FREE / LIBRE AND OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE (FLOSS) : October 2004 Issue by i4d magazine

Vol. II No. 10

October 2004

The first monthly magazine on ICT4D

Untapped potential FOSS usage in Africa Information for development

ISSN 0972 - 804X

FREE / LIBRE AND OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE (FLOSS)

www.i4donline.net

A social movement for freedom of knowledge FLOSS in Latin America and the Caribbean

Why civil society is not embracing FOSS? and CSO

April 2004 | www.i4donline.net

Contents

i4d Vol. II No. 10

Features

October 2004

Columns

Mailbox Mail

info@i4donline.net

FOSS and Civil Society Organisations (CSO) Why civil society is not embracing FOSS? Loe Schout

17 FLOSS

Down to basics

Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS)

21 News

Understanding the global debate

FOSS Usage in Africa Untapped potential Bildad Kagai and Nicholas Kimolo

25 Interview

Javed Tapia, Director, Red Hat India

Open Source 29 International Network (IOSN) Building a global resources

in Latin America and the 11 FLOSS Caribbean A social movement for freedom of knowledge Lena Zuniga

Sunil Abraham and Khairil Yusof

content and open 31 Open standard in FLOSS Promoting partnerships Jayalakshmi Chittoor

36 Insight

Ankur Bangla Project Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay

38 Bytes for All... 14 FLOSS in Asia

Bridging the yawning digital divide Fredrick Noronha

40 ICT and Education FOSS resources in education

18 Closed Vs. Open Software License fee and GDP per capita Rishab Aiyer Ghosh

27 A vision

In the years to come... Maneesh Prasad

33 Revolutionising the process FOSS and localisation Jitendra Shah Editorial Note : In this issue two terms FOSS and FLOSS have been used. FLOSS refers to Free/Libre Open Source Software to emphasize ‘Free as in Freedom’. We have retained each author’s preference in the usage of the two terms.

41 What’s on 42 In fact FLOSSophy

i4donline.net

News Search ICT4D news by date in the sectors of governance, health, education, agriculture and so on. E-mail Subscribe to daily, weekly, monthly newsletters online or send request to info@i4donline.net Research e-Learning projects from India. www.i4donline.net/elearn.asp Print edition The past issues of the magazine is available online www.i4donline.net/archive/archive.htm

I got the opportunity to browse some of the previous issues of i4d distributed at the seminar at India Habitat Centre. I was really delighted to see the contents and the quality of the magazine. Congratulations! Dr Ravindra K. Gupta rkgm@bol.net.in

I enjoy the range of articles in i4d, some of them quite critical of ICT as it is manifested in numerous foundation and aid agency projects. I only wish that more people in Africa and Latin America could read them. Their situations are different from S. Asia, but the assumptions about ICT by companies, granting agencies, and struggling NGOs is somewhat similar. Kudos on the issue related to water projects. Steve Cisler California, USA cisler@pobox.com

I take this opportunity to thank for the whole i4d team for the wonderful edition of the community multimedia centres/telecentre issue. Hara Padhy UNESCO, Paris h.Padhy@unesco.org

Thanks for sending me the i4d newsletter, its an excellent idea, much needed for the sector. Viji Balakrishnan vijibalakrishnan@yahoo.co.in

I have been reading the two previous issues of your magazine and found them really very informative. I would like to thank your team for such a valuable magazine on ICT4D. Mahendranath Busgopaul Internet Child Safety Foundation, Mauritius mahen@icsfonline.org

Editorial Unity in diversity

Information for development www.i4donline.net

Advisory Board M P Narayanan, Chairman, i4d Amitabha Pande Department of Science and Technology, Government of India Chin Saik Yoon Southbound Publications, Malaysia Ichiro Tambo OECD, France Karl Harmsen Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific, India Kenneth Keniston Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA Mohammed Yunus Grameen Bank, Bangladesh Nagy Hanna Information Solutions Group, World Bank, USA S. Ramani Research Director, H.P.Labs, India Walter Fust Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Switzerland Wijayananda Jayaweera UNESCO, France Editorial Board Akhtar Badshah Fredrick Noronha, Bytesforall Editor Ravi Gupta Editorial Consultant Jayalakshmi Chittoor Research Associates Anuradha Dhar, Gautam Navin, Saswati Paik, Divya Jain, Jhinuk Chowdhury Design Deepak Kumar Business Executive Neeraj Budhari Group Directors Maneesh Prasad, Sanjay Kumar i4d G-4 Sector 39, NOIDA, UP, 201 301, India. Phone +91 120 250 2180-87 Fax +91 120 250 0060 Email info@i4donline.net Web www.i4donline.net Contact us in Singapore 25 International Business Park, #4-103F, German Centre, Singapore - 609916 Phone +65-65627983 Fax +65-656227984 Printed at Yashi Media Works Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi, India i4d is a monthly publication. It is intended for those interested and involved in the use of Information and CommnicationTechnologies for development of underserved communities. It is hoped that it will serve to foster a growing network by keeping the community up to date on many activities in this wide and exciting field.

In India, there is an adage one plus one is equal to eleven, and the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) community around the world fits exactly into this adage. These virtual communities of developers and followers have a vision of coming together to solve the problems of the world. It is not without reason that one can call the FOSS community as the classical success story of a Community of Practitioners (CoP), a term so widely used in the knowledge sharing sector. Had it not been for a bunch of people believing in this philosophy, the World Wide Web or Internet would not be what it is. Free, sharing and growing without losing business. Developing the concept of Open Standards and inter operability while addressing key issues like costs, resolution of buggy problems and solving the menace of worms and viruses, these developers have opened to the world of international development, immense opportunities to leapfrog into the digital world. But is this fight all about principles alone? What about policies, training, finding adequate support manpower and addressing the true costs of moving away from proprietary to open source software? The i4d team and the contributing authors have compiled this issue to give a flavour of the developments in this field. Their journey into this world has provided a fascinating experience, which we are happy to share with you in this edition. Forums around the world of Linux users groups and efforts for localisation of the Internet have ensured that the digital world does not lead to the death of many languages and cultures and the vast heritage of the diverse world can get documented digitally. It also makes sure that projects that are started off as creative products of software developers have local relevance and improve the lives and livelihoods of people. The International Open Source Network has done some commendable work to develop primers and dossiers to enable the universities and teaching community to adapt to the rapidly growing field of FOSS. With adequate manpower ready in a few years, this movement that has already captured 8 per cent of the desktop market for operating system will be able to make its mark in the world of development. We always want to know how we are faring in our research and documentation in each issue, so please do let us know what the problems are or if you have a counter view to some topics that we have presented, please do not hesitate to write to us.

i4d does not necessarily subscribe to the views expressed in this publication. All views expressed in this magazine are those of the contributors. i4d is not responsible or accountable for any loss incurred directly or indirectly as a result of the information provided.

ÂŠ Centre for Spatial Database Management and Solutions, 2004

Supported by: Ravi Gupta Ravi.Gupta@i4donline.net and February 2004 | www.i4donline.net

FOSS

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C IVIL S OCIETY O RGANISATIONS ( CSO )

Why civil society is not embracing FOSS Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is affordable and easy to obtain. FOSS is flexible and adaptable to local needs. It even claims to provide a better protection against computer viruses and other intruders. Due to these characteristics, FOSS appears to be well suited for adoption by Civil Society Organisations (CSOs). After all, Loe Schout CSOs are active in the public space between Hivos, The Netherlands the State and citizens. In many cases, they l.schout@hivos.nl work with public funds, which means that they are accountable to the taxpayer. CSOs have an interest in effective networking at the national and international levels in order to attain their goals. Worldwide, tens of thousands of CSOs form a bridge between, or provide a voice for culturally and linguistically diverse local communities. Indeed, during the World Summit for Information Society (WSIS) in 2003, CSOs presented the manifesto ‘Shaping Information Societies for Human Needs,’ in which FOSS was seen as the tool to overcome the worldwide digital divide. Nonetheless, FOSS usage is spreading less rapidly than its advocates wish, and less rapidly than one would expect given the aforementioned advantages. There are a number of reasons. The first is that the CSO community often does not speak the same language as the FOSS community of developers and FOSSproducing companies. These are two different worlds: the world of development cooperation, with its jargon of poverty reduction indicators, and Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), versus the world of software development, with its ‘techies’ and a jargon that is just as difficult for outsiders to follow. Those two worlds will have to communicate more often and in a more intensive way for this to lead to a winning match. Why do we see so few partnerships between FOSS companies and development CSOs? The second obstacle is that the community of software developers, and particularly the FOSS community, is strongly male-dominated. It is embarrassing and a completely outdated fact that meetings on OSS attract an almost exclusively male audience, and that FOSS spokespeople are almost without exception, men. Of course, there are a few excellent exceptions, such as the women from Women’s Net and Gender Changers, who organise computer workshops for and by women. But it stands beyond doubt that many more of this type of initiatives should be given a chance. And far more attention should be paid to gender concerns when it comes to the use of FOSS. October 2004 | www.i4donline.net

A third problem is that the biggest advantage of FOSS - flexibility and freedom for everyone to modify the software to their own needs - sometimes becomes the largest disadvantage. There is an abundance of new FOSS -applications and tools. This is encouraging of course and diversity is one of the much-celebrated addedvalues of FOSS. But the user-friendliness and the standardisation of FOSS leave much to be desired. This is also the case for the documentation and support possibilities for users. Many kinds of FOSS-based CMSs (Content Management Systems) for websites and for knowledge sharing compete with each other. These all claim to be the perfect solution for CSOs working in development and civil campaigning areas for the publication of their local content and towards real ownership for the users. Much knowledge and time are being invested to find the ultimate solution, in many cases reinventing the wheel. OSS claims to be based on collaborative values, but in reality this collaboration is often completely lacking. Perhaps the largest problem of all, with the level of adoption of FOSS in the world of CSOs and NGOs, is the lack of a true political debate over the importance of FOSS. For example, at the end of 2003, Microsoft and the UNDP came to a $1-billion agreement in which the UN committed itself to the Gates empire. This agreement passed without as much as a stir in the slipstream of the WSIS in Geneva, and the CSO community that had gathered there let this happen. This agreement means that respectable public organisations and the governments that support them endorse the relentless expansion of Microsoft, while the slow advance of FOSS is nipped in the bud. Another example is the difficulty that local NGOs and FOSS activists have encountered in obtaining support for their lobby to prevent their governments from becoming involved with Microsoft in a large e-Mexico project. Yet another example, is the overwhelming silence surrounding another deal, again involving Microsoft, with an NGO in South Africa, which earlier had won different development prizes for its locally developed, low-cost ICT solutions in whole of Africa. These types of projects signify the end of local computer and software development companies in Africa and elsewhere. Perhaps this is an overly pessimistic view. After all, the advance of FOSS in Asia in particular demonstrates that FOSS is here to stay. But it would be unfortunate if CSOs and NGOs would not make use of it on time. So, let’s establish more FOSS and CSO partnerships, let’s encourage more women to ‘hack’ their way into current male dominated FOSS communities and technologies, let’s standardise and make user friendly OSS tools.

F REE / L IBRE

AND

O PEN S OURCE S OFTWARE ( FLOSS )

Understanding the global debate Free, Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS)1 represents a new and growing phenomenon, which is much discussed these days as it implies a radically new method of production, cooperation and exchange. In this introduction we argue that Open Source Software (OSS) besides its technical advantages has a special importance in the context of development cooperation.

The philosophy behind OSS The knowledge that is embedded in operating systems and software programmes to make them run, also known as the source code, can be either ‘closed’ and ‘proprietary’, or ‘open’, that is public and shared. FLOSS is a software which has its source code available, that may be used, copied, and distributed with or without modifications, and that may be offered either with or without a fee. Although the open source movement goes back to almost forty years, OSS has become a mainstream-topic only recently. Worldwide, more and more organisations and governments are using open source. This ongoing adoption can be attributed to two reasons, namely, the maturing of some key open source products like GNU/Linux and office production software (Open Office) and the increased resistance to the effective monopoly of Microsoft in the worldwide software market. The (still dominant) closed format of software seems to suit corporate interests well, but at the same time it appears to be increasingly at odds with the current shift from ‘tangible’ (concrete products and services), towards ‘intangible’‚ (i.e. knowledge-based) production. The efforts to ‘proprietarise’ it has resulted in severe legal and political conflicts around the disputed concept of ‘intellectual property rights’. OSS by putting knowledge (the source code) in the public domain‚ offers much more opportunities for sharing and co-operation between all players in the field, reduces dependencies, hinders the rise of monopolists, and fosters healthy competition. Contrary to widespread beliefs, OSS is not adverse to commerce and business as open source based products and services can be sold by anyone. In the field of development, ‘good governance’ and ‘local ownership’ have become important criteria for allocating resources. In contrast to proprietary software, key elements of these can be found in the FLOSS approach to software development, distribution and implementation: The principles of transparency and participation for example are embodied within FLOSS. This means that FLOSS provides tools that are in line with the goals and intentions of development cooperation projects.

OSS and development cooperation • The most significant advantage is the right to view and modify the source code according to individual or regional needs. In the context of development cooperation this means that applications can be adapted to country specific circumstances regardless of the fact if this is profitable for a vendor or not. • As OSS applications are not the property of a single entity, using them makes the user less dependent. This is especially important in the South where organisations running on subsidised or pirated software face the risk of becoming dependent on essential infrastructure they cannot sustain. Additionally OSS does ensure that specialised knowledge that was generated with public resources is not kept as a protected secret of the North. The use of OSS implies a willingness to share knowledge between North and South. • While it is disputed if OSS is less expensive to run than proprietary software, it is undisputed that the acquisition costs are lower (some studies claim higher administration and training costs). In the context of development cooperation this means that little or no money need to be spent for goods imported from the North while local personnel in the South can carry out training and maintenance tasks. Additionally OSS solutions can be at the base of local distribution and support networks that can create autonomous economic activity in the South. Open Source Software also has some weaknesses. The focus of most FLOSS-products is more on the technical user, which can be a hindrance for the inexperienced users. Furthermore, due to the fact that not many people are using OSS, there might be a lack of training opportunities and support, although this is being compensated by an extensive amount of Open Source Softwaresupport on the Internet. In the context of international cooperation and development, Open Source Software has a very promising approach, because it is far more conducive to its stated goals of non-dependent development, fostering of local knowledge, diversity and sustainability. 1

‘Free, Libre and Open Source Software’ and ‘FLOSS’, as well as ‘Open Source Software’ and ‘OSS’ are all used in this document and are interchangeable. FLOSS is more correct, OSS more commonly used. This article is taken from the manifesto produced during a workshop on the role of OSS in the development cooperation organized by Waag Society and Hivos, 2-4 June 2003 in Amsterdam.

i4d | October 2004

FOSS

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C IVIL S OCIETY O RGANISATIONS ( CSO )

software industry in Africa depends on the ability of regional engineering schools to produce dedicated FOSS developers. The Free and Open Source Software Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA- www.fossfa.net), with a team of other partners has therefore embarked on a process to develop local education content. Urgent support is needed in this area. FOSS based companies are also beginning to emerge in Africa and already two official Linux distributions/operating systems have been launched. These include Impi (www.impi.org.za) and Ngoma Linux (www.ngomalinux.com). Most of Africa’s population is illiterate or with minimal education. If any kind of technology is to succeed in Africa, it has to rely on local language communication. Several efforts have been made towards localisation and the development of local content. ‘Translate.org.za’ is a translation effort to make Linux and other FOSS based applications available in the 11 South African languages. Efforts to localise FOSS applications to Kiswahili in Kenya are underway. This will greatly increase the availability of FOSS based ICT solutions to the Africans. The multinational companies and other ICT heavy-weights, who previously did not consider Africa of any significant economic value, have begun establishing offices and channel partners within the region in anticipation for the opportunities that FOSS will present. African governments have taken a keen interest in FOSS and this has contributed to a lot of background competition between proprietary and Open Source Software companies. However, some of African governments have not woken up to this fact and have signed Memorundum of Understanding (MOUs) with proprietary software vendor companies. This has greatly contributed to the death of locally based software development companies. However, governments like South Africa and Uganda have engrained FOSS technologies in their National ICT policies. Several locally based FOSS companies have also thrived and have served the role of providing support and training for FOSS based products and services. Examples include Obsidian (www.obsidian.co.za) in South Africa, Circuits & Packets Communications Ltd (www.circuitspackets.com) in Kenya and Linux Solutions in Uganda (www.linuxsolutions.co.ug). Some universities in the region have also incorporated FOSS in their curriculum. Some examples include the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and

Technology (JKUAT- www.jkuat.ac.ke) and the University of Nairobi School (www.uonbi.ac.ke) of Computing and Informatics in Kenya. The Linux user community in Africa has considerably grown with 17 user groups from several countries. Though, initially the user groups might be formed by a band of techies, trends indicate that the lay user participation has increased due to the need of peer support.

Conclusion The relevance of FOSS to Africa’s economic agenda is beyond question. The opportunity is there and it’s time to make use of it. FOSS solutions provide the opportunity for African software developers to contribute to the development of software, especially that which is tailored for the continent’s needs. This will create training and career opportunities, increase access to Information Technology solutions, especially those tailored for specific demands. On a big scale, continued use of FOSS will bring significant cuts in national budgets. On a micro/personal level, more people would have access to an array of opportunities. This will contribute towards the vision of universal access to ICT solutions for Africa and the world as a whole. FOSS gives the opportunity to Africa to rise up to the challenge of becoming an information society.

