The Guardian: World Wide Wealth

"There used to be a heading on the Moreover.com news website that read 'dotcom boom'. For some time now it has read 'dotcom doom'. But while many e-commerce sites have gone the way of the dodo, news of a new boom is coming from an unlikely area. According to the latest report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), e-commerce is on the up in the developing world, and it is often women making the most of the technology...

"This boom in internet and e-commerce in the developing world is thanks, in no small part, to Linus Torvalds. Nearly a third of the world's internet servers run on the open source Linux software he helped create. And, because the system is open for users to experiment with, programmers in developing countries are able to get a better understanding of how it works. They can collaborate with others around the world to customise its code..."

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