GLOBELICS 2009, Dakar, Senegal

Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), to a large extent, transcends geographical and cultural boundaries to usher in a ‘new’ software development paradigm where volunteers collaboratively create software for the commons. As some of the early myths – it’s all about Linux and hackers, it’s not reliable, you can’t make money from software which is free, you can’t educate generations with FOSS methodology, organizations can’t rely on FOSS for their mission critical infrastructure, thousands of people with babbling agendas can’t make good software – are begin demystified, FOSS is making an impact and changing the way we develop, distribute, use, maintain, and support software. The global trend in the diffusion and adoption of FOSS is a testimony that something really interesting is happening and the opportunity to innovate is only limited by the extent to which one is willing to explore and utilize the benefits inherent in FOSS.

According to the African Economic Outlook, 2009 Report (AEO), Africa is making strides in technological and scientific development and innovation. The giant leap in ICT is driven by the availability of Bazaar of untapped ideas and talents, the motivation to experiment with new technologies, and the fact that nearly every African wants a “virtual handshake” – desire for integration, connectivity and reaching-out. During the past few years, we continue to witness ICT innovation across various sectors and in many countries throughout the African continent.

However, the contribution and participation of Africa on the FOSS global scene remains hidden and undocumented in many respects. This special session on “ICT Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Africa with Free and Open Source Software” looks at the move by individuals, educational institutions, public and private sectors, initiatives by Governments and NGOs, and FOSS projects around the continent. Discussants and presenters from experts in the domain will discuss the FOSS African landscape by exchanging ideas on the innovative aspect of FOSS, and look at what is specific to FOSS in the African context.

The session hopes to leverage expert contributions from a diverse and multidisciplinary audience to discuss various FOSS initiatives which can be used to promote inclusive and sustainable ICT growth in sub-Saharan Africa. The session wants to explore themes which can be used to drive technological change based of Free and open source software. Themes are not limited but may fall under the following major headings;

1. How can FOSS fuel ICT innovation in Africa?
2. Challenges, limitations, and possible solutions to FOSS-based innovation in Africa
3. Regional FOSS lessons, case studies, and initiatives
4. Sectoral (education, health, e-government, Agriculture) FOSS lessons and strategies, case studies, and initiatives which others can learn from.

Invited Speakers:

• Rishab A. Ghosh (TBC), Head of Collaborative Creativity Group (CCG), UNU-MERIT. Netherlands
• Dr. Katim S. Touray, FOSSFA council and Resource person FOSSWAY project of West Africa. The Gambia
• Silvia Aimasso, FOSSFA council and FOSSWAY Project Coordinator.
• Modou Fall, Centre de Calcul / Academie Régionale CISCO. Universite Cheikh Anta Diop. Senegal
• Ms. Alfelt M. Abio, Managing Director, Enigma Technologies and Gender in ICT activist. Kenya
• Ben Akoh, ICT Program Manager, Open Society Initiative for West Africa. Dakar, Senegal

You can post your comments here to further discuss and brainstorm the session themes or send comments and suggestions to the session chair: sowe@merit.unu.edu

Come and dance FOSS Mbalax with us!

At the Open Source World Conference in Málaga, Spain, Karsten Gerloff discussed the FLOSSInclude project in a session on EU-sponsored FLOSS research projects. The presentation met with lively interest from the audience, drawing questions in particular from Latin American participants.

The session was chaired by Jesus Villasante, head of unit for the Software Technologies unit in the EU Directorate General Information Society and Media (DG Infso)

UNU-MERIT’s Collaborative Creativity Group has organised a panel on “Technologies for Access” at Yale Law Schools Third Access to Knowledge Global Conference (A2K3). The conference will take place in Geneva, Switzerland, on September 8-10. UNU-MERIT researchers Rishab Ghosh and Karsten Gerloff will be attending the event.

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At a seminar organised by the South Centre in Geneva on June 30, UNU-MERIT researcher Rishab Ghosh participated in an expert panel on intellectual monopoly powers and standards.

IP-Watch reports:

Standards can be of two kinds: de facto standards created by market forces, and de jure standards created by standards-setting organisations. In both cases, the standards can include intellectual property rights.