Free and Open Source Software Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA) FOSSFA is an organisation that supports and promotes open source software in Africa. It believes that open source solutions are viable, cost-effective and sustainable options for Africa’s participation in ICT for development. FOSSFA has its origin in the ICT Policy and Civil Society workshop in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 2002. The need for developing a framework for open source solutions was felt and so FOSSFA was formed. It was formally constituted in February 2003 in

Geneva during WSIS Prep Com 2. The 53 member states of the Committee on Development Information (CODI), a unit of the Economic Commission for Africa endorsed FOSSFA as the open source foundation for Africa. Its secretariat has been established in Nairobi, Kenya. Among its various activities, FOSSFA has also compiled a collection of country best practices on FOSS usage around the world. FOSSFA is determined to develop local capacity and create jobs in Africa by developing an OSS market that will initially target the public sector in government, health and education through encouraging change of policies in African governments to adopt its use and research and development. Source: http://www.fossfa.net

i4d | October 2004

FLOSS

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C ARIBBEAN

A social movement for freedom of knowledge We maintained a perspective of understanding about how FLOSS is impacting the region in the formulation of technological alternatives oriented towards social change.

In November 2004, Bellanet Latin Ameica and the Caribbean began work on a project with the objective of obtaining an overview of how Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) is being used and produced in this region, as well as what are the common agendas that bring diverse groups and organisations together around “Free Software”? We approached the free software community with the notion to not only collect data and answers, but also with the idea that they could help generate the questions that would be most useful, relevant and appropriate for them. This was a participative investigation and therefore, our participation was also important. In the process of understanding the community, we integrated ourselves into it, by attending and utilising its spaces of interchange and by supporting its common initiatives. The following are some of the lessons that we have learned till date.

FLOSS, a social movement

Lena Zúñiga Bellanet International Secretariat, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) lzuniga@bellanet.org

October 2004 | www.i4donline.net

From the onset of the project, a constant need to generate knowledge regarding free software from a perspective of social research was felt. The literature reviewed, allowed us to determine the economic, legislative or technical character of many of the existing materials. For that same reason, we maintained a perspective of understanding about how FLOSS is impacting the region in the formulation of technological alternatives oriented towards social change. From this perspective emerged one of the first elements of the dialogue with other stakeholders in the region, that is, the need to orient the research towards the ‘movement’ working with FLOSS in the region. The ‘movement’ encompasses the groups, organisations, and institutions who from very diverse perspectives and positions,

support and participate in the adoption and the development of free technological alternatives. The interest would then be to focus the study towards FLOSS as a theme that by its very characteristics allow it to generate a social movement around it, rather than towards the study of FLOSS as a technological phenomenon. Some of the characteristics of FLOSS that generate the organised social movement around it are linked with the growing (although still very limited) access to information and communication technologies, the acquisition of technological user skills by some of the key sectors (for example, social organisations and universities) as well as the recognised need to take control of the language to allow for the transformation of the technologies, for the technologies to begin responding to their own needs. Like many other social movements, the movement around FLOSS finds its origin in the surrounding conditions and realties of the region. • The structural tensions that are prevalent have an impact in concrete interests of a group of individuals and organisations. In the case of FLOSS, a large diversity of groups have seen their economic, political and social interests limited by conditions that favour a monopoly of knowledge products, in particular, software. The huge costs incurred for the acquisition of software, the intellectual property schemes that make it difficult for a large portion of the population to create new knowledge, and the exclusion of marginalised groups due to their irrelevance in the market, are some of the prevailing structural tensions that have created the FLOSS movement. • There are deficiencies in the abilities to confront these conflicts. The existing structures are not adequate to be able to

develop concrete proposals for confronting these types of conflicts, or the organisations and individuals do not have sufficient knowledge in order to do it. Particularly, in a theme that is identified as merely technical, or very related to the intricate legal system of each country, the movement around FLOSS has begun to cover an area that until now has been explored but not put into practice. Concepts such as knowledge products, ‘copyleft’, the freedom to share and to create in the community, are all being related to everyday life and have started direct action from groups and individuals. • In the case of the movement around FLOSS, groups and individuals come from varying and diverse fields. Some come from a technical background, which enables to produce better software through a collaborative model and the free distribution of the results. Others, who come from social and economic development backgrounds, identify with FLOSS as a key way to promote more equitable and sustainable societies. Others view FLOSS as an opportunity to generate income through a competitive business model when confronting the monopolistic forces in the market. From diverse interests, personal approaches and mystics, the groups and individuals form a community of abundant political and ideological diversity. A social movement, such as the movement around FLOSS, attempts to identify a collective identity and finds its bases in pre-existing networks in diverse sectors. For the purpose of our research, we chose to include and to differentiate the various sectors. National and local governments, private enterprise, civil society organisations, and user groups and developers of FLOSS were grouped for the purpose of investigation. The diverse elements that jointly form the context in which this social movement has arisen would require a separate analysis that is beyond the scope of this investigation. However, it is important to emphasise that the work of many individuals and organisations,

identified as part of the movement of FLOSS in the region, have conceptually surpassed the technological approach of software as well as the conditions of hardware, in order to begin a concrete debate on the implications of a free model versus a proprietary model for the construction of a society in which knowledge is and remains free.

Aspects of the study on the movement of FLOSS in LAC Due to its huge diversity and amplitude, the FLOSS theme raises a complex and interesting panorama. In the first month of work, we identified partners in each of the six sub-regions of Latin America and the Caribbean. Based on their own experiences and expectations, these partners, working as a group, defined the investigative approach of the research. In the first participative process, the themes became clearer. If we are studying the social movement around FLOSS, several aspects emerged as high-priority. The collective production of commons Individuals and organisations group together and participate in diverse processes of collaboration in order to use and to produce (in this case), software. These processes have their own rules for participation, for the establishment of leadership, for the creation of community identification, and for the massive communication and distribution of contents. The gender roles in these collaborative processes The participation of women and men, the areas in which they collaborate and the forms in which their participation is developed reflects (and in some instances, challenges) the prevailing gender roles in the region. The small number of women participating in the community of FLOSS development in coding and documenta-

Governmental open source interests Brazil’s open source policy

Spain’s ‘educational’ open source initiative

Last year the Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, finalised a policy recommending that federal ministers, agencies and state enterprises will install open source software, such as Linux, instead of proprietary software on the new computer systems. One of the primary goals of this policy was to have at least 80 per cent of government computers purchased during 2004, to support open source software. Today Brazil is one of the leading countries in FOSS adoption. Early this year it was announced that it would train 1,000 state workers to use FOSS. This is part of an initiative expected to save the government as much as 33 million US dollars. The training programme will consist of over 100 different courses ranging from basic usage to more advanced topics such as networking. There are variety FOSS initiatives in progress in the Brazilian government that will need these skills. Brazil’s Health Ministry is migrating 30 per cent of its computers to Linux this year. Brazil’s national congress saved 15 per cent of its IT budget after moving to Open Office.

In April 2002, the Extramadura Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, had initiated a project to convert computer systems from proprietary systems to open source software (OSS). This included creation of Ministry’s own OSS distribution called GNU/LinEx. There were two reasons for choosing this: First, unaffordable to pay for 100,000 licenses, and second, safety reasons. It was seen as impossible to depend on a single company, and not have access to the codes. Now, using OSS, everything can be updated as and when required. From an educational point of view, there is no difference between GNU/LinEx, as what students require is ‘transparent software’.

References: http://www.asiaosc.org/article_201.html Open Source Software, by Paul Dravis, infoDev

i4d | October 2004

tion reflects the limited number of women in technical and scientific careers. However, women participate to a greater extent in the user communities as well as the groups dedicated to the distribution, education, and reflection on the social impact and incidence in public policies related to FLOSS. The conditions for the appropriation of FLOSS Elements such as the integration of FLOSS initiatives in education, governmental institutions, as well as the initiatives of public access to the information technologies, affect the possibilities of a true appropriation of FLOSS as a tool for development. The FLOSS movement works in a context with certain existing conditions of hardware and software, as well as defined conditions of access to the Internet. As well, there are dissimilar legal realities that either facilitate or obstruct the development of initiatives and products in a model of free licensing. The specific characteristics of the movement FLOSS is referred in diverse scenarios in Latin America and the Caribbean. The social movement around FLOSS is working in areas such as local resource use (human and technical) for the generation of their own solutions, as well as the transparent and effective use of public funds and international cooperation (for example, through the use of FLOSS in the public sector and social organisations). In Latin America and the Caribbean, the need for collective decisions regarding software that we use is apparent and, as there is less effective possibility of carrying out individual decisions, the educational system, public institutions and social organisations are key spaces in order to make these decisions. The true appropriation of knowledge, and the possibility of transforming the technology so that it is capable of helping to solve problems in the region, is a factor that has helped create the movement around FLOSS. The relationship between this social movement with the existing networks of civil society organisations In this context, it is of particular interest to us, to understand how the organisations dedicated to development are approaching the FLOSS movement, what is their ‘point of entry’ to the theme, what particular values and characteristics of the movement they identify with (for example, the collaborative creation, the use and free distribution of the knowledge products), and to what extent this identification affects its practical decisions, for example, in the decision to use FLOSS in a particular organisation. In particular, we are interested to understand, what bridges have been developed between the “technical” community and the development community, as well as the individuals who form those bridges based on their interests, expectations and experiences. Currently, Bellanet LAC, is jointly elaborating, with the research partners, the instruments that will be used to collect information in the region. Beyond the collection of data for various concrete elements, there are additional themes that are worth observing, such as what the tendencies of the movement of FLOSS in the region are. For example, the movement of FLOSS in Latin America and the Caribbean, at least in the more notable organisational structures, are conscious of social and political contexts and take stands in controversial debates, not only those related to FLOSS, but also those October 2004 | www.i4donline.net

related to freedom of knowledge and the integration of Latin American countries into the Information Society. Although, some groups of more technical orientation, prefer not to be identified with particular political positions, the movement of FLOSS in the region maintains common stands before certain topics, such as the regulation of intellectual property and governmental policies orientated toward the democratisation of the access to the technologies. These organisations and individuals, do not only identify with the theme of FLOSS in itself, but also in many cases are working to move forward and to better understand the use of open contents in areas such as education, the arts and science. For example, FLOSS is connected with the Creative Commons Licenses (http:// www.creativecommons.org), which allow for created material to be shared for non-commercial purposes and also provides liberties for the users and authors. The subject of FLOSS has also driven the debate about ‘Open Standards’, mainly in relation to the format of public data managed by governmental institutions, and the possibility that open standards provide in procuring access to the information, independent of platforms and products. It is also being integrated into different sectors, including civil society organisations, in the debate of intellectual property laws that could affect not only the access to software, books and music, but to medicines and to the information generated from the natural resources of the region. Another important area is the ability of these groups, organised around concrete interests, to transfer the commons production model to the common property of knowledge products (such as software and books) which could also have an impact in the medium term on the poorer countries in other areas such as health and food security. In this context, the study of the movement around FLOSS raises many expectations. One of the objectives of the second year of investigation is the creation of common agendas so that key stakeholders from diverse sectors can jointly put forward their ideas, capacities and projections regarding the future of the FLOSS movement in the region. As well as to understand, how to better take advantage of government and international cooperation efforts in order to ensure that FLOSS is utilised as a viable tool for economic and social development, as well as a means to participate in the broader discussion of developing countries in the Information Society.

FLOSS I N A SIA

Bridging the yawning digital divide Let us examine the role of FLOSS in bridging the ‘digital divide’. Can it bridge the growing computing gap that is felt between rich and poor countries, and within countries between the rich and poor?

In the evening, Ramesh and his friends, children from the neighbourhood, gathered more out of curiosity as a container full of used computers were being shipped-in to a storehouse in a suburb of the Indian state of Goa. For the Goa Schools’ computer project team, getting used computers had been an uphill struggle against bureaucracy and laws in force. One minor victory that evening was the 300 plus computers which got unloaded, was the realisation that underprivileged children took to the Linux desktops quite readily. ‘Please could you give us some (software programmes)? Will ‘our’ school too get some computers?’ Ramesh’s friends wanted to know. Light at the end of the tunnel? Or just a mirage? Gaps between those who have access to the power of computing and those who do not are wide and further yawning. Getting in affordable hardware might initially seem like a good idea, but that is only a small part of the problem. Moving further on, let us examine the role of FLOSS (Free/Libre and Open Source Software) in bridging the ‘digital divide’. Can it bridge the growing computing gap that is felt between rich and poor countries, and within countries between the rich and poor?

This issue has many dimensions

Fredrick Noronha Bytes for All fred@bytesforall.org

Cost is still the major barrier, and a huge problem for anyone serious about the digital divide. Yohanes Nugroho (http://open source.or.id/~yohanes) of Bandung’s Instituteof Technology in Indonesia puts it thus: ‘Developments in the South East Asian countries vary a lot. Here in Indonesia, Open Source Software (OSS) is mostly used to fight piracy, by providing low cost software. Unlike in some parts of Asia

(like Thailand), where Microsoft and some other commercial companies create cheap version of Windows or their products, it is not happening in Indonesia. So we are faced with expensive softwares.’ ‘Affordable’ is a relative term. ‘The price of a typical, basic proprietary tool-set required for any ICT infrastructure, Windows XP together with Office XP, is US$560 in the U.S. This is over 2.5 months of GDP/capita in South Africa and over 16 months of GDP/capita in Vietnam,’ says a study by the Netherlands-based Rishab Aiyer Ghosh. Hardware obsolescence and softwaregenerated problems is another critical factor that urgently needs to be addressed. According to a US National Safety Council study, only 11 per cent of the 20 million computers junked in 1998 were recycled. Therefore, it is not a question of having insufficient computers. United Nations University in Tokyo lead by scientist Eric Williams points out that a personal computer consumes far more resources, pound for pound, than many larger machines. With more than a hundred million new computers manufactured every year, that is an incredible strain on the world’s resources. So the pressure to upgrade is enormous. Software gets needlessly phased out, and no longer supported. Hardware turns unserviceable, as compatible components no longer get manufactured. Thus, shipping redundant computers to the Third World is not much of a solution, as they quickly turn unusable there too. Thanks to speedy hardware and software obsolescence traps! So another issue which has got insufficient attention is that ‘Can software work to make sure computers last longer?’ Another issue that comes to mind is that is GNU/Linux also going the bloatware way? From India, techie K. Raghu Prasad i4d | October 2004

explains: ‘This is due to an ongoing effort from GNU/Linux distros to please or convert Windows users into its fold. This makes a lot of business sense. Unless a Windows user finds the system user friendly going by his definition of it, he is not going to use Red Hat or SuSE distros. This comes naturally with some additional costs. If you want all the bells and whistles of latest KDE and GNOME, you need to spend a lot of CPU power and RAM.’ Prasad’s way out is to look to other, lighter options. This can be tackled in another way. Take the RULE (Run Up2date Linux Everywhere ) Project. Fioretti, who is behind the RULE Project, for some time now his goal has been to modify the Red Hat Linux installer so that it runs in less than 32 MB of RAM, or create a new one if needed. Fioretti points out that 80 per cent of the world’s population will take years to afford a computer that can run decently the majority of modern, apparently ‘Free’ software. FLOSS can play a big role in language solutions. Linux-Plus has developed a special GNU/Linux distribution, along with its complete tools, administration and office software packages, to be freely and exclusively distributed by ‘Loghat Al Asr’ magazine, published by Al Ahram. One of the main development objectives of this distribution Linux-Plus Core is to make it available on a single CD instead of three, so that it could be distributed on a large scale with Loghat Al Asr magazine. See http://www.linux-plus.com Other complexities add to the problem. Licenses are becoming increasingly complex - per user, per seat, per year, based on size of the business, among other things. Only when proprietorial software realised that FLOSS was filling in the gap, that it started to make tempting offers that would lock computer learning into the proprietorial software route. There are other little-discussed dimensions of the ‘digital divide’. Proprietorial standards (or non-standards) lead to unhealthy dependencies. Restricting users to a shallow understanding of technology further complicate issues. Entry barriers to accessing software is another concern. One aggravating factor is the lack of re-use possibilities in software. One needs to see whether FLOSS offers a way out? FLOSS offers low entry barriers, and reduces the barriers for anyone wanting to enter this field by making everything open. But this is to such an extent that many people fail to appreciate that fact. Besides, there is the undeniable element of cost.

