1. Free and Open Source
Software
Alain Nkoyock,
Addis Ababa, 2 December 2005
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2. Background Philosophy (1/4)
• Software drives the information society.
• Software enables us to connect and communicate in ways that drastically
changes how we work and play.
• It facilitates productivity, at the same time, delivers the digital lifestyle.
• For developing countries, the adoption of software solutions, and ICT in
general, as an enabler for social and economic development is severely
limited by financial constraints.
• Free/Libre Open Source Software represents an opportunity for
developing countries, an alternative choice to prohibitive license fees and
piracy.
• Usually that choice is not so clear cut - neither are the issues, which go
beyond the financial dimension.
– What are the clear benefits specific to the adoption of FLOSS for developing
countries?
– How does the choice of software (FLOSS or proprietary) impact the
outcomes of ICT-enabled, sustainable development?
– What are the proven business models of FLOSS development and related
services?
– Should governments play a role in promoting software preferences outside
the public sector and when public resources are involved?
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3. Background Philosophy (2/4)
• To answer the above questions, we have consider
the following 3 main areas:
– The economic potential of FLOSS
• Software’s Potential:
– between 1970-2000, the US software industry grew at a rate of 38%
annually
– The proprietary software industry in India accounts for 16% of all
exports, not including related non-software IT
• Open-source Vs. Proprietary software
– Open-source software has no features that lend themselves to
creating local industry because they are distributed under the GNU
GPL and free foundation software philosophy
– The only profit opportunities remaining are for additional services
(support, training, add-on or complementary proprietary programs
that run with or on the open-source program)
– FLOSS as a sustainable development path
• Open-source software is less costly
• Proprietary software is dominated by Western-based monopolies
• Developing Nations are inherently different
• Open-source software develops local programming talent 3

4. Background Philosophy (3/4)
- Technical considerations:
– Interoperability, proprietary standards and vendor lock-in
• Cost side of IT management
• Newer proprietary software requires better hardware performance
• Monopoly situation evolves in which the vendor dictates prices,
conditions and quality
– Costs and benefits: Total cost of Ownership
• Direct costs related with the software itself (licensing fees,
installation costs, training, support, etc.)
• Indirect costs evolving as a consequence of using software
(hardware upgrades)
• Migration costs: the situation after migration to open-source
software will lead to lower life-cycle costs
– Security
• Open-source are less vulnerable than proprietary software
– Transparency and public right to information 4

5. African Govs & Software Policy
1. Governments have a dual role to play in terms of
defining a local software industry:
– Establishing policy which influences industry players and
Acting as an important software consumer:
• Brazil politics believe that free software is a social and political
issue as well as a practical and economic one
• Some legislatures, including Germany’s Bundestag, have
adopted guidelines that require government offices to consider
open-source when purchasing software
• On the pure policymaker front, a handful of governments have
promoted open-source through education and awareness policies
2. Governments should sponsored open-source
projects to develop programming skills
– Open-source software develops local programming talent
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6. African Govs & Software Policy
3. Gov. Should Promote partnership with proprietary software
industry to be installed locally and use the local well-trained
people:
– Could African nations with limited resources can employ all of the new
programmers at reasonable wages since technology-using sectors do not
exist? NO
– the ability of the newly trained programmers to create local software and
support companies is limited because of the non profit nature of the open-
source software industry
– Without a local proprietary software market to employ them, taking the
advantage of their skills will be difficult as local employment options will be
limited
– To limit “brain drain” movements
– Fighting them is not in our interest, but the interest of other western-based
concurrent companies fighting monopolies:
• In 2001, IBM spent 1 billion USD backing Linux and in 2002, it announced that it
had recouped this investment in full.
• Novell acquired SuSE and for the support and services, ECA is paying 40,000
USD per year.
4. Four major motivations why Govs consider both policy directives
towards as well as concrete implementation of open source
software are: Dependency, Cost, Security and Transparency
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