ICT4D Debate at Bytes for All Readers Forum
Battleground of ideas: FLOSS debate raises tempers at BytesForAll GOA, India — APC member BytesForAll’s mailing list recently played host to a strong, and at times polemical, debate on proprietary-versus-FLOSS (Free/Libre and Open Source Software). In this debate, there were these couple of great posts here and here, that put things neatly in perspective — thanks to David Geilhufe who is co-founder of the SocialSourceFoundation.org and Sunil Abraham of Mahiti.org.

This debate threw up a range of issues about the role of FLOSS in the ‘developing’ countries, its role in localisation, how it competes with proprietorial software, why its benefits haven’t yet reached regions like Africa, and how diverse approaches to software could actually make a difference in the real world. BytesForAll is a South Asian voluntary network, founded along the free software principles of volunteering, but focussing on information — and how information and communication technologies could be more relevant to the common(wo)man, specially in South Asia. It all started with a rather critical-of-FLOSS post by University of Manchester’s Dr Richard Heeks offering a link to an

e-Development briefing titled ‘Free and Open Source Software: A Blind Alley for Developing Countries?
It calls the 1980s shareware ‘FOSS forerunner’ to have had ‘zero’ impact, says data from Africa shows only five percent of computers ‘in developing countries’ have any open source software running on them, and notes that proprietorial software dominates “even in Cuba... where the US embargo should make conditions highly propitious”.

Besides, the briefing says that “piracy” and the “limited size of initial purchase price within total cost of software ownership” there is actually no “evidence of FOSS delivering cost savings”.

Says the briefing: “In particular, proprietary software may not be open source but it is certainly free for the great majority of developing country users, thanks to piracy.” It points to the lack of awareness of FOSS in Africa, and the lack of international links needed to be part of an “active, global community of like-minded developers”.

One early response to this brief text came from BytesForAll co-founder Frederick ‘FN’ Noronha and is here for viewing. Noronha, who goes by the initials of FN, argues, “The “5% of computer systems” overlooks the role played by FLOSS in servers, in keeping the Internet running, in giving unprecedented access to developers of the Third World to take part in a global movement, and more.” This study, argues this post, overlooks the potential of FLOSS in Community development

e-Discussion on Chattisgarh
Shubhranshu Choudhary (smitashu@gmail.com) informed the readers an e-discussion group called Chhattisgarh-Net (http://36garh.notlong.com), which discusses issues related to development of Chhattisgarh state in India and its people. It is trying to put together a People’s Website of Chhattisgarh to go up on 1st Nov when the state turns 5. Any suggstion/help for any study/link/story related to any People’s issue of Chhattisgarh to be put on the site will be highly appreciated.   

Disaster management 
From Sri Lanka to Pakistan     Fouad Riaz Bajwa (bajwa@fossfp.org) informed that the Sri Lankan’s Chamindra de Silva and another volunteer developer are arriving in Islamabad to deploy Sahana that is a Free and Open Source Software disaster management system that handles missing/displaced persons, camp management, assistance, trading system, etc. These are the lead developers for the same system which was used in Sri Lanka to co-ordinate aid for the Tsunami disaster. Pakistan Software Export Board, Open Source Resource Centre, International Open Source Network UNDP-IOSN are assisting them to Pakistan. More information on Sahana:
http://sahana.sourceforge.net/
http://news.info-share.net/?p=8

Community radio
Vinaya Kasajoo of Nepal wrote about the role Community Radio can play in the Disaster Management. Nepal FM Radio has been used in the management of food and other disaster effected area in some countries. Radio was widely used in Mozambique. FM sets cost less than US$ 3. They can be air dropped. Suitcase FM stations can be installed immediately like the rebels of Nepal are doing in hill areas. This system can help to manage the rehabilitation of the victims and to find the lost members of the family. Danicom or some other radio company can he requested. I think it can be more effective and quick way to manage information in the earthquake area and the rehabilitation of the victims.

Vickram Crishna wrote that they can make ‘suitcase’ stations for very local broadcasting (within a radius of 400 m roughly) available for under US$ 120.

Announcement

Road2Tunis
Md. Akteruzzaman (akzaman@gmail.com) welcomed the readers to join 3-days Road Show on world best e-Content at Bhashani Navo theatre from 23-25 October which will be inaugurated by Hon. Prime Minister along with an International workshop on “Building an Information Society : Road2Tunis” He also welcomed Bangladeshi e-Content producers (WSA National Nomination will get preference) to showcase their product free of charge at decorated stall in Bangladesh ICT Showcase at the same time. large ‘developing’ countries like India, China, Brazil and South Africa. It points to another study — from Finland — which it says is more open to the benefits of FLOSS in the “developing” world. See the report at http://www.maailma.kaapeli.fi/FLOSSReport1.0.html.