Source Software is unmatched Learning is easier in FLOSS. Sharing resources comes naturally, more so in the case of individuals and academics, rather than corporates, whether this is software or knowledge. Recently, Dr Nah and Colin Charles put together some interesting material, published by IOSN (International Open Source Network). As all of this was released under the Creative Commons Attribution license, one is free to copy, publish and modify them as long as one credits the original authors and copyright holders. (See http://www.iosn.net/training/end-user-manual/) Dr Quang says that, ‘First of all, Open Source give us the opportunities to learn from the experiences of other developments. We can change and adapt IT solutions to our specific needs. For October 2004 | www.i4donline.net

Proprietorial standards lead to unhealthy dependencies. Restricting users to a shallow understanding of technology further complicate issues less-affluent countries, specially the non English-speaking areas, there is a very large amount of basic adoption to be done, to push digital tools into daily life. Companies from abroad cannot earn much profit working on these changes. So we have to do the work ourselves, step by step but fast enough to keep pace with global trends. Only Open Source helps us, and gives us a chance of crossing the ‘digital divide’. Localising IT opens other doors — education, business and others. Only when the poor benefit from IT, can you talk about the price.’ Bailetti argues that FLOSS moves ‘wealth creation’ from being concentrated in the location where the software is designed and developed to the many locations where the software is expanded, maintained and supported. FLOSS reduces costly imports, freeing up scarce hard currency. It enables individuals to act locally, while thinking globally. From South Korea, Soon-Son ‘Shawn’ Kwon, who is involved in Korean translations, says, “I think the biggest impact of the Linux/Open Source is the easier access to the technologies which were mostly proprietary. This will give more opportunities to less-developed countries. And it is also important because they have alternatives against proprietary software. Some countries have already used Linux as a weapon for negotiation, at least with Microsoft.” George Easaw, professor in mechanical engineering at Goa Engineering College (India) and a FLOSS evangelist, says that ‘In the technical sense, FLOSS has many software in the public domain like octave (numerical computation software), gnuplot (plotting software), latex (document preparation software), scilab (numerical computation) etc. The equivalent proprietary software, called MATLAB (numerical computation) costs hundreds of thousands of rupees, though only marginally superior. This way, FLOSS is helping bridge the divide between the technical institutes which are rich and full of resources and the have-nots.’ Currently, the Government of Laos is working to promote e-Learning in an open source environment, among schools that received donated second-hand computers from the UNDP or other institutions. Somsanouk Pathumvan, who works for the National University of Laos says that, “Most of these schools are secondary or high-schools, so they need lot of free software. I think that free is good”. Japan’s free software campaigner Yutaka Niibe says, “IT isn’t for the rich any more, it should be for everyone. Everyone should benefit from technology, and for software, we need to free the software to do that.”

“FLOSS is showing the world that you can refuse the default option offered by the system, and work out something together with other people, which might be a better way of doing things” More than the software here, it is probably the vision that makes a difference. But Linux has a head-start, in the sense that one is free to copy the software without guilt, and sharing both software and ideas tends to come naturally. FLOSS is throwing up other ideas that help share knowledge. Professor Anil Seth, an Indian educator, says, “One area I have been looking into is the use of animation to learn. VPython is a project created by a physicist to help visualise, well, physics. There is a link on the site with VPython models demonstrating laws of physics. These things could help students learn even in the absence of expensive instruments and equipments.” Abhijeet Singh (www.abhijeetsingh.com) makes a detailed case for how GNU/Linux can help poor children in poor countries, attending resource-starved schools. “Using Linux on a LTSP (terminal server) reduces hardware costs by approximately half, he says. In this kind of environment he says, ‘you do not need any real computing power at each node, all the real work is done by the server which can support upto 25-30 nodes”. Moreover, additional software tools like source code compilers, image editing software, DTP software, CAD software, Proxy server, Mail server etc, are available for free copying in the FLOSS world. FLOSS has also democratised technology, by placing it in the hands of the user. Many criticise GNU/Linux for being too geeky, however, some of the tools it has thrown up, make it rather simple for even small, powerless people to get a voice.

FLOSS powers wikis, blogs and a large section of the Net itself Journalist and technologist Vickram Crishna of Bombay explains, “India Indymedia (part of a global independent media network) uses a homegrown solution, naturally in FLOSS, called Mir. My own experience is that it is extremely powerful for open publishing. It handles multimedia and multiple languages with a single admin interface”. Various initiatives are being tried out. In Indonesia, ministers from five different departments signed a declaration for a movement called IGOS (Indonesian Goes Open Source). Some view this as ‘the first step of this movement is to implement OSS in government agencies’. Could this see more FLOSS being used to fill the digital divide? From India fighting against many odds, the Simputer (http://www.simputer.org) is a good example of attempts to use

technology to bridge the digital divide. This computing device is a piece of sharable hardware, meant to lower the cost of computing. One participant at the Simputer mailing-list on Yahoogroups, Arun Kumar Anand said, “What started with affordable and convenient PC solution for rural area, is now trying to compete in the PDA market. The only difference seems that vendors are projecting it as a low-cost general purpose programmable PDA platform. If the Simputer needs to be seriously presented as an Indian innovation for Indian circumstances, then we should avoid mere following of the form factor or feature list, in the otherwise widely available commercial offerings.” Pressure comes from diverse sides. So do clever arguments. The Initiatives for Software Choice (www.softwarechoice.org) is an organisation which describes itself as doing ‘work to prevent the proliferation of ‘preference’ laws springing up across the globe’. Some point out that unless serious corrective action is taken, the ‘digital divide’ will turn into a further yawning chasm, with a tiny section going further ahead of the vast majority. Sivaram Neelakantan is struck by the idea that it costs around Rs 25,000 (USD 500) to develop a single Indic font. He says, “For an alternative to be provided and to be used (Linux/*BSD et al), the infrastructure has to be provided. With a diverse population speaking, at least 14 major languages, whatever IT solutions deployed, has to fundamentally address the language issue.” He further adds that, “From what I have read on the Net, current efforts are fragmented (IndLinux, Bangla, Gujarati Linux) and does not meaningfully address the scale and magnitude of problem.” Ashish Kotamkar who works with Indian-language solutions from the central Indian city of Pune, points to the other dimensions involved. He points out, “There are larger issues to bridging the digital divide than just FLOSS (or IT for that matter). Access to information and opportunities to the underprivileged is one of the ways to march towards this and IT is just a tool in making it (access to information) happen. The choice of the right IT tool (and not necessarily the technologically most advanced) is extremely important.” He further suggests that FLOSS comes into the picture only ‘much later’ when one encounters issues like cost, or freedom to develop and deploy applications. He says, “I feel FLOSS will require the desired user-friendliness and necessary support structure in place for it to make the desired impact at the grassroots level. Chen Shunling, a young lady lawyer studying the intersection between FLOSS and the law and till recently at Academia Sinica in Taiwan, says, “The digital divide is not just about technology, but also about all other kinds of divides - wealth, age, gender, the city and the countryside, the majority population and the minorities, etc. I am not optimistic that FLOSS itself could go very far in bridging digital divide, which will remain if other divides are not bridged. I do not mean that it cannot help at all, but for people who do not read code, the influences are quite limited. But I am very positive on the influences it might have on programmers.” On the legal side, she re-looks at the copyright system. “FLOSS is showing the world that you can refuse the default option offered by the system, and work out something together with other people, which might be a better way of doing things.” FLOSS might have the answers, but to become meaningful, surely a lot more needs to be done. i4d | October 2004

FLOSS

Down to basics With an increase in OSS awareness, a variety of technology platforms and software categories have come up.

• Mozilla – This is a web browser available for Windows, Apple Macintosh, Sun Solaris and Linux platforms.

Operating Systems Many alternatives are available for server operating systems, ranging from proprietary systems like Sun Microsystem’s Solaris and other UNIX variants, to the following prevalent OSS solutions: • Linux – Released under the GNU General Public License (GPL), it was initially designed to provide low-cost alternative to the UNIX operating system. There are numerous distributions of Linux such as Debian, RedHat, and SuSE. While the penetration of Linux is highest with servers, there is increasing attention to Linux on the desktop. • FreeBSD – This is an operating system used primarily for server computers, often in data centres. Released under the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) license, it is derived from BSD UNIX, a version of UNIX developed at UC – Berkeley.

Development Tools This includes software for creating and developing websites and applications including programming languages such as Perl, PHP and Python. There is also an array of content management solutions available.

Server Application Software This is used to share information and other computing resources on a computer network with many users. E-mail, database, web servers and software to share files and printers are included in this category. • Apache – It runs on Linux, Sun Solaris, UNIX and Windows 2000, and is used to manage and display web pages. • MySQL – This is a relational database started in 1995 by MySQL AB, based in Sweden. The product is available under the GNU General Public License (GPL) and a commercial license. • PostgreSQL – This is a project relational database started in 1986 at UC-Berkeley, released under the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) license. It runs on many different operating systems. • Sendmail - Released under the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) license, its development started in 1981, to enable the routing of e-mail between networks. • Samba – It provides file and printer sharing capabilities, and runs on most UNIX systems, Linux, Sun Solaris and BSD variants. Desktop Application Software Consists of a vast array of product categories including personal productivity, games, accounting, graphics and web browsers. While Microsoft’s Office, Internet Explorer and Outlook dominate the desktop, OSS solutions are the following: • OpenOffice.org – This is an office applications suite, available for Microsoft Windows, Linux, Sun Solaris and Apple Mac OS X systems. • Evolution – In one application it integrates e-mail, calendar, meeting scheduling, contact management, and task lists. October 2004 | www.i4donline.net

Most prevalent Open Source licenses While open source is associated with Linux and GNU GPL licensing agreement, the open source initiative has certified over 40 different open source licensing agreements. The most prevalent licenses under use are: GNU General Public Licensing (GPL) This most widely used license for open source software, was written by Richard Stallman in 1989, for the purpose of distributing programmes released as part of the GNU project. It is considered to be the ‘purest’ by requiring that all source code is free and available, and that changes must be shared with the community of developers. BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) License This is adopted from Berkeley Unix, requiring copyright notification, and permits the source to be used in any manner, as long as notification is provided. The FreeBSD operating system and PostgreSQL databases use this license, and Apple Computer’s OS X is a derivative work based on BSD licensed technology. Mozilla Public License (MPL) It defines terms and provides code that can remain propriety under very specific terms, and dual licensing when necessary under the provisions of GPL. This is likely to be a more flexible model for open source organisations. Mozilla, Firebird and Thunderbird Web browsers are available under this license. Creative Commons License (CCL) Creative Commons is a non-profit corporation that has created a set of licenses, which others can use to license their creative works. All Creative Commons licenses say that creative works licensed under them may be copied and distributed by others. In addition, one can select additional terms and conditions that apply to others’ use for creative works. Each of these licenses state that the source code is open and users are free to use, copy, duplicate, distribute and modify them. Reference: Open Source Software, by Paul Dravis, infoDev

C LOSED V S . O PEN S OFTWARE

License fee and GDP per capita The open source development community provides an environment of intensive interactive skill development at little explicit cost, which is particularly useful for local development of skills, especially in economically disadvantaged regions.

Rishab Aiyer Ghosh MERIT/Infonomics, University of Maastricht, Netherlands rishab@dxm.org

Free software communities Open source, or free software as it was originally called, has become in recent years one of the most talked about phenomena in the ICT world. This is remarkable, not only for the usual reasons that open source has been around for many years as a volunteer driven success story before being discovered by big business and now government, but also because it has largely developed on its own without the headline coverage and glare of international attention that it now receives. This in turn makes it more attractive to governments and policy makers. Yet what is the special value of open source software, and how can it be harnessed? The Free/ Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) study in 2002, a comprehensive study of developers and users, showed that the most important reason for developers to participate in open source communities was to learn new skills — ‘for free’. These skills are valuable, help developers get jobs and can help create and sustain small businesses. Meanwhile, the most important reasons given by users of OSS were not the lower costs but the higher security and better performance as compared to proprietary software. Therefore, the open source method of development is clearly seen by users as being innovative and providing the same or better quality. The FLOSS survey also showed that while just over 30 per cent of all developers earn directly from their support, development or administration of OSS, a further 20 per cent earn indirectly, most of whom reported being given a job because of their experience in developing OSS. This indicates that employers value the skills that are learnt through participation in the developer community. This finding was also supported by the

FLOSS survey of user organisations, of which 36 per cent reported allowing their employees to participate in open source projects during their time at work. To a considerable degree, therefore, the OSS community must be regarded as an informal and skill development environment that provides good training, and competitive advantages on the labour market. It is ‘costless’ in that the costs for training are not explicitly borne in monetary terms by any of the parties benefiting from the new skills made available in the market. Universities are not paying for this training (only 20 per cent of developers are students), and nor, explicitly are companies, it is the individual developers themselves who are contributing their time and effort to learn and teach others in an informal ‘apprenticeship’ system. As these costs are social costs distributed widely across individual participants, they are effectively a subsidy for sectors of society which do not or cannot explicitly pay for skill development. This skill development process is particularly valuable for small businesses and for less wealthy regions and countries, where the high direct costs of training ICT professionals may otherwise hinder the development of a local information economy. Participation in the global open source community can help offset such costs by effectively providing a (voluntary) subsidy from the global community. The FLOSS study showed that developers who provided ‘learning new skills’ as their reason for joining the community often show ‘sharing skills’ as an equally or more important reason for continuing their community participation. This is correlated with the duration of their participation in the community, naturally, and represents a shift from ‘apprenticeship’ to ‘mentor’ roles. In a reflection of the development process i4d | October 2004

for individuals, countries that profit most from open source are those that contribute back to the community and knowledge base, and there is a built-in incentive (and low barriers) for a shift from being a recipient of skills to being a skills donor. So the process of ‘subsidy’ is very dynamic, and is likely to lead not to a dependency relationship but rather to a equal relationship based on, among other things, local specialisations for locally relevant issues. Such skill development extends to the creation of new, local businesses, which are able to provide commercial support for and build upon OSS in a way not possible with proprietary software. This effect is heightened by any public support of the open source software sector. For example, the taking up of open source by the Extremadura region in Spain through its support for the LinEx project (a localised, Spanish-language version of the GNU/Linux operating environment) has led to an economic regeneration in a relatively poor region of the EU. This has not just allowed the implementation of activities for a lower price, but also enabled activities especially in education and training which were simply not possible with proprietary software. It has also led to the growth of a number of small businesses to provide commercial support, since with open source there is no need to approach one sole vendor for support — approaching local entrepreneurs is possible and an obvious choice.

Total cost of ownership and low labour costs Inexpensive skill development is an important reason for developing countries to promote OSS. But, in contrast to the situation in richer countries, another reason is simply cost. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) studies show varying results in rich countries, where labour costs are high, the relative low license fee of OSS need not necessarily reduce total costs of using and maintaining systems. When labour costs are high, labour-intensive components of the total cost (such as support, customisation, and integration — i.e. everything other than the software license fee, communication and hardware costs) represent a high share of the total cost, making the license fee itself (which is not present in the case of OSS) less crucial. In contrast, when labour costs are low, the share of license fee in the TCO is much more significant, even prohibitively so. This relationship is neatly demonstrated by comparing license fee with a country’s GDP per capita (i.e. the average individual income). As is quickly apparent, in developing countries, even after software price provide discounts, the price tag for proprietary software is enormous in purchasing power terms. The price of a typical, basic proprietary toolset required for any ICT infrastructure, Windows XP together with Office XP, is US$560 in the U.S. [2]. This is over 2.5 months of GDP/capita in South Africa and over 16 months of GDP/capita in Vietnam. This is the equivalent of charging a single-user license fee in the U.S. of US$7,541 and US$48,011 respectively, which is clearly unaffordable. Moreover, no likely discount would significantly reduce this cost, and in any case the simple fact that a single vendor controls any single proprietary software application means that there can never be a guarantee that any discount offered is intended to be sustained for the long term, rather than as a temporary measure used to tempt consumers into a lock-in situation at which point in time the discount can be reduced. October 2004 | www.i4donline.net

Country

GDP/cap

PCs (‘000s)

Piracy

WinXP Cost [3]

Albania Algeria Angola Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Congo, Dem. Rep. Congo, Rep. Costa Rica Cote d’Ivoire Croatia Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt, Arab Rep. El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Fiji 2061 Finland France Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Grenada Guatemala Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Honduras Hong Kong, China Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran, Islamic Rep. Ireland Israel Italy 18788 Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Korea, Rep. Kuwait Kyrgyz Republic Lao PDR Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Lithuania Luxembourg Macao, China Macedonia, FYR

1300 1773 701 9961 7166 686 19019 23186 688 12189 350 10281 1226 22323 3258 368 644 936 1175 3066 2915 1713 215 99 278 559 22343 1317 257 202 4314 911 1915 386 99 886 4159 634 4625 12004 5554 30144 894 3661 2494 1396 1511 2147 3935 164 4051 95 50 23295 22129 3437 291 601 22422 269 11063 3965 1754 394 162 912 460 970 24074 5097 27312 462 695 1767 26908 17024 11286 3005 32601 1755 1503 371 430 8917 16048 308 326 3200 3811 386 163 3444 42041 14089 1684

24 220 17 n.a. 3415 24 10000 2727 n.a. 92 254 25 n.a. 2394 33 11 5 175 n.a. 66 10835 n.a. 17 n.a. 18 60 14294 31 7 12 1640 24222 1810 3 n.a. 12 659 118 376 188 1490 2896 7 5 n.a. 300 1010 140 2 8 238 75 n.a. 2197 19949 15 17 n.a. 31471 66 860 13 150 30 n.a. 20 n.a. 80 2600 1021 118 6031 2298 4495 1500 1564 45% 130 44311 165 n.a. 172 2 12142 270 n.a. 16 361 247 n.a. n.a. 246 228 79 n.a.

n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 62% n.a. 27% 33% n.a. 77% n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 77% n.a. n.a. 56% 75% n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 38% n.a. n.a. n.a. 51% 92% 52% n.a. n.a. n.a. 64% n.a. 67% 61% 43% 26% n.a. n.a. 64% 62% 58% 73% n.a. n.a. 53% n.a. 9584 27% 46% n.a. n.a. n.a. 34% n.a. 64% n.a. 73% n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 68% 53% 48% n.a. 70% 88% n.a. 42% 40% 1051 n.a. 37% 67% n.a. 77% n.a. 48% 76% n.a. n.a. 59% 79% n.a. n.a. 56% n.a. n.a. n.a.

