Transcript ESCWA Information & Communication Technology Division for Regional Integration FOSS: Needs and Opprtunities Mansour Farah Team Leader, ICT Policies UN- ESCWA 19 December 2006 M.

ESCWA
Information & Communication Technology Division
for Regional Integration
FOSS: Needs and
Opprtunities
Mansour Farah
Team Leader, ICT Policies
UN- ESCWA
19 December 2006
M. Farah
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FOSS and WSIS outcome
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FOSS in WSIS Plan of Action (Geneva)
C3. Access to information and knowledge
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10.e.Encourage research and promote awareness among all
stakeholders of the possibilities offered by different software models,
and the means of their creation, including proprietary, open-source
and free software, in order to increase competition, freedom of
choice and affordability, and to enable all stakeholders to evaluate
which solution best meets their requirements.
10.i. Encourage initiatives to facilitate access, including free and
affordable access to open access journals and books, and open
archives for scientific information.
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FOSS in WSIS Plan of Action (Geneva)
C8. Cultural diversity and identity, linguistic diversity
and local content
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23.o.Governments, through public/private partnerships, should
promote technologies and R&D programmes in such areas as
translation, iconographies, voice-assisted services and the
development of necessary hardware and a variety of software
models, including proprietary, open source software and free
software, such as standard character sets, language codes,
electronic dictionaries, terminology and thesauri, multilingual search
engines, machine translation tools, internationalized domain names,
content referencing as well as general and application software.
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FOSS in WSIS Tunis Commitment
29. Our conviction is that governments, the private sector, civil society,
the scientific and academic community, and users can utilise
various technologies and licensing models, including those
developed under proprietary schemes and those developed under
open-source and free modalities, in accordance with their
interests and with the need to have reliable services and
implement effective programmes for their people. Taking into
account the importance of proprietary software in the markets of the
countries, we reiterate the need to encourage and foster
collaborative development, inter-operative platforms and free
and open source software, in ways that reflect the possibilities of
different software models, notably for education, science and digital
inclusion programmes.
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FOSS in WSIS Tunis Agenda
49. We reaffirm our commitment to turning the digital divide into digital
opportunity, and we commit to ensuring harmonious and equitable
development for all. We commit to foster and provide guidance on
development areas in the broader Internet governance
arrangements, and to include, amongst other issues, international
interconnection costs, capacity building and technology / know-how
transfer. We encourage the realization of multilingualism in the
Internet development environment, and we support the
development of software that renders itself easily to
localisation, and enables users to choose appropriate solutions
from different software models including open-source, free and
proprietary software.
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Why Developing countries need FOSS?
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Reduced costs
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For a company of 50 users:
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Microsoft Solution software: $87,988
 FOSS Solution Software Cost: $80
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Use of GNU/Linux:
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Intel saved $200 million
 Amazon saved $17million
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Public sector organizations savings:
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Government of Sweden: $1 billion
 Government of Denmark: $480-$730 million
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Better security
Reasons:
 Availability of source code: Discovery and fixing of bugs,
proactive audits (rather than reactive audits)
 Focus on robustness and functionality with no
compromise for user friendliness
 Unix model as basis, multi-user, sharing with strong
security and permission structure, limited breach
Resulting in:
 High reliability tests for Red Hat Linux, Open Linux and
GNU/Linux
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Reduced reliance on imports and
avoiding political pressure
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Reduction in imports means reduction in hard currency
spending
Some developing countries need US government
approval for software purchase
Great delays or even refusals are common
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Vendor independence
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Through open standards
Standards are imbedded in the FOSS culture
Greater freedom in selecting vendors, software
packages and platforms
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Reduced software piracy
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With open source software, no need for piracy and the
disadvantages of such a culture
Avoiding IPR and WTO penalties
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FOSS opportunities for developing
countries
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Developing local software capacity
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Increase growth of ICT industry and exports
Improved interoperability among systems
Development of the knowledge society and knowledgebased economy
Reducing the digital divide
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Better and timely localisation
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Localisation is better done by local people who know
their needs
Can be carried out as needed without waiting for
availability of funds or proprietary products availability
Development of expertise among various communities
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Expansion of applications
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Education needs can be satisfied more quickly and
efficiently
Government applications can be expanded and
diversified
More vocational training applications, particularly in
community telecenters
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Partnership development
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FOSS adoption policies and strategies require
development of partnerships
Communities of practice and collaborative work
International networking and capacity-building
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Thank you!
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