public service, and be available without cost or licence fee. It should be freely accessible by any man, woman or child who needs it, and be widely used. Understanding it and having support for it are important issues. This should be regarded in general as an educational issue, but publicly available support should be on offer, preferably as a government sponsored service. As the software should be properly written, and usage of it widespread, the demands on any government sponsored service would not be anywhere near as great as might first be imagined, and it would be regarded as an educational service. The software must make the most effective usage of any PC hardware down to a minimum level, so that older low cost PC computers can be made into affordable useful tools to the financially challenged individual. The software ethos must not be one of continuously forcing upgrading just to keep the computing industry healthy. It must be a service to the rural community in order to allow its ethnic culture and economy to grow. Nobody sees it strange that rural road maintenance does not produce a tangible return on its cost, software maintenance should have a similar concept.
A new attitude towards Software
Usage of the PC is at present broadly divided into two. There is the business environment where highly paid IT staff control and maintain a system as a service for business "users". Alternatively there is the domestic user who notoriously regards the computer as an unreliable novelty rather than a really serious tool. This has led to a myth that computers are complex and expensive to keep going reliably. They may be complex, but in many ways not as complex as a television or other common pieces of electronic equipment. They need not be beyond the capability of almost any supported individual to keep going and maintain. The myth has been brought about and is perpetuated by the one supplier of the software, Microsoft. So far competing operating systems have had to fall into Microsoft's mould as far as business computers are concerned. No alternative operating system has really bothered with the domestic market. This is because there is little potential for a quick return on investment. It is too expensive and unprofitable for an alternative software supplier to single handedly educate and support every domestic user into using a product far more suitable for them. So the domestic user, and much more so the rural business, is left in an abyss. If this is to change the investment must be considered to be in people, not into a software product.
Home - Technical - Tour - Start of costs