Effective $ 15196 11140 28184 1983 2757 28806 1039 852 28708 1621 56401 1921 16120 885 6064 53613 30668 21109 16818 6444 6777 11534 91801 198864 71184 35319 884 14998 76998 97728 4579 21678 10316 51208 199394 22288 4750 31140 4272 1646 3557 655 22107 5396 7922 14149 13075 9203 5021 120613 4877 208612 3.26 848 893 5747 67847 32884 881 73442 1786 4982 11261 50090 121634 21670 42984 20371 821 3876 723 42725 28412 11177 734 1160 0.36 6573 606 11257 13143 53283 45919 2215 1231 64178 60625 6173 5184 51122 121417 5736 470 1402 11735

GDP Months 5.17 3.79 9.59 0.67 0.94 9.80 0.35 0.29 9.77 0.55 19.19 0.65 5.48 0.30 2.06 18.24 10.43 7.18 5.72 2.19 2.31 3.92 31.23 67.65 24.21 12.01 0.30 5.10 26.19 33.24 1.56 7.37 3.51 17.42 67.83 7.58 1.62 10.59 1.45 0.56 1.21 0.22 7.52 1.84 2.69 4.81 4.45 3.13 1.71 41.03 1.66 70.96 0.29 0.30 1.96 23.08 11.19 0.30 24.98 0.61 1.69 3.83 17.04 41.38 7.37 14.62 6.93 0.28 1.32 0.25 14.53 9.66 3.80 0.25 0.39 2.24 0.21 3.83 4.47 18.12 15.62 0.75 0.42 21.83 20.62 2.10 1.76 17.39 41.30 1.95 0.16 0.48 3.99

Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali 239 Malta Marshall Islands Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Micronesia, Fed. Sts. Moldova Mongolia Morocco Mozambique Namibia Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Niger Nigeria Norway Pakistan Palau Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Romania Russian Federation Rwanda Samoa Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovak Republic Slovenia Solomon Islands South Africa Spain Sri Lanka St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan Suriname Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syrian Arab Republic Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Timor-Leste Togo Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Uganda Ukraine United Kingdom United States Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, RB Vietnam West Bank and Gaza Yemen, Rep. Yugoslavia, Fed. Rep. Zambia Zimbabwe Regional Aggregates [4] European Union EU Accession countries EU applicant countries The Caribbean Latin America Africa Middle East Asia Oceania

288 166 3699 2082 13 9172 1830 366 3750 6214 1973 346 433 1173 200 1730 236 23701 13101 175 319 36815 415 6280 3511 563 1337 2051 912 4561 10954 17682 1728 2141 215 1465 311 8711 476 6912 146 20733 3786 9443 614 2620 14150 849 7609 4222

39 13 3000 6 n.a. 91 3 28 131 6835 n.a. 68 35 400 63 65 83 6872 1511 6 889 2292 585 n.a. 110 298 76 1262 1702 3301 1177 n.a. 801 7200 n.a. 1 n.a. 1343 182 12 n.a. 2100 800 549 22 2962 6916 175 8 23

n.a. n.a. 70% n.a. 82801 53% n.a. n.a. 65% 55% n.a. n.a. n.a. 61% n.a. n.a. n.a. 39% 26% n.a. 71% 34% 83% n.a. 61% n.a. 72% 60% 63% 53% 43% 47% 75% 87% n.a. n.a. n.a. 52% n.a. n.a. n.a. 51% 46% 60% n.a. 38% 49% n.a. n.a. n.a.

68550 118904 5341 9487 28.17 2154 10795 53959 5268 3179 10012 57020 45598 16840 98978 11420 83770 834 1508 113078 62014 537 47630 3146 5627 35071 14777 9630 21658 4331 1803 1117 11433 9226 92034 13485 63600 2268 41539 2858 135380 953 5218 2092 32173 7541 1396 23257 2596 4679

0.73 3.67 18.35 1.79 1.08 3.41 19.40 15.51 5.73 33.67 3.88 28.50 0.28 0.51 38.46 21.09 0.18 16.20 1.07 1.91 11.93 5.03 3.28 7.37 1.47 0.61 0.38 3.89 3.14 31.31 4.59 21.63 0.77 14.13 0.97 46.05 0.32 1.77 0.71 10.94 2.57 0.47 7.91 0.88 1.59

3047 395 1803 1175 23590 34171 1175 169 271 1874 517 270 1406 6752 2066 2155 1097 249 766 24219 35277 5554 450 1058 5073 411 1286 514 1020 354 706

13 115 19 n.a. 4991 3906 270 n.a. 115 1698 n.a. 100 n.a. 91 229 2792 n.a. 71 898 21533 178326 370 n.a. n.a. 1300 933 n.a. 35 249 72 155

n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 31% 33% n.a. n.a. n.a. 77% n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 58% n.a. n.a. 86% 25% 25% 63% n.a. n.a. 55% 94% n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 68%

6483 49990 10955 16816 837 578 16815 116879 72860 10540 38212 73033 14054 2926 9560 9167 18010 79324 25802 816 560 3557 43943 18677 3895 48011 15366 38434 19373 55824 27965

2.21 17.00 3.73 5.72 0.28 0.20 5.72 39.76 24.78 3.59 13.00 24.84 4.78 1.00 3.25 3.12 6.13 26.98 8.78 0.28 0.19 1.21 14.95 6.35 1.32 16.33 5.23 13.07 6.59 18.99 9.51

20863 4840 2023 4560 4335 652 2679 2128 13946

116997 8286 3592 308 18703 7636 9708 102229 11886

n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.

947 4082 9766 4332 4557 30297 7375 9282 1417

23.32 40.45 1.82 3.23

0.32 1.39 3.32 1.47 1.55 10.31 2.51 3.16 0.48

Table 1: License fee relative to GDP/capita. Source: World Bank World Development Indicators Database, 2001; Piracy data from Business Software Alliance GDP/capita in US$, Windows + Office XP cost in effective US$ equivalent.

This simple calculation is presented in the table for 176 countries, together with 10 geographical and political aggregates. The table also includes the piracy figures published by the Business Software Alliance (BSA). It should be noted that there is a correlation between the piracy rate and the effective software license fee, that is, the more expensive the software is, the higher the piracy rate. This is common sense, but does not seem to be reflected in the BSA estimates of the ‘losses’ to the software industry based on piracy, which assume that all the estimated unlicensed copies of software in a country should (or could) be replaced with paid licensed copies. Ironically, the logical conclusion of the increasingly stringent international campaign for strong enforcement of copyright is the reduction of piracy rates not through taking up licensed, proprietary software, but through the use of OSS. Anecdotal evidence shows that this is the case in Argentina, Peru and other countries especially in Latin America, where a campaign for strong copyright enforcement has coincided with poor economic conditions.

Conclusion There is much current debate on whether governments should promote or encourage adoption of OSS in their economies, such as through public procurement practices. While there are a number of reasons cited for and against such action, any policy based purely on value–for–money considerations would, faced with a choice of spending either 0 or 16 months of GDP, necessarily prefer the former. ICTs are supposed to be an ‘enabler’ for growth in developing countries. Such growth cannot spread much beyond a very small elite if the basic enabling software infrastructure requires the investment of several months’ worth of GDP on software license fee, repeatedly, every few years in an upgrade cycle beyond the control of users. Moreover, economic growth driven by ICT depends on the wide dissemination of ICT usage and competences. The skill development aspects of open source encourage this, provide support for the generation of local ICT industries, and furthermore facilitate a reciprocal relationship where developing economies and local players can quickly start contributing to the global software developer community, and hence to the global economy. To conclude, in the interest of sustainable, long-term and widespread economic growth and ICT development, developing countries need to seriously consider the adoption, and promote OSS in order to develop local skills and businesses, actively participate in the global ICT economy, and avoid unnecessary expenditure. Reprinted from First Monday, Volume 8, number 12 (December 2003) Notes • MERIT/Informics and Berlecon Research 2002, “Free/Libre/ Open Source Software Study– Final Report,” at http:// www.flossproject.org/report/. • Price from amazon.com in June 2003. • Windows + Office XP equivalent US$ cost calculation = $560* (country GDP per capita/U.S. GDP per capita). i4d | October 2004

Vol. II No. 10

October 2004

Information for development www.i4donline.net

Open source Open-source process server released In India, the Apache Software Foundation launched an open-source project around business process management (BPM) server. The software called Agila, is designed for writing Java applications that automate business workflow, such as multistep process for handling business documents. The software will be available free of charge under Apache 2.0 open-source license. Agila is designed to be a simple BPM product that can be easily embedded in other applications and run on a range of devices, including handheld computers. http://news.com.com

Major Linux push by Taiwanese bodies Taiwanese government organisations, as well as its industrial and academic organisations, have started a plan, which will help the island’s industries using Linux software to turn out up to an USD 3.25 billion revenue in three years. The goal includes getting software companies using Linux to generate an USD 0.29 billion revenue, and the hardware industry to gain an USD 2.95 billion revenue. http://www.theinquirer.net

South African government keen on OSS technology Since 2003, the South African government has increasingly advertised its intentions and efforts to become more technologically enabled, with the aim to improve its internal operations, its service levels, and its accessibility to its citizens. It aims to do so using the open source software October 2004 | www.i4donline.net

technology. The government has made available on its website, the potential benefits that open source software and open standards offer to its internal projects and for its e-Government initiatives. According to the South African government open source software is a useful tool, with the major benefits including reduced software and licensing costs, a decreased dependency on imported technology and skills, easy access to data without data format barriers, and the ability to customise the software to local languages and cultures. http://www.tectonic.co.za

MySQL embracing Microsoft Open Source Project Open source database server company MySQL’s next production release of its open source MySQL database server will be sporting a new Windows installer, partially built with an open source project, courtesy Microsoft. The WiX (Windows Installer XML) toolset that MySQL is using is Microsoft’s first official open source project and is freely available via the SourceForge open source repository. The upcoming 4.1 release of the MySQL Database Server includes Windows installer files as part of a revamped and improved Windows installer for the application. WiX is part of Microsoft’s shared source initiative and is licensed under the CPL (Common Public License), which makes the application freely available to download and use. http://www.internetnews.com

New Linux software for desktop By early November 2004, Novell plans to release a new version of its open-source operating system for desktops. SuSE Linux

Professional 9.2 is designed for computers with 32-bit processors, those based on Advanced Micro Devices’ Athlon 64 chips and those, which use Intel’s Extended Memory 64. The software is based on Linux Kernel 2.6.8 and features Bluetooth support, the ability to roam between wireless Local Area Networks (LANs) and other networks, and enhanced power management and hardware support. The product comes bundled with development platforms such as KDevelop, Eclipse and Mono, for opensource users interested in working on Linux as well as cross-platform applications. The product is designed to appeal to consumers as well as technical enthusiasts. The product will be priced at US $89.95, including 90 days of installation support. http://www.techworld.com

France and China come together for Linux alliance The Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) have signed an agreement to work together on an opensource software product. The government organisations will cooperate on the development of a Linux-based platform, which will run on multiple environments including Personal Computers (PCs), servers and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). The system will support online services and communication applications. http://zdnet.co.uk

French government to provide public Internet access points across Africa Mandrakesoft has teamed up with the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs on a programme to provide a network of sixty public Internet access points throughout Africa.

The i4d News

‘Open Source Software Resource Centre’ in Mumbai IBM India, C-DAC and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, have signed a cooperation agreement to set up an ‘Open Source Software Resource Centre’ (OSSRC) in Mumbai with an investment of $1.2 million over the next three years. The objective of OSSRC is to foster significant OSS development in India 0by establishing a development portal and initiating and spearheading significant proof of concept projects. Under this agreement, C-DAC, IIT Bombay and IBM would undertake activities to foster OSS development, enhance the understanding of the OSS model by imparting training and promote the development of content in areas of education and general awareness of OSS across the country. http://www.ciol.com

This government-sponsored project ‘Aden’, is to include access points running on a version of Mandrakesoft’s Linux distribution. The aim of the project is to foster the development and use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in Africa through the creation of a network of public Internet system. The programme hopes to create favorable conditions for the exchange of ideas and skills and encourage inter-cultural dialogue. The software will be available as a free download from Mandrake and Aden project websites. http://www.desktoplinux.com

Governments in Europe considering shift to Linux Early this year, the German city of Munich had decided to change the operating software of 14,000 government computers to Linux open-source computer system. Now it is Paris (France), which is considering the shift of 15,000 computers and servers from Windows to the open-source system. Factors of cost, security and a reluctance to be beholden to a single American software vendor, led governments in Europe and elsewhere to take a deeper look at open software like Linux, which is freely modified and shared over the Internet. According to French press reports, Microsoft has offered to drop its prices by 57 per cent if Paris stays with its products. The final decision will soon be taken as the French consulting company, Unilog has already submitted a feasibility study on open source deployment to the government. Various other government bodies have begun examining or implementing open source systems. As per the reports of the International Herald Tribune, the Austrian city of Vienna is considering

replacing Windows with Linux for its 15,000 desktops. http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg

Spotting open-source code through a new tool US-based Black Duck Software has released an application designed to spot open-source code in proprietary software, to allow lawyers to resolve the Intellectual Property (IP) issues around open-source software. This is the latest offering from the company, which released two IP products for developers in May this year. ProtextIP/development, highlights potential license issues through consulting a knowledge base of open-source code and associated licenses, while protexIP/ registry, allows employees to put code it has developed into the knowledge base to assure customers and partners that it has followed best practice in software compliance. The Black Duck product uses a 50GB knowledge base, which is updated with new code from the open-source community through the use of spiders, which trawl the Web looking for open-source code, and by monitoring 250 leading open-source projects and community websites such as Apache, Sourceforge and Freshmeat. http://news.zdnet.co.uk

Novell to use patent portfolio to protect its open source software offerings Novell has announced its public commitment to use its patent portfolio to protect its open source software offerings. A policy statement made by Novell, at http://

www.novell.com/company/policies/patent, says that it will utilise its patent portfolio to defend against potential intellectual property attacks by others on its open source products. The statement serves as a reassurance to the customers to choose open source solutions with confidence, knowing they have strong backing from Novell on patent issues. Novell has adopted the approach to protect customer choice, not threaten it, and support the innovation inherent in the open source model. http://www.itweb.co.za

Open source training centre in Kampala, Uganda The launch of a Linux based training institution in Kampala has given a boost to the business of managing and maintaining Open Source Software in Uganda. The Eastern African Centre for Open Source Software (EACOSS) was opened for the public last week, with a training workshop attended by university lecturers and officials from government departments and non-government organisations. The centre, located at the premises of Uganda Institute for Communications and Technology, Nakawa, will provide ‘a onestudent per connected computer’ training. It will operate as an Internet café at daytime and training centre in the evenings to accommodate the working class. This centre will serve to train people to use Linux-based technology for office solutions, including setting up the free Linux software on their computers. http://allafrica.com

India going more the Linux way More and more state governments, educational institutions and corporates are exploring the possibility of adopting Linux operating system, industry experts say. While the states of Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, West Bengal and Maharashtra are already exploiting the advantages of opensource software of Linux, corporates like Life Insurance Corporation have started the migration from SCO-Unix to Linux to take advantage of the cost-effective alternative. Red Hat India, which caters to 95 per cent of the Linux market in the country, expects Linux to play a major role in bridging the digital divide in India. http://pib.nic.in i4d | October 2004

The i4d News IBM, PeopleSoft agreement open doors to Linux CRM A joint initiative of IBM and PeopleSoft allows them to focus more sharply on small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) worldwide. The alliance calls for joint hardware and software development of vertical applications, joint marketing efforts, cooperative Linux development and also industry specific solutions for resellers. The agreement is being seen as a means to strengthen the trend towards alternative operating systems for CRM. PeopleSoft may also consider a move towards Linux. http://www.linuxforu.com

Launch of Creative Commons License in UK Creative Commons, a U.S. based non-profit foundation, has created a copyright license that lets musicians and authors decide what limits to put on their creations. This new flexible form of copyright for creative material is set to launch in Britain on 1st November 2004, at a time when ‘remix culture’ is gaining in popularity despite the fact it is often illegal. The Creative Commons concept has already been gaining steam in the United States, Brazil and elsewhere. Inexpensive software has made it possible for anyone to remix songs or video, and distribute his or her creation on the Internet. But rights holders rarely approve of unauthorised mixes, and in some cases have filed lawsuits to enforce their rights. http://www.reuters.co.uk

Railway ministry in China goes for Linux The railway ministry of China will use Japan based Linux specialist Turbolinux’s software for centralised package delivery operations. The Turbolinux product, TurboHA, is ‘high-availability’ software designed to ensure that computer operations stay available, by moving processes to functioning computers if one crashes. Three hundred copies of the company’s server software will be used on 160 servers.

Microsoft software to open source Linux programmes. This will be a gradual ‘soft migration’, expected to be complete by 2009. The shift will begin with office desktop applications and then move to more specialised applications. The reason for the shift is that the code in the open source software is freely available, and benefits from the continual scrutiny and improvements made by a community of programmers.

Development of OSS in Vietnam

The city of Bergen, Norway, has moved away from its proprietary Unix and Microsoft Windows application to Novell’s Linux technology to strengthen its technology infrastructure. This two-phased implementation of SuSE (comes from the German phrase, Software-und System – Entwicklung) Linux Enterprise Server 8 will impact 50,000 users of city’s administrative and educational networks. The implementation will initially see 20 existing Oracle database servers running on HP-UX, powering the city’s core health and welfare services. The second implementation phase involves migration and consolidation of the present Microsoft Windows application servers, powering the city’s educational network to SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 on IBM eServer BladeCentres.