In the de facto scenario, “the value is in the standard, not in the technology itself,” said Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, senior researcher at the United Nations University (UNU-Merit) in the Netherlands. The value comes from the fact that everybody is going to use the same technology, he said.

Karsten Gerloff and Rishab Aiyer Ghosh participated at the TACD conference, “The Reform of WIPO: Implementing the Development Agenda,” on 17 September in Geneva. The meeting followed a successful three year campaign to reorient the technical assistance programme of WIPO (the World Intellectual Property Organization) to serve the interests of developing countries. In his presentation Rishab Aiyer Ghosh showed how Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) has successfully built an ecosystem that relies on sharing knowledge, not on monopolizing ideas. Supported by extensive quantitative and qualitative evidence he argued that WIPO will need to take alternative models of knowledge management into account if it does not want to become obsolete.

Rishab’s presentation on why it’s rational to collaborate in the production of immaterial goods is available here (pdf). IP Watch reports on the conference here.

There is a new version of the most widely used free software licence. Since Friday, June 29, the final text of the GNU General Public License version 3 (GPLv3) is out.

The licence was drafted in a process of public consultations lasting 18 months. An update had become necessary, since the previous version of the GPL had been in use since 1991, before the Internet and the World Wide Web became widespread phenomena. The most important changes, according to the Free Software Foundation which has published the licence, are:

• the licence ensures that users can modify the free software on their personal and household devices (”anti-tivoisation clause”).
• where software licenced under GPLv3 is covered by a patent, a patent licence is automatically extended to every user (this clause is widely understood to be a response to the deal between Microsoft and Novell, which promises Novell’s customers safety from possible patent litigation by Microsoft against free software).

Many programs distributed under the GPL carry a clause that says they are covered by “GPL version 2 or any later version”. These programs have now moved to GPLv3. But a number of other programs do not carry this clause, among them the Linux kernel; they will for now continue to use version 2 of the GPL.
The FSF’s press release on GPLv3 is here.

This weekend, the international community of scholars and activists working on Access to Knowledge (A2K) will gather at Yale University. Following up on the first conference of this kind one year ago:

[t]his year, on April 27th-29th 2007, the weekend of World Intellectual Property Day, the A2K2 conference will be a pivotal event mobilizing the A2K coalition. A2K2 will further build the coalition amongst the institutions and stakeholders that crystallized at the first landmark conference, help set the agenda for access to knowledge policy and advocacy, and deepen the understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of access to knowledge issues. Developing both a theoretical framework and delving into the details of practical implementation, the program will focus on mobilizing the private sector, governments, technologists, and civil society around A2K issues. A2K2’s policy panels will be structured towards tangible legal and technological solutions and collaborative strategies for policy makers and individual institutions.

UNU-MERIT’s Rishab Ghosh will be at a panel on “Mobilizing Technologists“.

I’m very much looking forward to reading the discussions and results of this conference. If you want to get to know the field, the conference page offers a list of resources, There’s also a conference wiki here.

The European Commission (Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry) has published a research study prepared by Rishab Ghosh and his team at UNU-MERIT.

Study on the economic impact of open source software on innovation and the competitiveness of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector in the EU

The study looks at direct as well as indirect impact and finds that FLOSS (Free/Libre/Open Source Software) could help Europe reach its goal of becoming the most competitive knowledge economy by 2010.
The findings include:

• FLOSS applications are top rung products in terms of market share in several markets.
• The existing base of quality FLOSS applications with reasonable quality control and distribution would cost firms almost Euro 12 billion to reproduce internally. This code base has been doubling every 18 to 24 months over the past eight years.
• The notional value of Europe’s investment in FLOSS software today is Euro 22 billion (36 billion in the US) representing 20.5% of total software investment (20% in the US)
• While the US has an edge in large FLOSS-related businesses, Europe is the leading region in terms of globally active FLOSS software developers, and leads in terms of global project leaders, followed closely by North America. Asia and Latin America face disadvantages at least partly due to language barriers, but may have an increasing share of developers active in local communities.
• By providing a skills development environment valued by employers and retaining a greater share of value addition locally, FLOSS can encourage the creation of SMEs and jobs.
• Defined broadly, FLOSSrelated services could reach a 32% share of all IT services by 2010, and the FLOSS-related share of the economy could reach 4% of European GDP by 2010.
• Though FLOSS provides ample opportunities for Europe, it is threatened by increasing moves in some policy circles to support regulation that seeks to protect old business models of creative industries, making it harder to develop new ways of doing business.
• Firms have invested an estimated Euro 1.2 billion in developing FLOSS software. Such firms represent in total at least 565 000 jobs and Euro 263 billion in annual revenue.