FN also adds, “By saying ‘proprietorial software is free’ for the bulk of the ‘developing’ world, the study is guilty of both tolerating/encouraging the illegally copying of software (‘piracy’ is a loaded term, unfortunately accepted by academia too) and missing the essence of what Free Software is all about (offering the freedom to be used, copied, studied, modified and redistributed). We are not fighting just for the right to remain ‘pirates’....”

Richard ‘RMS’ Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation joining in the debate with these comments.

There was a longish debate on benchmarking FLOSS. Javier Sola, a Spanish-Chilean working on Khmer language localisation in Cambodia, added some interesting points.

Javier, who works with APC member the Open Forum of Cambodia, argues: “Academics should make sure that they look at all factors when they write something like this. In this case the author has not come even close to it. He has, among others, completelly ignored the power of localisation, diminished as “techies and amateurs” some of the people that have clearer ideas of what is needed for real migration and used anectdotal data for his conclusions.”

Sunil Abraham argues how proprietorial software could kill — no exaggeration, due to its delays and restrictions — in a post-Tsunami situation. He also argues that “Because Sahana (a Free/Libre and Open Source Software project to cope with disasters) is FOSS, the earthquake stricken people from Pakistan and India don’t have to spend money earmarked for food on software.” Then, in an almost tongue-in-cheek Sunish manner, he argues that FLOSS “increases the responsiveness of an organisation. This is important whether it is peoples lives or greater profits.”

David Geilhufe has this very interesting response to argue that FLOSS offers “viral diffusion” (to enable its uncontrolled spread, of course in a positive way), local control and lower barriers to entry. Well put, and very well argued.

Here’s what David argues eloquently: “There is no religious war here, but I think the staunch defenders of proprietary code get stuck on analyzing the software... this isn’t the important part. One needs to analyse the innovation and use of software... that, I believe, is where the real ICT impact lies.”

David’s Social Source Foundation is here. It is “A nonproft organisation that exists to create open source, mission-focused technology for the nonprofit and NGO sector.”

Another link is the OpenNGO.org network. OpenNGO calls itself “An open source project to create a set of web-based tools designed to meet the needs of small U.S. nonprofit organisations and non-governmental organisations across the globe.”

Meanwhile, another strong debate continued at the Global Knowledge for Development mailing-list, visible at the archives here. Some supported Heeks views, while others said academia was missing the point on FLOSS.

Said Mark Davies: “As an African business, and as an African software development business, I still don’t get it. There’s so much enthusiasm for FOSS, there’s so much conference mind-share spent on this topic, and yet I don’t see an illuminating discussion about the opportunities for risk/reward for people like us.”

After facing a lot of counterpoints, Heeks responded: “You can read this message in two ways: either that FOSS will never deliver; or that the FOSS community needs to rethink its strategies.

Or, of course, if you’ve devoted months or years to FOSS and don’t like the message, you’ll try to denigrate the writer, deny the data, and so forth.”

Klaus Stoll the president of Fundacion Chasquinet in Quito, Ecuador also swam against the tide. He wrote: “...yes, my organisation Chasquinet Foundation works with Microsoft and yes it is the same organisation that produced and published the open source tollbox for Telecenters in Latin America and yes we have as a policy in our organisation that people should have a right to choose. What counts for us here at the grassroots are real ICT tools for Development, be they open source or otherwise, what counts is if they make a real positive impact in improving peoples lives.”

African NGO Kaibassa argued here: “We at Kabissa have a very practical orientation and don’t really push open source in our trainings or through our services and website unless it’s just staring in our faces as just plain better. Open source content management systems and other server-based tools and desktop applications like Firefox and Thunderbird spring straight to mind. In the meantime, I hope you and other software developers in Africa are aware of and considering attending Africa Source II.”

But one key perspective came from Richard ‘RMS’ Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation. He commented: “The choice between free (freedom-respecting) and proprietary (user-subjugating) software is not a technical choice. It is an ethical and political issue about people’s freedom. To be neutral on issues that merely concern technology is fine. To be neutral on ethical and political issues about freedom is nothing to be proud of.”

Teresa Crawford of aspirationtech.org announced a Nonprofit Software Selection Survey. Aspiration calls this “the first-ever ‘Nonprofit Software Survey’ of those making decisions about software solutions in and for nonprofits and NGOs around the world.”
http://foss4us.org/blog