From this year onwards Vietnam will see the development of open source software. This government initiative is designed to promote copyright protection, reduce spending on software purchases and boost the development of information technology in general and the software industry in particular, in Vietnam. Under this five-year project, one million young volunteers will disseminate IT knowledge to 20 million others, primarily in rural areas. Provision will be made for two million low-cost computers to targeted areas, which will be run on open source software.

http://www.linuxforu.com

Matrix, in Israel, which locally sells the Red Hat Linux infrastructure, has reported that its Linux sales reached USD 0.22 million in the third quarter. This is a 10-fold increase in the second quarter, when it began its operations. Since receiving local representation to market Red Hat

Munich’s shift to Linux (July 2004) City officials of Munich have approved a plan to change their 14,000 computers from

October 2004 | www.i4donline.net

http://www.haaretzdaily.com

http://www.linuxforu.com

Norwegian city opts for Linux

Enterprise Linux, Matrix has sold some 250 licenses, most of them in the third quarter. The clients include, the Weizmann Institute, Comverse, Amdocs, Tel Aviv university, government ministries and insurance companies. Red Hat concentrates only on operating systems, and its key platform is the Linux infrastructure. The company trades on Nasdaq at a company value of around USD 2.5 billion.

http://www.linuxforu.com

Tenfold rise in Matrix’s Red Hat Linux sales in Israel

Brazil, IBM team for new technology centre IBM and the Brazilian government have signed a cooperative agreement for the establishment of a Knowledge and Technology Centre, to be called CDTC, which will promote and develop open standard solutions in Brazil, under the auspices of the Information Technology Institute (ITI). The Ministry of Culture and the University of Brasilia (UnB) are also involved in the project. The CDTC will encourage the popularisation of open standard solutions by training technicians, and supporting professionals and users of public administration systems. The intention is to establish a growing group of open standard users. The CDTC aims to stimulate and supply tools for the Brazilian market to adopt new information technology standards, based on open-code software. http://linuxtoday.com

Linux courses to get accreditation The Linux Professional Institute (LPI) will soon be launching a quality assurance programme for the UK-based training

The i4d News

Using mobiles to tr track HIV treatment The researchers in South Africa have developed a unique application for mobile phone technology that helps health workers monitor HIV patients cheaply and efficiently. The Cell-Life project, backed by local mobile phone giant Vodacom, has developed software and data management systems that let clinic workers use their mobile phones to monitor patients’ treatment and spot health problems before they become life-threatening. The phones are equipped with a special menu that enables the HIV counselors to record data on a patient’s symptoms and whether they are sticking to drug regimes. Other factors that might affect their health, such as a lack of money to pay for transport to the clinic, or shortage of food, are also monitored. The information collected is instantly relayed over Vodacom’s network to a central database, which can be accessed by the clinic staff through a secure Internet connection. http://www.scidev.net

courses in the open source operating system. The LPI-approved training programme was announced at Linux World Expo in London held in October 2004. It will be the only training programme covering all versions of Linux, and will complement the LPI’s internationally accepted certification standard. The programme will be run in the UK by LPI affiliates. It aims to set a benchmark that will boost Linux use. Open Forum Europe with the ITS Group will be the first approved training partner.

exercise their rights in their own country and when visiting other member states. Guides are available in ten areas of EU law, including living, working, studying and traveling in other EU countries, buying goods and services across the EU, equal opportunities, data protection, and settling cross-border financial services disputes. The portal also provides printable fact sheets on a multitude of subjects in English, French, German and the language of the relevant member state. http://www.electricnews.net

http://www.computerweekly.com

Miscellaneous Railway ticket booking through mobile phones The Indian Railways have launched a new service where the rail tickets can be booked through mobile. The railway has tied up with Reliance and Hutch for launching ticket booking through mobile phones. The service would be available initially only in Delhi, India’s capital, and would expand gradually. Customers would be able to order ticket on mobile and pay through their credit cards. http://pib.nic.in

EU launched Citizens’ rights portal The European Commission has launched a portal site offering European Union (EU) citizens advice on their rights. The portal named ‘Dialogue with Citizens’ provides information on how EU citizens can

UK health department makes its website speech enabled In an attempt to improve accessibility, the Department of Health in UK has speech enabled its website with ‘Browse-aloud’. When plugged in it reads web pages aloud, highlighting text as it goes. This makes the website more accessible for those who are dyslexic, with learning disabilities, those for whom English is not their first language, and those with mild visual impairment. http://www.publictechnology.net

Text-to-speech enabled phone In the U.S, Cingular Wireless LLC has started offering a handset specially designed for blind and vision-impaired people. It contains software that can convert everything on the phone screen including text messages to synthesised speech. As the users push buttons to scroll through the handset menu, they will be

able to hear aloud every category-such as ‘call log’ and ‘profiles’. It also provides the added distuingishing feature of hearing the of phone numbers of incoming and missed calls. http://www.financialexpress.com

Online digital literacy course for agricultural professionals A digital online literacy course has been designed for agricultural professionals in the Asia Pacific region. Making use of some basic skills, software and a computer connected to the Internet, agricultural professionals will be able to communicate with other individuals connected to the Internet. Agricultural professionals will have access to the tremendous and evergrowing body of professionals and general information available on and through interlinked computers throughout the world. They will also be able to take advantage of formal and informal training offered on-line from virtually anywhere. Besides this the course materials are available on the web, and the course is self-paced. http://community.eldis.org

Microsoft supports ICT education in schools In an attempt to support information and communication Technology educational projects, Microsoft Australia has launched the first in a series of national roll outs of the partners in learning programme. The programme was launched in Perth in partnership with the Western Australian Department of Education. It will see more than 13,000 teachers in Western Australia participate in a professional development initiative, over the next five years, aimed at increasing their knowledge of, and their ability to teach, ICT. Microsoft has also linked up with 140 colleges and universities in Philippines in the same educational programme. Under the same initiative, the Ministry of Education and Microsoft South Gulf has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to bring improved ICT education to schools in the Sultanate of Oman. This five-year agreement will encourage school teachers, staff and students to use ICT to improve the learning process, and will support teachers in raising their level of ICT awareness. http://www.computerworld.com.au i4d | October 2004

Interview

Red Hat: Fuelling the OSS movement

Javed Tapia, Director, Red Hat India Pvt. Ltd

How has your company’s journey been from the starting point? How do you envisage your present and future endeavors to bring OSS for the benefit of larger community? We started talking to Red Hat, USA in 1999 when Linux was not a commercial operating system. It was very much for techies and enthusiasts rather than the enterprise. We felt that this technology is appropriate for India. The period from April 2001-March 2002 was our first year of operations. At that point of time, Linux was very much in its infancy. People had started looking at it but had not yet decided to adopt it. So what we did was build a programme to get Linux adoption. We called it our ‘Three AAA’ programme which would focus on awareness, appreciation and adoption. There was a huge degree of awareness about Linux because Indians are very proactive on technology and have Unix skills. We needed to get people to appreciate Linux from an enterprise standpoint. Only if we get appreciation, will there be adoption. So we really worked on appreciation, in terms of large projects and proof-of-conOctober 2004 | www.i4donline.net

Although the most talked about topic in IT sector, FOSS is yet to make its way beyond intellectual debates and reach out to the masses. Red Hat is an organisation generating the momentum of OSS movement, helping FOSS by taking its major applications operating system Linux, ahead. Javed Tapia talks to i4d on Red Hat’s efforts to spread awareness about FOSS and its adoption. cept, building lighthouse cases, skills in migration, etc. We did a number of things that required a lot of investment from a people’s perspective as well as customers’ perspective. We held road shows, seminars, etc, across the country and all this was focused on enterprises. We were very clearly focused on the fact that we needed enterprise customers to get on the bandwagon if we wanted Linux to grow. We see adoption taking off in a big way today. Rarely do we come across enterprises today that do not have some sort of Linux strategy in place. The more proactive and aggressive ones have an entire strategy on Linux. The less aggressive ones are starting out small but looking to grow their Linux strategy. So we find that Linux is rapidly getting acceptance at the enterprise level. In the initial phase, we focused on acquiring critical mass and now we are expanding our reach to address requirements across the country. Red Hat is now working on creating an open source ecosystem by partnering with ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) to get more applications built or ported to Linux, we are working with the

community in localising Linux and other open source software to the major Indian languages and working on popularising the use of open source software in education, government and industry. Though Linux is low cost, there has been a common opinion among Linux users that it is difficult to install, it takes time to learn and there are more commands to be written to get a small job done. Keeping all these in mind, why do you feel an organisation/ person should switch from Microsoft to Red Hat? The Graphical User Interfaces for Linux and leading open source applications are as good as that of proprietary software. Users who are coming from the proprietary software world will get familiar with Linux within a day or two. On the system administration side, system admins familiar with Unix can easily pick up Linux skills. Linux is one of the most popular server platforms for web servers, mail servers etc so the availability of these skill sets is growing daily.

Organisations across the world are switching to Linux because of reliability, affordability, security, manageability and the fact that Linux is less prone to viruses. Linux is also known to have the lack of support for maintenance. Has there been any development in improving this issue? Enterprise deployment of Linux is supported by leading companies like IBM and Oracle. Red Hat and other open source vendors also sell support, training and other services that corporates need and this has been a major factor that encouraged leading companies like Amazon, Merill Lynch, Central Bank of India, Bharti and others to adopt Linux. What is your view on the way the use of OSS has been spreading in the last few years? Can you share with us the trend? Most of the major educational institutions in India are big supporters of open source. The fact that anyone can modify the source code has lead to a huge amount of development in areas like clustering, grid computing, security, localisation etc. It is no coincidence that the growth of the Internet has paralleled the popularity of open source software. We see the network effect working in the open source world too! There are an estimated one million developers working on open source projects today, and as the pool of open source software keeps growing, it becomes increasingly attractive as an alternative to proprietary software. How much, do you feel, Red Hat has played a role in the OSS movement? Many of the leading open source developers work with Red Hat. The Fedora project which, is supported by Red Hat is one of the leading open source distributions. Red Hat India is contributing to the localisation of open source software in Hindi, Punjabi, Bangla, Tamil and Gujrati. We have been pioneers in persuading enterprises to adopt Linux and our success has helped establish the viability of the open source business model. What is the kind of market for Linux/OSS in India/Asia? We believe that the market potential is huge and untapped. For example, there are 120,000 schools in India and eventually all of them will need to have an IT component. There is a wealth of OSS available for education and schools and colleges can lower their cost of deploying IT by using OSS. In e-Government, there is a huge requirement for the Indian government to reach out to a billion plus citizens and OSS can play a major role in this by making IT deployment more affordable. The usage of IT in India is very low compared to the US and other countries and this is where our localisation initiatives will help. Localisation to Indian languages is an absoloutely essential step in taking IT to the masses because barely 10 per cent of India speaks English. Indian language Linux desktops will help us address the other 90 per cent of India and expand the market for IT.

How can the developing countries use OSS to their advantage to trigger the developmental process? Can you share the programmes of Red Hat currently underway in developing nations? Localisation is a key area where open source can play a major role. In open source, everyone has the freedom to modify the source code and tailor it to his/her requirements. At a recent localisation workshop that was sponsored by Red Hat India, localisation teams from all the major Indian languages were represented. The advantage with open source is that the initiative lies with individuals, organisations or governments and not with proprietary software vendors who work according to their commercial agendas. Many countries have taken the initiative to localise Linux to their national languages and from an ICT4D perspective, this is a critical step towards bridging the digital divide that is made possible by OSS. In what ways does OSS play a role in sectors like education, e-Governance and health? What initiatives Red Hat is taking to capture these sectors? The philosophy of OSS is in tune with the philosophy of education which is based on peer review and sharing of knowledge. Red Hat has launched the Red Hat Scholarships aimed at encouraging OSS development among engineering and MCA students across India. Is Red Hat safe to be used by the governments? What measures are you adopting to ensure the security? Many defence departments in India and abroad are users of Linux. The National Security Administration in the US has released the Security Enhanced Linux. Linux was chosen as the platform for this work because its growing success and open development environment provided an opportunity to demonstrate that the security enhancement functionality can be successful in a mainstream operating system. Red Hat is incorporating features of the same in Red Hat Enterprise Linux. What are the cost-benefits of developing an independent software using Linux as an operating system? Linux is predicted to be one of the most popular server operating systems over the next few years. Application developers therefore get a platform that reaches the largest number of users when they develop applications on Linux. The demand is also being driven by users. Since Linux can run on commodity hardware, many users are demanding that applications that run on expensive hardware platforms and proprietary operating systems be rewritten to run on Linux. This enables them to lower the cost that customers pay for their solutions and helps ISVs expand their market reach. Can you share with us more about the localised versions you offer? What other steps are you taking to make Linux more acceptable? The next release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux will have support for Hindi, Bengali, Gujrati, Punjabi and Tamil. Red Hat has also acquired and released, under the GNU General Public License, high quality fonts in these languages. High quality fonts were a crying need felt by the Open Source community for the last several years and the fonts released by Red Hat finally fulfill this need. i4d | October 2004

A V ISION

In the years to come... This article envisions how open source software would cater to the needs of rural India in 2020. A much needed change in policy at the government level is required to take open source to the grassroots.

Maneesh Prasad JT Maps, India mp@jtmaps.com

October 2004 | www.i4donline.net

2020: Dadka village, in the district of Faridabad, North India In the midst of a discussion, the village sarpanch1 fishes out his PDA2 and unfolds its two wings to get a small computer with keypad. He presses his thumb over the screen and the biosensor brings up his customised and friendly screen with relevant application programme icons, which he has done for himself, over last few months. He has an e-mail, a circular, which has been issued by the Ministry of Agriculture, informing the Gram Pramukh and the sarpanch about the budget for the villages in the panchayat3 for the current year. The fund transfer to each panchayat in the country now takes less than a day, thanks to the high security networking between all the banks in the country. Build on open source platform, it is an integral part of the NASF4 . Last night his son used the same device. He had a long session of Quake5 with his friends in the neighbouring villages, along with kids at the village kiosk. They have been preparing for a Global Quake Championship semifinal, where they would be competing with kids from either Finland or Israel. Sarpanch is not much aware of this, thanks to the new version of the operating system released by Open Source India, which took care of his and many like him, long standing demand of personal space and application storage at the DnicS (District NIC6 Server). Today, he is a happy man; he is not hooked to a device, but to the ‘National Framework’. He has his ‘Personal User Interface’ along with application software, available to use anywhere across the country. All he has to do is to get an access to computing device, login to the system and go through the bio-verification and he is on the job. At the DnicS, he has for himself a terabyte of storage space and it takes him less than a minute to download files of 200MB from the DnicS to his hand held device.

Back in the village, the sarpanch who was moderating the discussion on which crop to sow in the coming Kharif season, once again had to rely on his trusted ally, the wise and knowledgeable DnicS. The database in the DnicS provides information on the crop obtained in the past two decades in his village, and the yield per hectare for each year, along with the market price which was realised. Soon he pulls down information on the crop grown by other villages in the district over the decade. Although more than 60 per cent of the agricultural land is now under corporate farming, there are people who love the independence to grow what they like. The Sarpanch gives a cursory look on the data available on the government subsidy for specific crop cultivation. Soon he hooks on to the NIA7 , which has high-resolution data for the entire country accessible for the project planning and implementation. The NIA server authenticates the user by the way of thumbprint and the national authorised user database; soon it crops the satellite image for the locality and sends the image as compressed file to the sarpanch. The NIA also shoots a mail to the local Block Development Officer (BDO) about the use of the NIA archive by the Sarpanch. The BDO sends a ‘Hi’ to the sarpanch confirming the download of data from NIA. On learning about the discussion, the BDO decides to join the discussion from remote location. The sarpanch informs his fellow villagers about the BDO joining the discussion. There is small rumble and people straighten up a bit. They call a local boy to get the ‘EM’8, an e-Conference device. Soon a webcam on tripod is placed in front of the gathering and the EM looking more like an A0 plastic sheet, is unrolled and hung on the nearby wall. Within couple of minutes the BDO appears on the plastic sheet sipping his tea and smiling at the villagers. While at the other end the BDO is watching the villagers in discussion. They are now ready for one of the many

discussions, which is now a modus operandi. Referring to the information provided by the DnicS, the discussion moved from perception to fact analysis. This has been a result of culmination of a programme initiated by the Government of India (GoI) in 2010, to explore the new line of integrated operating system along with utility application in the event of ‘Global Software Crisis’.

2010. Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India All the administrative units of the country down to the panchayat have been computerised in the country bringing roughly six lakh villages in the country into a wired framework. All birth, death, migration and education statistics are fed into the computer at panchayat, which is further linked to the district server which in turn is hooked to the national data framework. The census department is more focused on data analysis and the forecasting. They have an advanced super computer managing the data hub of the country with mirrors in unknown locations in the country. Data retrieval and access is subject to authorisation, but in general open to all the citizens of India. Every individual in the country has his data tagged into the system including his fingerprints and voice. The massive effort taken by the government to computerise administration has been giving results. The service sector is now hooked to the national data framework and all services are available at the click of a button. But while all seems to be going well, there was still an element of uncertainty. Last year, the owners of proprietary software formed an association and came into an agreement with the microprocessor manufacturers to further enhance the software security. In turn, they pledged a part of the revenue to the hardware manufacturers. Now every registration of the software is linked to the payment, and this is further ensured by the processor, memory, storage and motherboard, who’s unique device number is used for registering the software. Over 60 per cent overlap in hardware combination is required for the re-registration of the same software elsewhere, hence forth, making it difficult for the pirated software users. GoI intervened by subsidising the imports of the software. This was necessary to sustain the services exports. But this has left the GoI with a big hole in its Forex reserve. The Ministry of Communication and Information and Technology in association with Ministry of Human Resource Development and Ministry of Home Affairs formed a ‘task force’ to explore the open source domain. The task force called ‘Open Source India’ was established under the leadership of three-member committee. The NASF set forth with establishing a high-speed network between the IITs, NITs, REC 9 and other premier institutions of the country. This has been a relatively easy job for the institutions wherein they had to prioritise the network usage between different users. The network structure was already in place.