Download a pdf copy of the report from here. You can find current press coverage here.

[Update by Karsten Gerloff:]
When these results were first presented at a Brussels workshop at the end of September 2006, they caused quite a stir. A letter to the European Commission by lobbyist Hugo Lueders of the “Initiative for Software Choice” argued that any move by the European Commission to open the market to stronger competition by Free Software would “disrupt the entire software ecosystem”. Other than that, the reception was rather positive.

While said ecosystem remains very much undisrupted in places such as Extremadura or Andalucia, despite stronger pro-Free Software policies than the EU could dream of, the “Initiative for Software Choice” appears to be an exercise in astroturfing. Apparently, becoming a member does not take anything more than pledging allegiance to the group’s mission and statement of principles; no fees in sight, so this commitment comes rather cheap. I would also appreciate if someone could give me some background on a software company called “Jackrabbit Microwave“; if no information is forthcoming, I’ll have to assume that the group is not above accepting non-existing entities into its ranks.

MORE UPDATE:

CompTIA, the association of proprietary software makers which manages ISC, has apparently been successful in pressuring the European Commission to state that it is not favouring Free Software over proprietary programs. Richard Thurston over at ZDNet has put together a short, informative timeline.

Please note that noone has alleged that the EC favours Free Software. It has merely commissioned a study about the effects of Free Software in the European market, and this study arrived at a number of conclusions, most of them favourable towards Free Software. The EC has not distanced itself from that study, but rather pointed out that it is “technology neutral”, not favouring one software model over the other.

Rishab Ghosh, lead author of the study, has posted a detailed comment on the matter in response to the ZDNet story.

Date Start: 2006-11-28 – Time Start: 09:00:00
Date End: 2006-11-28 – Time End: 16:30:00

Venue: Eurovillage (Room London), 80 Boulevard Charlemagne – 1000 Brussels, Belgium

Organiser: Eurocities

The results of the OSS Impact study will be presented at an international Workshop organised by Eurocities in Brussels on Tuesday, 28th of November, 2006. The workshop will bring together eminent players from European public organisations at local, regional, national and EU levels, from industry and SMEs, academics, economists, and policy makers.

There is no fee for participation. However, spaces are limited and registration in advance is required. Confirmation of the registration will be provided subject to availability of places.

For more information and registration, please visit: http://www.publicsectoross.info/events/event_details.php?Id_event=4

Great to see that the in-house research and workshops (Policy Brief on Open Source and Open Standards, UNU-MERIT Symposium, UNU-IIST Symposium) go hand-in-hand with implementation. It is especially noteworthy that the decision seems to be based on “access” considerations; by endorsing open standards the FAO aims to lower barriers to adoption of technology.

“One of the key requirements for our technical information systems is that they must be very easily available and accessible by the member countries as well as easy to set-up and maintain,” said Kurt Vertucci, Senior Officer, IT Governance for FAO. “We cannot dictate to countries what their infrastructure should be. Therefore, in addition to requiring very flexible licensing, these systems need to be portable and based on open standards.”

More below, and the full article is here (http://linuxpr.com/releases/8687.html)

United Nations’ Food & Agriculture Organization Selects MySQL as its Open Source Database Standard

One of the Largest Specialized UN Agencies Plans to Migrate up to 80% of its Technical Information Systems to MySQL

ROME, Italy – May 2nd, 2006 – MySQL AB, the developer of the world’s most popular open source database, today announced that the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has selected MySQL as its open source server-side database standard.

Founded in 1945 and with more than 3,700 staff members, FAO’s mandate is to raise levels of nutrition, improve agricultural productivity, better the lives of rural populations and contribute to the growth of the world economy. Achieving food security for all is at the heart of FAO’s efforts. With headquarters in Rome and 74 country offices around the world, FAO provides the kind of behind-the-scenes assistance and sustainable solutions that help people and nations help themselves.

Technorati Tags: access2knowledge, developingcountries, foss