The dilemma for the Task Force was: “Why do people pay when there is free stuff?” The first virtual workshop was organised. The leading professors and scientists from all the premier institutions focused on: • Failure of the open source to penetrate the grass roots • Identify the vehicle to take the utility services to the masses

Attempts were being made to popularise the open source amongst the users at the grass root level. There were many successful implementations too. But the primary variable on which these successes hinged was the individual who was implementing the project. The open source movement although much talked and deliberated, but due to lack of mandate on behalf of the government still lacked the penetration which could see the open source software becoming the default platform for usage. The workshop kept its focus on ‘What is holding back open source software?’ Typical usage and proliferation of open source software have been concentrated in the areas where the level of user was quite advanced, the integration with the existing requirement was not a problem and the maturity of the software was comparatively high. Open source software usage is still restricted to the hobby users in the technical institutions or advanced user in the commercial segment. The open source software user segment was fragmented and the failure to form the critical mass which could generate the self sustaining momentum was not there. Most of the funding provided by the international agencies went for the workshops/ training and were limited to urban centres. While the government in principle agreed with the open source software, educational setups were teaching proprietary software as a part of curriculum, which later motivated the students to continue in the same direction; lack of coordination between various institutions, boards, councils and commissions failed to deliver the desired result. Government itself was buying proprietary software worth Rs. 20 billion (USD 500m) annually. Although desktop ruled the 1990s and 2000s, the ‘Task Force’ said that the future certainly belonged to the PDA with the convergence of mobile phone, computation device, entertainment, personal organiser and scratch pad. The Task Force concluded with a common decision of coordinated approach amongst various government agencies and a policy level change which would make the use of NASF product mandatory for the government and educational setups. The task force also stressing on the role of private institutions in the development of strong commitment by the government, could see the reversal of the situation in five years time. Footnotes: 1. Elected public representative of group of villages, looking after implementation and monitoring of village development programmes 2. A high utility device, invented in 1993 by Apple Computer, had eluded many in terms of ease of use since its invention. 3. An administrative block formed out of a set of villages. 4. National Application Software Framework 5. A computer based game played by either alone or in group. Requires networking amongst the devices if played amongst a group of people. 6. A Government of India initiative to centralise the activities related to computerisation and application software solution for various industry verticals. 7. National Imagery Archive, maintained by the National Remote Sensing Agency, has archive of processed remotely sensed images. 8. An electronic device, with synthetic paper appearance. 9. Indian Institute of Technology, National Institute of Technology and Regional Engineering College. i4d | October 2004

I NTERNATIONAL O PEN S OURCE N ETWORK (IOSN)

Building a global resource IOSN is a centre of excellence for FOSS in the Asia-Pacific region. It is tasked specifically to accelerate the adoption of FOSS by facilitating and networking relevant technologists, advocates, institutions and end-users.

Sunil Abraham sunil@apdip.net

Khairil Yusof khairil@apdip.net IOSN, Malaysia

October 2004 | www.i4donline.net

The International Open Source Network (IOSN), www.iosn.net, is a centre of excellence for Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) in the Asia-Pacific region. IOSN is a project of the UNDPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Asia-Pacific Information Development Programme (APDIP), www.apdip.net, which has been supporting the strategic and effective use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) for poverty alleviation and sustainable human development in the Asia-Pacific region since 1997. Via a small secretariat, the IOSN is tasked specifically to accelerate the adoption of FOSS by facilitating and networking relevant technologists, advocates, institutions and end-users. IOSN considers FOSS to be in line with UNDPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) because it increases access to, ownership of, and control of information and communication technologies. FOSS in our opinion provides a copyright cum licensing framework and global collaborative methodology, which can be applied in all areas of development theory and practice. The principles and practices underlying FOSS can be used to stretch the development dollar and dramatically scale up the impact of various interventions. FOSS development methodology could foster new forms of knowledge production in a collaborative, non-hierarchical, peer-to-peer manner. IOSN also believes FOSS provides a model to protect and strengthen the public domain and creative commons. A vibrant public domain and creative commons is considered critical for innovation, enterprise and vitality in private and development sector. Free Software Foundation and Open Source Initiative are two of the larger organisations that represent the FOSS community and cause. However, most FOSS campaigns are presented from software and technical perspective. Not surprisingly,

members of the general public do not sympathise with this cause. Yet the aims of FOSS movement are in line with other advocates that seek to empower the commons. Therefore, we would like the Free Software advocates to join similar causes such as Free Medicine [ex. generic HIV/AIDS drugs], Free Seeds [ex. seed banks], Free Books [ex. Open Access Movement] and Freedom of Information Movement. We believe this alliance will allow us to effectively capture the imagination of the public.

Free / Open Source information resource facility Regional collaboration The IOSN website is the platform through which the global FOSS community works with the IOSN secretariat. It is a community driven site, and the community helps maintain news and events from around the region. One of the aims of IOSN is to foster regional cooperation and the website provides a collective resource of all the FOSS efforts in the region. For example, a resource for education in Sri Lanka on the website, will show related links to other educational efforts in the Asia-Pacific region. Any FOSS project, no matter how small can now tap on regional FOSS resources for support. The community also uses a mailing list for support. The website currently hosts a thriving international community of more than a thousand members, which collaborates on projects such as localisation of software and translation of FOSS documentation.

FOSS primers series These are concise, comprehensive and nontechnical introductions to different aspects of FOSS addressed at people working in the development and government sector. A general introduction to FOSS by Kenneth

Wong and Phet Sayo has already been published. Other primers on FOSS currently under production include licensing, government policy, network and security and localisation. The authors come from countries in the Asia-Pacific region like Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, Nepal and Laos. These primers are being authored using a FOSS-like methodology, drafts are uploaded on the website for feedback from the general public. Domain experts are invited to submit peer reviews. Many regional and international FOSS experts have provided feedback as part of the open process.

Software repository A collection of FOSS software and GNU/Linux distributions specific to the Asia Pacific are being compiled and maintained at the IOSN secretariat. Copies of this software will be posted to nonprofit organisations based in countries with poor bandwidth. The list currently includes localised GNU/Linux distributions, free software that runs on Microsoft Windows, special distributions for education, software for open access publishing and content management systems.

Training and workshops FOSSAP 2004: This is the acronym for Free/Open Source Software Asia Pacific consultation which was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from 9th - 11th February 2004. More than 50 senior policy makers and open source practitioners from 20 countries attended this event. It focused on government policies, implementation issues in education and government sector, licensing and legal issues, software localisation, network and security infrastructure. Training of trainers and proctor: The lack of trained and certified personnel is a major stumbling block for adoption of FOSS in this region. Therefore, IOSN will conduct training for trainers and proctors in collaboration with Linux Professional Institute (LPI). The trainers will be enabled to deliver training based on course material has been developed by LinuxIT, United Kingdom. This course material has been released under GNU Free Documentation License and therefore is freely available to all. IOSN is working on improving this material and localising it for the Asia Pacific context.

Research and development End-user training manual and multimedia module: The manual introduces the GNU/Linux desktop to users without prior experience of computers or free software.Volunteers have offored to translate the manual to German, Dutch, Philipino, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. GetIT Multimedia, Singapore, will be converting the manual to a multimedia module with video clips, voice over and interactive exercises. Localisation â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;How Toâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and toolkit: Dr. Sasi Kumar from Centre for Advanced Computing (CDAC), India supported by specialists from Pakistan, Cambodia, Laos, Greece and Thailand will provide step by step instructions to developers interested in localising GNU/ Linux, KDE, GNOME, Mozilla, Open Office and other applications, covering issues such as Unicode and Open Type Fonts. The toolkit will be a compilation of software, conversion utilities, reference documents and other resources, to help the developers. GNU/Linux Live CD: The partner for this project is Colin Charles, Australia of the Fedora project. Live CDs allow users of proprietary software to experiment with GNU/Linux safely. All they have to do is reboot the machine with the live CD inserted in the drive. GNU/Linux will load without writing a single file onto the hard-disk. The IOSN live CD will be unique because it will contain soft copies of all the primers, the end-user training manual and multimedia module. Micro-grant programme: This is a collaboration with University of South Pacific. Twenty grants of six months duration each of USD 900 will be awarded to individuals and organisations from the the Pacific Island countries in the first round. Projects will be selected based on originality and innovation; utility value to an identifiable user group and usefulness in the local developmental context. The resultant software will be made available under some FOSS license. Next year, IOSN hopes to launch a collaborative grants programme that will fund cooperations between voluntary organisations and Linux user groups. Case studies on FOSS: Case studies in the areas of FOSS research, development and implementation will be prepared by IOSN secretariat or by community members. i4d | October 2004

O PEN C ONTENT

AND

O PEN S TANDARDS

FLOSS

Promoting partnerships The concepts are called open content and open standards. These are critical concepts that have to be understood for building a baseline knowledge on the FLOSS ideology.

The debate in FLOSS has often featured on the software aspects and the philosophy of “free” and open source software. “Free” means different things to different groups. In the context of making available the source code of software freely on the Internet and to allow free modifications in the source codes for both improving the existing package as well as to improve the features or modules on a product. The community of followers of such a philosophy have transformed the intellectual property debates and provided a key example of how communities, geographically distant, and not even knowing each other, have built a body of knowledge and solutions far more rapidly and creatively than the corporate model for software development. There are yet two other aspects of this movement that this article features. The concepts are called open content and open standards. These are critical concepts that have to be understood for building a baseline knowledge on the FOSS ideology.

The “Open Development” approach

Jayalakshmi Chittoor i4d, India jchittoor@csdms.org

October 2004 | www.i4donline.net

Bellanet International Secretariat (www. bellanet.org ) has been building the concept of Open Development. The Open Development approach is about supporting and creating an environment of sustainable information and knowledge sharing. Having a cultural environment that is supportive of open approaches leads to improved access to quality information and knowledge, and to more effective and coordinated development efforts. The approaches and tools of Bellanet’s Open Development programme, includes Open Standards, Open Source, and Open Content. It serves as an integrated package that not only provides opportunities for operating in an open manner, but also promotes the ideals of common ownership and collaborative development work for the collective benefit of all participants in the development community. This programme

in a distinct way fulfills the mission objectives of the organisation of promoting effective collaboration in the international development community, especially through the use of ICTs.

Open content Creative Commons is a unique licensing system and movement that promotes the generation and sharing of creative work in a flexible copyright policy. The movement has gained a lot of support in the music, art, talent and creative writing industry of people who believe that the knowledge in these areas is a gradual and traditional process that must be openly shared. Interesting analysis of the creative commons licensing system has evoked renowned publisher and anthropologist Dr. Marshall Sahlings of the University of Chicago to promote a concept of Internet Pamphleteering. This enables people to move away from “all rights reserved” concept of traditional copyright to “some rights reserved” under flexible copyright concept of Creative Commons. The Open Content Network available at www.open-content.net, is a forum that promotes the strength of the Open Content Network will lie in a diversity of implementations that each meet different user needs. Thus, unlike many other projects, the focus is not on creating a single kitchensink implementation that tries to meet everyone’s needs. Instead, a primary focus will be on creating detailed specifications of the simple, yet powerful, protocols upon which the OCN is built. Content-Addressable web specifications • HTTP Extensions for a Content-Addressable Web (CAW) - This document describes a set of simple, yet powerful, extensions to HTTP that enable clients to perform secure, distributed downloads. • Tree Hash EXchange format (THEX) This document defines a serialization and interchange format for Merkle Hash

Trees. These hash trees allow very efficient, fine-grained integrity checking of content in a distributed network. • Content Mirror Advertisement Specification - This document defines a flexible lease-based protocol for announcing mirrors in a distributed content network. • Partial File Sharing Protocol - This document defines HTTP extensions for discovering which bytes in a file are available to be downloaded. This protocol enables “swarm downloads” to be implemented over HTTP. • WebMUX - This document defines a multiplexing protocol that allows multiple “virtual sockets” to be established over a single TCP connection. WebMUX augments the Content-Addressable Web by allowing connections to be established to hosts behind firewalls and NAT. The International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (www.inasp.org.uk) based in UK aims to enabling worldwide access to information and knowledge. INASP is a cooperative network of partners. Its objectives are three fold: (i) to map, support and strengthen existing activities promoting access to and dissemination of scientific and scholarly information and knowledge; (ii) to identify, encourage and support new initiatives that will increase local publication and general access to quality scientific and scholarly literature; and, (iii) to promote in-country capacity building in information production, organisation, access and dissemination. The Open Knowledge Network (OKN) is a human network, which collects, shares and disseminates local knowledge and is supported by flexible technical solutions. Resources in their website (http://www.openknowledge.net) describes it as a global network project of the One World International Network in UK. Poor people must be able to express and communicate locally relevant knowledge in local languages if they are to shape the decisions that affect their livelihoods. Local content development is closely tied to human development, and the ultimate aim of OKN is the empowerment of local communities.

Open standards An Open Standard is more than just a specification. The principles behind the standard, and the practice of offering and operating the standard, are what make the standard Open. The Open Standards Repository (www.openstandards.org) is a location that contains standards relevant to the Open Source community. Standards will include licenses, standards, protocols, RFCs, etc.

The principles of running the Open Standards repository is to make them available for all to read and implement; to maximize end user choice. This creates a fair, competitive market for implementations of the standard, without locking the customer in to a particular vendor or group. Open Standards are free for all to implement, with no royalty or fee. Certification of compliance by the standards organisation may involve a fee. Open Standards and the organisations that administer them do not favor one implementer over another for any reason other than the technical standards compliance of a vendor’s implementation. Certification organisations must provide a path for low and zero-cost implementations to be validated, but may also provide enhanced certification services. Extensions, subsets and predatory practices are also issues that are predefined principles of Open Standards, which may employ license terms that protect against subversion of the standard by embrace-and-extend tactics. The licenses attached to the standard may require the publication of reference information for extensions, and a license for all others to create, distribute, and sell software that is compatible with the extensions. An Open Standard may not otherwise prohibit extensions. A standards organisation that wishes to support itself through certification branding should establish a premium track and a lowcost or zero-cost track. This would provide self-certification by the vendor and baseline branding. The standards organisation may wish to apply an agreement similar to the Sun Industry Standards Source License to the standard documentation and its accompanying reference implementation. The Sun agreement requires publication of a reference implementation (not the actual commercial implementation) for any extensions to the standard, making it possible for a standards organisation to preserve interoperability without stifling innovation. Another interesting site for learning more about the Open Standards resources for Web, Internet and System Interoperability is (http:/ /open-standards.gbdirect.co.uk). It describes some of the key open standards and the organisations that make them. These include web standards (HTML, XHTML, CSS, XML, XLST)– (www.w3c.org), Core Internet standards (TCP/IP, (E)SMTP, DNS, etc.) – (www.ietf.org), underlying electronic communications standards (Ethernet, Firewire, WiFi, etc.) (www.iee.org), general International standards (www.iso.org) and fast tracked specifications drafted in international standards format (JavaScript/ ECMA Script, C#, CLI, etc.) – European Association for Standardising information and communication systems (www.ecma-international.org)

GIS INSTITUTE AD

i4d | October 2004

R EVOLUTIONISING T HE P ROCESS

FOSS and localisation The Free/GNU platform was making strides on software front in many ways but a little slowly on Indian languages. But this slowness was steadily towards universal standards and hence almost deliberate.

Creating documents in local languages with ease is now well established. Use of free software for this is still only rare in e-Governance . However, localisation in e-Governance requires much more than that. It requires fluency in use of local languages in mass usage . For this to happen, the localisation components will have to snugly fit into the government system, in particular into the currently used database and public interface systems. Here, localised free/opensource has tremendous advantage which has the necessary freedom to adapt without costing a bomb. The national asset of software talent is of little worth if it cannot or does not take on this challange.

Background: Over ripe What has happened over the last few years was laying the ground for breaking the language barrier in the digital world. National and international state initiatives, voluntary movements, academic research, individual zeal and commercial interests have all propelled it.

Skew debate Often debates were reduced to national pride versus multi-national conspiracy theories if not cacophony. The element of truth on both sides was getting clouded due to immaturity of technology. At this juncture the Free/GNU platform started making strides on software front in many ways but a little slowly on Indian languages. But this slowness was steadily towards universal standards and hence almost deliberate. GNU/Linux community then adopted unicode standard after a deep thought and could do so, easily.

The technological springboard Jitendra Shah CDAC Mumbai jitendras@vsnl.com

October 2004 | www.i4donline.net

Over last few years, efforts like those of corporations (most notably IBM) have worked towards making many localisations technically and commercially feasible. These include establishing locale specifications i.e

culturally specific invariants for a given language/nation/script, harping on unicode standard, supporting GNU/Linux vendors and supporting GNU/Linux as platform for many of its applications, ICU, ECLIPSE etc. For many young minds seeking career in software, ‘Linux’ started appearing as an alternative after all. Sun Microsystems (along with support from IBM again) towards OpenOffice.org made office users see an alternative. Similarly support by many other international corporations have made ‘Linux’ a respectable name in corporate and government parlance. This the undersigned sees as the springboard for a quantum jump. As a passing observation, one is compelled to remind that in all this emphasis on ‘Linux’ and ‘Open Source’, one misses the ‘free’ (as in freedom) element of the GNU/Linux movement. But that remains the challenge for ethically inspired proponents of free software like the undersigned.

Free software in localisation Localisation in general, and that in Indian language in particular, poses the issue of free software frontally. If the mass of Indian population has to access benefits of IT revolution, the proprietor tags and associated price tags will prove to be the insurmountable obstacles. Freedom will be necessary condition to reach out to people. The economic model that will make this viable and financial muscle, that government may provide would provide the sufficient condition. The government policy will play a major role in this. Till recently, the undersigned was convening the localisation effort through a non-profit, un-organised group of traineevolunteers called Indictrans team. What Indictrans team has done over the last one year is the emphasis on deploying the free software in e-Governance and to a slight extent in education and rural context. Principally our aim was to identify stumbling blocks in adoption of the free localised open source software in e-Governance.

More importantly we looked at the difficulties in governmentcitizen interface. Team looked at the problems in adopting unicode standard in applications developed for government functioning and much more. This may be seen in contrast to many others who started much earlier than us and have been doing the yeoman’s service to indic localisation. They are completing the important tasks of localising GUI’s like GNOME/KDE or some applications. See www.indlinux.org site for more details of language teams. While users who would want a complete GUI in local language are growing, they will significantly impact the use of software only after a few years. There are teams working on some even more ambitious projects like making machine translations from one Indian language to another etc. The machine translation, we expect will mature only after a few years, i.e. after massive corpa are analysed and lexicons built. These tasks require much greater resources, skills and much deeper commitment. Many enthusiasts have been working on these projects with frugal resources. Indictrans team always acknowledged that we stood on the shoulders of these teams. Following is a brief description of two major tasks accomplished by Indictrans team in the area of localisation. First was standardisation i.e. conversion of live data and file-journey-management database from non-unicode to unicode standard. The second was Voterlist search engine for Chief Electoral Officer of Maharashtra.

Standardisation: Conversion to unicode When we started in August 2003, we decided to choose government offices as the starting point for implementation of our technology as we saw a lot of potential in interacting with the community through this channel. The biggest obstacle that we could see was the huge silos of data already created in older technology. This was preventing some bureaucrats who were positively inclined towards use of Free/Open Source solutions in their offices like directorate of IT Maharashtra, in adopting the solutions. We therefore decided to first provide solution for converting this legacy data into new open standard i.e. Unicode. The Department of IT Maharashtra already had a system in place called DJMS (Document Journey Management System). It was a browser-based system supported by documents and a database of metadata for these documents. This application was used for transparently tracking each and every document as it passes from one table to another. Their major problem was making this available in local language i.e. Marathi in an affordable manner. They also wanted a standard solution to manage Marathi content at administrative level (i.e. Database level). They were using ISM/ISFOC as solution for Marathi. Unicode sounded perfect solution for them as it offered minimal reengineering at administration level and affordable alternative at user level. We undertook the job converting the documents from ISFOC to Unicode using a converter developed by us. The files were of various formats like doc,xls,rtf ,html. There were about 6000+ files. We also converted the database, which was based on DB2 so that the documents could be searched in Marathi using the existing application. DIT now uses open source applications like Openoffice.org and Mozilla across different platforms. All this was completed in less than six months.

Voterlist search implementation In May 2004, while, we had several technologies and tools, we were looking for some challenge where these tools could be demonstrated in mass-deployment. Just then we saw a huge hue and cry in the press and electronic media about missing names in voterlist during the Lok Sabha elections concluded in April. We announced our intention to use unicode standard to overcome the problem (see Indian Express Marathi publication dated 9 May 2004). Maharashtra state assembly elections were due in a few months (October 2004). We, proactively, and without much knowledge of the state of art in electoral roll computerisation, approached the State election authorities. Naturally, the election authorities were skeptical, but open and positively inclined to explore. We had the technology to break the language barriers in the long chain of the process of voterlist making and could make the access to the list truly universal. In voterlist search engine implementation, in effect, we broke the language barriers in a mass deployment application. The original data was in ASCII standard. We made the data available in unicode standard, searchable using modern tools and rdbms (pgsql, tsearch2). We made display available in unicode as also in non-unicode. Thus, we allowed access to latest as well as oldest OS. We provided interaction across the net. All this while fully working with free/open source. We must admit that we used ‘dynamic font’ technology as a last resort to support computers where the user may not even wish to install the free ASCII based devanagari fonts on MSWindows legacy systems. We demonstrated that whether on desktop or on the web, whether on new (unicode compliant) or old, whether a rich or a poor PC holder, (refer to licensing costs) there is no barrier to work in Indian language. We provided a smooth transcription from English to Indic language and vice versa. We have also demonstrated the interoperability i.e unicode and non-unicode (whether ISCII standard or non-standard) content can be seen by each other and interaction is possible across the divide. While our software was put up on the web as free software under GPL, the implementation was done for the Chief Election Officer (CEO) of Maharashtra by an agency already in rate-contract with the Maharashtra Government. i4d | October 2004

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• The software has been accepted by CEO (Maharashtra) as part of Election Commission, after serious testing by C-DAC Pune. The coverage was for about a 1.25 crore (12.5 million) voters. This implementation is seen as a pilot in Mumbai and Thane. For more details see voter list page on www.indictrans.org.

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Components of localisation: Felt needs Apart from the voterlist search program, we came out with the following broad range of tools/solutions towards localisation. They are also our perception of the felt needs in the direction of deployment of localisation. These are also candidate tools for componentisation so that pluggable modules can be reused. • System level localisation: OS (Locale specification and translations of GNOME) messages in Marathi and Gujarati. This work was halted at Indictrans in the hope that C-DAC project will take it up. • Font: Created and maintained fonts for Devanagari and Gujarati (Unicode opentype, available on TDIL, performance on all platforms displayed on www.indictrans.org). • Conversion: Text conversions from legacy font-encoding to unicode to make way for open source to be used. - Undertaken a major job for Government of Maharashtra (see letter of appreciation www.indictrans.org http:// www.indictrans.org/src/letter_of_appreciation.jpg) This includes HTML and other formats - Recently converted HTML files of IGNCA to Unicode (as per suggestion at Pune Localisation Review meet organised by TDIL) - Conversion of sample of land record data of Bhoomi project for NIC Karnataka, - Similarly for Rajasthan Raj Corporation - Conversion of MarathiWorld.com site (1800 pages from Mithi font to unicode) - Conversions from Akruti font to uniocde for IIT • Inputbhaaratii: Several applications for inputting Indic on web were developed. Software implementation of inscript on Java (without the need for a plug-in like ISM), as also IIT Mumbai’s KeyLekh layout (see http://www.indictrans.org/typebhaaratii/) Thus, anyone can use web based Indian language without the October 2004 | www.i4donline.net

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server having a commercial plug in. And that is saved in Indian languages in unicode. Naamabharatii (name transliteration see http:// www.indictrans.org/naamabhaaratii/): Many offices/lists have Indian names in (usual English and need to be converted to Indian language before they can adopt Indian language systems. There was no solution on open source. The need was encountered in government of Maharashtra as also LIC etc. A programme using dictionary+hueristic has been developed and is available on Indictrans site for demo. Application localisation: Horde, a messaging framework has been translated into Marathi. Developemnt of bootable CD for localised GNU/Linux: Gnubhaaratii see tutorials on the site in Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi and English. Localised GIS: Grass, a free GIS map being used to put time series data of state election commission on Panchayat wise map of Maharashtra, a voluntary offer. This involves using pgsql database linked to mapping grass programme. Clickable maps for any geo-referenced or geographical database can be created. Localised software for rural development: As a consultant to Tata Institute of Social Science, Mumbai for their rural campus (500 Km south, called Tuljapur), a series of localised applications were developed for induction into the development and curricular (B.A. in Social Work) work of TISS. The setting up of network and localised OS Gnubhaaratii with localised applications (like Open office and Mozilla) was undertaken and completed along with training. Localised geometry: DrGeo is a programme on interactive geometry. It has been localised with tutorials in Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati. CBSE IT curriculum: We have attempted partially to enable implementation of CBSE curriculum in Indian language using open office and other free/open source software on GNU/Linux or proprietary platform. Localised editor: Yudit has been localised in Hindi , Marathi and Gujarati Team building: Motivating and cultivating a team of science and other graduates to work on localisation with the introduction of GNU/Linux and open standards like Unicode in e-Governance, the nature of e-Governance applications have changed a lot.It is now more open for participation by users and more obvious to operate as against an imposed responsibility from management. This openness also fits nicely into the requirements to fulfil the guidelines mentioned in recently introduced ‘right-to-information act’.

Conclusion IT revolution has many aspects and therefore it is essential to look at one of the major aspect of total cost of ownership for the nation as a whole and see beyond the bureacratic barriers. With that perspective free/localised software is the obvious, feasible and perhaps the only choice for mass of people to be benefited from the IT revolution. If not the digital divide will yawn further.

I NSIGHT

Ankur Bangla Project The Ankur Bangla Project is a collaborative effort at bringing Bangla to the FLOSS desktop. Its core objective is to make available a completely localised GNU/Linux operating system.

The need to localise One of the challenges facing modern societies is the prospect of ensuring equitable distribution of knowledge with its base at grassroot levels. Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) models provide an ideal base for utilising Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D). As a part of such models, localisation (L10n) of the GNU/ Linux Operating System provides an unique opportunity to create an Operating System (OS) that is not only culturally aware but also robust and scalable with globally accepted standards. One such effort is ‘The Ankur Bangla Project’, (www.bengalinux.org) is a collaborative initiative aimed at bringing Bangla to the FLOSS desktop. Comprising of volunteers, developers, translators, graphic artists, linguists and technocrats from India, Bangladesh and other parts of the world, the Ankur Bangla Project aims to make Bangla Computing possible. The core objective of the Ankur Bangla Project is to make available a completely localised GNU/ Linux OS. Simultaneously it provides a scalable and standardised technological infrastructure for Bangla computing.

The Ankur Bangla Live Desktop

Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay Member, Ankur Bangla Project sankar@redhat.com

As an initial release of the work completed so far and to provide a glimpse of the scope and possibilities of the project, the Ankur Bangla Project has released a Ankur Bangla Live Desktop. Incorporating all the work that has been done on the Gnome Desktop Environment (a popular desktop environment of the GNU/Linux OS) as well as elements that provide a functional computing environment, the Ankur Bangla Live Desktop provides a preview of the completely localised GNU/Linux OS released during February 2004 in a Live CD format. On a very minimum hardware specification (which conforms to those currently available as commercial-off-the-shelf

configuration), the entire localised Bangla GNU/Linux OS runs off the CD and provides for a wholesome computing experience. The Ankur Bangla Live Desktop resembles a standard MS-Win9x install with analogous components and elements. The ‘classical’ GNU/Linux desktop interface has been customised in look-and-feel to ensure that end-users familiar with Microsoft ‘Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointers’ (WIMP) are not hindered. For those who do possess the bandwidth, the ISO image of the OS (to be thereafter made into a CD by burning the image file) is available to be downloaded from the project home at sourceforge.net. For a project that is only around 14 months old, the incremental releases of the CD has seen downloads crossing the 1450 mark. Numerous CDs have also been distributed by the volunteers on a personal level based on request. The work of Ankur can also be seen in Fedora Core 2 and the upcoming Fedora Core 3.

Development model The Ankur Bangla Project is based on the classical FLOSS model of software development. It is completely voluntary and a (till date) non-funded effort. The L10n project ties in well with initiatives in the domain of e-Governance, low cost computing as well as other ICT4D projects. The Ankur Group is in a collaborative discussion with various stakeholders including major vendors like RedHat, IBM etc; the Government of West Bengal; academic institutions like Jadavpur University, Indian Statistical Institute among others. The Ankur Group also participates in the standards creation process by providing inputs to Gnome Core, Unicode Consortium, Indic Consortium, Indic L10n Working Group and FOSSI. Such involvement ensures that insights gained by the group are shared and made available for replication in other localisation projects. i4d | October 2004

The Ankur Bangla Project covers all aspects of localisation (L10n) of GNU/Linux. It not only aims to provide a complete ‘Bangla Computing experience’ but also creating a standard framework and computing infrastructure (at least at the technological level), which makes such computing scalable and economically deployable. A transition from a paper/normative form of government towards a complete e-Presence progress through the following phases: Stage 1: Emerging web presence Stage 2: Ehnahced web presence Stage 3: Interactive web presence Stage 4: Transactional web presence Stage 5: Seamless or fully integrated web presence The first two stages of e-Governance transition are already in place to some extent. Most departments and stakeholders (NGOs and various other fora) have enhanced web presence that allows information surfing. The Ankur Bangla Project aims to take it beyond such formal presence into Step 5 through various intermediate steps. This means that while the Ankur Group conceptualises and ratifies the technological standards, it also provides means to enable data transactions in Bangla. Including Bangla at Public Access Points (PAPs) allowing the electronic data interchange to be carried out through Bangla ensures that a greater percentage of the population has access to information. e-Governance is based on the transaction of information using ICT bringing in an element of transparent accessibility. The Ankur Bangla Project aims to enhance such experience by making data transactions, data search and retrieval feasible in Bangla. Based on a completely localised user interface, the Ankur Group provides the entire toolchain required to implement such localised computing on an enterprise scale. The L10n effort is in sync with every aspect of the e-governance toolkit that is currently in implementation and visualised for the near future.

Other projects Other projects that are concurrently taken up by the group and pursued in tandem include: Bspeller - a spellchecking programme, a dictionary that is integrated at a modular level in the Ankur Bangla Live CD, a calendar programme Lekho - a multi-platform editor and document output programme, Bangla Gutenberg - an archive of public domain works in Bengali (similar to the Project Gutenberg effort). A Localised Low Cost Computing (L2C2) framework and accessibility program involving Text-to-Speech in Bengali are also in the development phase. Currently, the L2C2 model will be put into phased implementation across a projected number of 500 madrassas in collaboration with the West Bengal University of Technology and the West Bengal Madrassa Board.

Community applications of OSS Though examining OSS on a global scenario is a complex and multifaceted task, the following cases give a fraction representation of the potential scenarios for OSS use that could enrich the OSS public policy discussion. Sao Paulo, Brazil: The Telecentre project, The Municipality of Sao Paulo had initiated a project to establish a network of telecentres to provide free computer use and Internet access to marginal neighborhoods. With the cost of setting a telecentre being $10,000, today each telecentre provides service to about 3,000 users. Given the financial constraints, the combination of OSS and diskless workstations allowed the telecentre project to acquire computers with less hardware and power requirements than required by Microsoft Windows. Goa, India: Schools Computer Project, The Goa Schools Computer Project (GSCP) was started in 1996, with the goal to help facilitate access to PCs by students and community around respective schools in rural areas. In January 2002 GSCP provided a shipment of 380 recycled PCs to Goa. Before distribution, GSCP tested and refurbished the equipment, and later provided training to teachers in the use of Linux operating system. The rationale for the use of OSS was to avoid both software piracy and greater cost of installing Microsoft software. The experience of the GSCP team has been that using recycled equipment and open source software in rural school computer labs, is a sustainable and low cost initiative. Laos: The Jhai Remote Village IT System, The Jhai Remote Village IT System helps the communities of Phon Kham and four other villages to obtain information on agricultural market pricing and pursue initiatives to improve the village’s income. The system is designed to address these needs by providing support for local calls and oversea connections via the Internet, along with document preparation and spreadsheet capabilities. The system is based upon a low-power embedded computer running localised version of KDE, called LaoNux (Localised OSS), on the Debian Linux distribution. Linux operating system was chosen for two prime reasons, first, it brings with it a human infrastructure of people who know how to maintain it, and second, because localisation was easier than under other platforms. Reference: Open Source Software, by Paul Dravis, infoDev

October 2004 | www.i4donline.net

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Bytes for All... Bytes For All Readers list (www.yahoogroups.com/groups/ bytesforall_readers) is a platform for information to critically examine the issues on how ICT fighting against poverty, illiteracy and social injustice in South Asia? It is an extension of an information portal Bytes for All (www.bytesforall.org) that was launched in 1999. From this issue, we are beginning a new series which summarises the major discussions on projects, news and events on ‘Bytes for all’ discussion list. Following is the summary of the discussions of the August month.

Breakthrough technology Raj Reddy, a pioneering researcher in artificial intelligence and a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, plans to unveil a new project. The PCtvt is a $250 wirelessly networked personal computer intended for the four billion people around the world who live on less than $2,000 a year. His low-cost computer doubles as a TV and a DVD player. Mr. Reddy believes that he will be able to use it as a vehicle to take computing and communications to populations that until now have been excluded from the digital world. The project will work in partnership with University of California researchers who are attempting to develop high-speed wireless digital networks for rural communities.

Voice and data I PBX software for GNU/Linux [www.asterisk.org] Primarily developed on GNU/Linux for x/86, Asterisk is a complete PBX in software. It runs on Linux, OpenBSD, FreeBSD and Mac OS X Jaguar, and provides all of the features one would expect from a PBX. Asterisk needs no additional hardware for Voice over IP. It supports a wide range of TDM protocols and US and European standard signaling types used in standard business phone systems. Mark can be contacted at Orkut.com where he moderates an Asterik community. [Posted by: Bala Pillai]

Software I Compiere is free [www.compiere.org/home whyfree.html] The open source ERP and CRM software is freely available from Compiere partners and its users and developers rank Compiere among the top 10 active projects in SourceForge (since March 2002). An Oracle license is currently required to run compiere, but it can be provided as part of a support contract as per wish. [Posted by Bala Pillai] II Weka 3: Data Mining Software in Java [www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~ml/weka] Weka is a collection of machine learning algorithms for data mining tasks. The algorithms can either be applied directly to a dataset or called from your own Java code. Available for free from Sun, Weka contains tools for data pre-processing, classification, regression, clustering, association rules, and visualisation.

III Open Source Protege [protege.stanford.edu] Protégé is ontology editor and knowledge acquisition system. It is also an open-source, Java tool that provides an extensible architecture for the creation of customized knowledge-based applications. Protégé’s OWL Plug-in now provides support for editing Semantic Web ontologies. IV Kannada Opentype Fonts [brahmi.sourceforge.net] The Indian Language Technology Solutions Project released two more Kannada Opentype Fonts named “Kedage” and “Mallige” due in September. Beta copies of the fonts will be available through e-mail requests.

Education Low cost PCs in SA [www.balancingact-africa.com/ news/current1.html] South African company, On Point Solutions, has invented a lowcost, four-in-one PC that could lower the cost of offering ICT in learning institutions. The PCs offer Internet, e-mail, phone, word processing and network facilities exclusively for educational purposes and concessions provided from Microsoft International allowed the machines to be sold at the low cost of 298 per system.

Agriculture e-Mandi eyes multiple buyer, seller scenario Citing India’s e-choupal scheme’s limitations as a single buyer system, Vipol Arora pointed to the ‘e-Mandi’ project as an alternative to establish an Online market of agricultural produce by neutral players. e-Mandi, a commodities exchange portal, can link the prices of agricultural produce to market considerations, liberating agriculture from the above constraints. Four futures exchanges have already been established and promoted by the Indian government in the past year. However, these exchanges manage risk for banks, traders, stock market and commodity traders. Individual farmers have been excluded by design. In a manner that BSE and NSE provide a market for people all over India to trade in Stock of companies, eMandi will allow people from all over India to trade in agricultural produce. Vipol says he is developing this idea as a visiting fellow at Stanford.

On the air Mountain Forum and Sagarmatha reach out to Nepal [www.mtnforum.org/radio/index.htm] A unique triad will make the Mountain Forum of Nepal’s virtual network available to a huge offline population. The Forum Secretariat is launching a pilot project in association with the Asia-Pacific Mountain Network and Radio Sagarmatha, which reaches people in eight districts of Nepal. Despite an astounding 16,000 strong subscription list maintained by the Forum, project i4d | October 2004

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Bytes for All... managers felt technology limits their access to the average Nepali. The idea works out simply: Radio Sagarmatha staff and Mountain Forum staff will collaborate in identifying issues for discussion and post them on the MF list, seeking subscribers’ input. This will be sent to the radio producers who will then go in field to pose questions and record reactions on the issue. The programme will be broadcast in the local language. It will later be translated and adapted for MF discussion lists and posted (in English). Responses of the MF community will be broadcast in the next programme by Radio Sagarmatha. Producers are eyeing 8-10 episodes and the first broadcast was set for 17th of September. [Posted by Prashant Sharma]

instructor who gives classes to young and old, students and teachers alike. [Posted by Shubhranshu Choudhary]

Telemedicine

II Grameen Tele Center [www.grameentelecenter.org] Grameen Cyber Society is a not for profit organisation based in Bangladesh that intends to make a significant contribution to the quality of lifelong learning, by using ICT in the rural communities. Developed through a unique multi–sectoral collaboration with the World Bank, BRAC University, CAMPE, Grameen Cyber Net Ltd, Bytes for all, BCS and BDGF, the initiative ensures that the community have access, for the first time to digital based learning materials.

Mali hospital links to satellite [www.balancingactafrica.com/news/back/balancing-act_217.html] Situated some 750 km from Mali’s capital Bamako, patients at Dimbal hospital are now benefiting from the medical opinion of experts in Geneva. The Geolink Access satellite allows doctors to ask questions of experts 6,000kms away in case of difficulties.

Websites I Open Source portal for Africa [www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=23810] Open Research, together with the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, is developing an open source information portal to assist non-profit organisations. Non-profit, governmental and educational initiatives are welcome to share their experiences to be written up and made available to a broader community.

Gender and IT Women in Action [www.isiswomen.org/pub/wia/ wia1-04/index.html] The first issue of Women in Action explores corporate media environment in a transnational era and how women are grappling with issues of identity and gender bias. It explores case studies in India, Africa and Latin America where women took center stage to utilize ICTs for activism in their communities. Send an email to: communications@isiswomen.org

Net regulation Zimbabwe government to plant bugs [www.zimonline.co.za/headdetail.asp?ID=112] The Zimbabwe government is planning to acquire high-tech equipment from China for the purpose of bugging the internet. The Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) is already looking into ways of controlling internet communication as soon as the equipment arrives.

Net access Internet on three wheels [www.charlotte.com/mld/ charlotte/business/9419689.htm?1c] For 12-year-old Anju Sharma, hope for a better life arrives in her poor farming village three days a week on a bicycle rickshaw that carries a computer with a high-speed, wireless Internet connection. Designed like temple carriages that bear Hindu deities during festivals, the brightly painted pedal-cart rolls into her village in India’s most populous state, accompanied by a computer October 2004 | www.i4donline.net

III Karmayog [www.karmayog.com] A new free site for enabling individuals and corporates to give their time, talent, money and resources by volunteering, mentoring, giving materials, providing services (free or at reduced costs) to Mumbai-based NGOs, nonprofits, charities, etc. IV Parliament of India [www.parliamentofindia.nic.in] Replies to India’s parliamentary questions are now available in plain text format, also questions of issues of interest now can be searched and downloaded easily. V National Commission for Human Development [www.nchd.org.pk] NCHD newly launched its re-built website featuring its organizational components, core programmes including education, health, incubation, micro-enterprise development, global resource management and volunteerism. Bytes for All: www.bytesforall.org Bytes For All Readers Discussion: http://groups.yahoo.com/ group/bytesforall_readers Send a mail to: bytesforall_readers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com for subscribtion. If you have any question or concern, send a mail at: editors@bytesforall.org Compiled and summarised by Zunaira Durrani, Bytes for All-Pakistan and Editor, SPIDER Magazine

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ICT

AND

E DUCATION

FOSS resources in education In Free Software Foundation/UNESCO Free Software Directory available on http:// directory.fsf.org/, 3588 packages are indexed among which Fle3, Ggradebook, granule, Pauker and Recruit are in general used for education. Apart from these, software available for education are categorised as per the mode or standard of education. Software available for different standards and modes of education are as follows:

Adult education • AKFQuiz quiz generator - lets one make own quiz-games or questionnaires; • bingo-cards - lets one create number, word/letter, and picture bingo cards; • Claroline - lets users/institutions host courses administered by professors/teachers through web; • Diogenes - Scripts for searching classics texts; • DrPython - highly customisable, simple, clean editing environment for developing Python programmes; • FET - evolutionary programme for automatically generating time-table of a faculty or high-school; • Gretools - a vocabulary building tool for GNOME, a fun and efficient way to learn words; • Hanzim (“Hanzi Master”) - an interactive visual dictionary for learning and seeing relationships between Chinese radicals, characters, and compounds; • kdrill - helps people learn Japanese ‘Kanji’ characters; • linSmith - a Smith charting programme mainly designed for educational use; • The Manhattan Virtual Classroom – delivers courses via the web; • Moodle - a learning management system for Internet-based course websites; • Reciteword - helps Chinese-speaking people study and learn English;

• Spotter - lets students check their answers to maths and science questions; • Tux Math Scrabble - a math version of the popular board game; • Whiteboard-fully-featured integrated courseware system for colleges and universities.

Elementary education The software other than Bingo-cards and TuxMathScrabble used are: • Gcompris - Educational suite for children from 2 to 10; • JILetters - assists children with learning the Western alphabet by visual and auditory means; • KLogo-Turtle - an interpreter of the LOGO language; • Kronophobia - a complete event-based school calendaring system; • ksociograma - sociologic analysis for a group of students; • Tux Typing - helps students learn to type or spell; • TuxPaint - drawing programme for young children; • Vocabumonkey - focused on language and math skills.

Secondary education The software other than DrPython, Gretools, linSmith, Reciteword, Spotter and TuxMathScrabble available are: • Dr genius - interactive geometry programme and calculator; • dr. geo - builds geometric figures; • FET - automatically schedules the timetable of a school or university; • GenChemLab - simulates general chemistry laboratory exercises; • JUDO - vocabulary building tool for Gnome; • Kalcul - Java IDE for beginning programmers;

• Kanjidrill - interactive math game for ages 8-15; • Kronophobia - helps users learn Japanese ‘Kanji’ characters; • Ksociograma - sociologic analysis for a group of students; • PurpleView – paper review system; • Tau - utility to track student attendance and scheduling; • WIMS - hosts interactive mathematical activities.

Misc, Online, Programming and Typing The other categories are Misc (miscellaneous education), Online (education), Programming, and Typing. For Misc, the software available are: aldo (Morse code tutor), Koha (complete library system), Reciteword (programme to learn English language), WhiteBoard (courseware system for colleges and universities). AKFQuiz, Cce-interact, Ilias, Moodle, Spotter, TelEduc are for online education. For programming, the software available are: Cog Engine Project, GNU mdk, Guido von Robot, PiciLibre. Complete version of this article is available on www.i4donline.net

Open source in education in India As a part of the government’s initiatives for elementary education, the project ‘Headstart’ in Madhya Pradesh state (India) began on November 14, 2000, computerising 648 schools, in which, the state government switched from Microsoft to Linux in 2070 schools in the second phase of the project. Saswati Paik, i4d saswati@i4donline.net i4d | October 2004

Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s on

The Netherlands 18 November, 2004 Open Standards and Libre Software in Govt. The Hague http://www.flosspols.org/conf/

Africa 25 - 29 October, 2004 The Association for Health Information and Libraries in Africa (AHILA) conference Blantyre Malawi www.ahila.org

19-20 November, 2004 Promoting Enabling Environment for Digital Development Berlin http://www.unicttaskforce.org/seventhmeeting/

Thailand 21-24 November, 2004 Libraries - Gateways to Information and Knowledge in the Digital Age, Bangkok www.alic2004.org

India The United Kingdom

01 - 03 December, 2004 Pacific Telecentre Workshop Brisbane

19 November, 2004 Science, Communication and Society: Needs and Challenges in South Asia Habitat Centre New Delhi

www.connectingislandcommunities.com

www.scidev.net/ms/sagatewaylaunch/

http://www.icmg.mgovernment.org/ europeanmg.htm

18-20 January, 2005 Education for a sustainable future Ahmedabad

United States

Australia

Canada 27 - 02 July, 2005 ED-MEDIA 2005 Montreal

http://www.ceeindia.org/esf/index.htm

07-09 February, 2005 Map India 2005, New Delhi

http://www.aace.org

www.mapindia.org

Finland 11 November, 2004 OpenMind 2004 Tampere http://www.coss.fi/openmind/index.htm

Germany

Mexico 16-19 November, 2004 Global Indicators Workshop on Community Access to ICTs Mexico City www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/mexico04/index.html

26 - 28 October, 2004 LinuxWorld conference & expo Frankfurt

South Africa

http://www.linuxworldexpo.d linux_messe.php?lang=en

02-04 March, 2005 ICTS and Civil Society Conference Johannesburg

07-10 November, 2004 19th International CODATA Conference Berlin

http://radio.oneworld.net/article/view/76307/1

10-12 July, 2005 Euro Conference on Mobile Government Sussex University, Brighton

01-05 November, 2004 E-Learn 2004 Washington DC www.aace.org/conf/eLearn/call.htm

12-14 December, 2004 Eradicating Poverty through Profit San Francisco http://povertyprofit.wri.org

02-05 April, 2005 e-Learning 2005 Dallas, Texas http://144.162.197.250eLearning 2005glance.htm

01-05 March 2005 SITE 2005 Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference Phoenix, Arizona

Sri Lanka

http://site.aace.org/conf

www.codata.org/04conf/

08 - 10 November, 2004 MySQL ComCon Europe 2004 Frankfurt

29-01 December 2004 International Conference on e-Governance (ICEG) Colombo

14-17 March, 2005 The Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Reilly Emerging Technology Conference (ETech) San Diego

http://www.mysql.com/news-and-events/events/

www.iitc.lk

http://conferences.oreillynet.com/etech/

Get your event listed here. www.i4donline.net/events October 2004 | www.i4donline.net

I N F ACT

FLOSSophy What is ‘open’ source software? Why it is ‘open’? What makes it different from ‘free’ software? When did the movement for ‘free’ and ‘open’ software start? How did they start? Many such questions come to our minds. To search for the answers of all these, readers can use these links which may or may not quench their thirst, but it is sure, they will look for something more, once they will get into the open field of open source. Articles •

•

http://www.openknowledge.org/writing/open-source/scb/brief-open-sourcehistory.html (A brief history of Free/Open Source Software Movement is available online) http://www.opensourcesummit.org/open-source-200408.pdf (‘Open Source - open learning’, an article by Chris Coppola explaining why open source makes sense for education)

•

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html (An article explaining Why Free Software is better than Open Source)

•

http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html (An article by David A. Wheeler entitled ‘Why Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS)? Look at the Numbers!)

•

http://www.economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2054746 (‘Governments like open-source software, but Microsoft does not’ – an article based on government policy)

Projects/ Case Studies •

http://www.khmeros.info/ (OSS project in Cambodia)

•

http://opensource.muanglao.com/index.htm (OSS project in Laos)

•

http://www.ganeshas-project.org/ (Information technology lessons to school children of Nepal)

•

http://www.jhai.org/jhai_remoteIT.htm (Jhai Foundation’s project with Linux)

•

http://richtech.ca/cgi-bin/seul/case/caseview0.pl (Case studies of schools that have used open source in their classrooms.

•

http://www.schoolnetafrica.net/fileadmin/resources/Open_Source_in_ South_African_Schools.pdf (Open Source in South African Schools: Two Case Studies)

•

http://www.schoolnetafrica.net/fileadmin/resources/Opensourcesoftware.pdf (Case studies of open source implementation in situations as diverse as the US postal service and rural India.)

•

http://www.kuenselonline.com/article.php?sid=4531 (Dzongkha computing on Linux in Bhutan)

•

http://www.computerbank.org.au/ (An Australian initiative to supply free GNU/Linux systems to low income individuals, community groups and disadvantaged schools.)

•

http://www.iosn.net/l10n/projects/ (Localisation projects in Asia)

•

http://www.digital-review.org/ahp08.htm (The article ‘Open source: Empowering the Asia Pacific’ by Pindar Wong)

•

http://leb.net/blinux/ (To improve usability of the LINUX operating system for blind)

•

http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue9_4/levesque/ (Fundamental issues with open source software development)

•

http://www.developer.com/open/ (Numerous articles on open source software)

http://luminance.sourceforge.net/resources_linuxedu.php (Link to lot of projects and resources on the use of Linux in education)

•

http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0253.pdf (Article ‘Open-sources Learning’ by Anne H. Moore)

•

http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_6/newmarch/ (“Lessons from Open Source: Intellectual Property and Courseware” by Jan Newsmarch)

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http://www.iosn.net/foss/foss-general-primer/ (This primer introduces Free/Open Source Software (FOSS), its philosophy, history and benefits/disadvantages of FOSS, including developing-country specific issues.) http://www.aei.brookings.org/publications/abstract.php?pid=296 (Government Policy toward Open Source Software is a book by Robert W. Hahn that addresses a host of issues raised by the rapid growth of open source software, including government subsidies for research and development, government procurement policy, and patent and copyright policy.) http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/documents/QinetiQ_OSS_rep.pdf (Contents of the book ‘Analysis of the Impact of Open Source Software’ written by Dr Nic Peeling and Dr Julian Satchell, published in October 2001 is available online) http://www.schoolnetafrica.net/fileadmin/resources Alternative_Routes_ in_the_Digital_World.pdf (Alternative Routes in the Digital World elaborate on the role Open Source Software can play and plays in the African context.) http://www.schoolnetafrica.net/fileadmin/resources Free_and_Open_ Source_Software_In_Africa.pdf (Free and open source software in Africa)

News, reports and other resources •

http://linuxtoday.com/ (Recent news on open source software)

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http://www.flosspols.org/ (Description about the FLOSS: Policy Support project coordinated by University of Maastricht – MERIT.)

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http://www.bridges.org/FOSS/choice.html (Bridges.org is doing extensive research around the use of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in developing countries to provide the missing unbiased information.)

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http://www.opensource.org/ (Latest news on Open Source)

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http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=12034&URL_DO=DO_ TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html (UNESCO’s free software portal is a single interactive website giving articles, resources, news, events and the latest in free software movement)

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http://www.infodev.org/symp2003/publications/OpenSourceSoftware.pdf (Open Source Software: perspectives for development is a report to help decision-makers in developing countries to understand the dynamics associated with implementing open source software solutions.)

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http://www.netaction.org/opensrc/oss-report.html (The Case for Government Promotion of Open Source Software - This paper explains the open source concept and attempts to show how government can use open source as a vehicle for promoting economic development and as a policy tool.)

i4d | October 2004