Facilitating a Digital Commons with Free
and Open Source Software:
Paving the Way for Generations to
Come
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Colloquium Associate Professor
Research,Teaching and Service
Information Systems Department
The University of the West Indies,
Mona Campus, Jamaica San Francisco State University
Sept 18, 2008 San Francisco, CA 94132 USA

Introduction ­ San Francisco State University
● Part of the California State University system
– 23 campuses, 450,000+ students, 24,000+ faculty
● San Francisco State University
– 8 colleges
– 30,000+ students
– Undergraduate: 24,000 +
– Graduate: 6,000 +
– Faculty: 1,800 +
http://www.sfsu.edu/

About myself

Software Freedom Day
● Software Freedom Day 2008
– Celebrated by 600+ teams worldwide
● UWI Mona Team
– Thursday, September 18, 2008
– http://softwarefreedomday.org/teams/centralandsouthamerica/Jamaica
– FOSS for Windows
● http://www.theopendisc.com/
– UWI SFD 2008 Flyer

Anecdote

Open Document Format
fazverma.wpd > fazlollahi­verma­dsi­1994.odt
futureproofed!

Commons
● Gardens
● Streets
● Light posts
● Bathrooms
● Libraries
● Internet Access?
● Software?
● Media?

Analog to Digital
● A paper book is analog
– $$ for every extra copy
– A copy of a copy of a copy ...degrades each time you
make a copy
– Last for a few hundred years
● An PDF book is digital
– Near zero $ for extra copies
– A copy of a copy of a copy ...is as perfect as the original
– Last forever

Going Digital
● Thousands of books on a thumb drive
● Replicate freely
● Easy storage and retrieval
● Translatable
– Language
– Script
– Audio
– Video

Digital Repositories
Paper Books Vinyl Records
01010101010101
1010100100101
CassetteTapes Digital Celluloid Movies
10010100001001
1010101001101010
Paintings
Photos

DRM: Who's rights are these?
● Digital Rights Management
– Protect copyrights
– Do users have no rights?
– Whose rights are being protected?
● Digital Restrictions Management!
– What if Apple/Microsoft/Adobe/... went out of
business?
– Your book will no longer “open”

● sustainable
● long term
● representative
● accessible
● ...
● futureproof
Digital Commons

FOSS: Free and Open Source
A platform for building sustainable digital
commons

Free and Open Source Software
● peer reviewed
● transparent
● meritocratic

Free and Open Source Software
● peer reviewed
● transparent
● meritocratic
Academic Process

Free and Open Source Software
● Two viewpoints:
– Free Software (http://fsf.org)
– Open Source Software (http://opensource.org)
● FOSS: A public commons approach
● Who's involved:
– Individuals
– Community groups
– Non­profit foundations
– Software corporations

Four Freedoms
● Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program, for any
purpose.
● Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works,
and adapt it to your needs.
● Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute copies so you can
help your neighbor.
● Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and
release your improvements to the public, so that the whole
community benefits.

The Open Source Definition
1. Free Redistribution
2. Source Code
3. Derived Works
4. Integrity of The Author's Source Code
5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
7. Distribution of License
8. License Must Not Be Specific to a Product
9. License Must Not Restrict Other Software
10. License Must Be Technology­Neutral

Software Licensing
● Why is a license needed?
– Public domain implies no control over intellectual
property rights
– License defines the terms and conditions for use of
intellectual property
● Copyrights apply to expressions
● Patents apply to ideas
– Copyright enforceable via a license

Contractual nature of license
Rosen, L (2005)
“...license is used to describe the legal way a
copyright and patent owner grants permission to
others to use his intellectual property.”
Rosen, L. (2005). Open source licensing: Software freedom and intellectual property law.
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

FOSS Licenses
● 72 approved licenses
– 9 popular important
– 3 special purpose
– 5 miscellaneous
– 8 redundant
– 26 non­reusable
– 5 superseded
– 4 retired
– 12 uncategorized

Categorization
● Reciprocal
● Academic
● Standards
● Content

Reciprocal vs Academic
Reciprocal: significant changes to source code
●
must be put back into the public commons
● Linux
●Academic: Academic/Government grant project.
Putting code back into the commons is optional
● BSD Unix
● Solaris
● MacOSX

Who does FOSS?

Google

IBM

Oracle

Sun Microsystems

HP

Microsoft

Free and Open Source Software
Examples

Mozilla Firefox

Ubuntu Linux

SugarCRM

OpenOffice

Nokia Maemo

Openmoko

Android

Tuxpaint

Projects
● Research
● Teaching
● Service

FOSS: Policy and Implementation
● ICT Policy
● Infrastructure
● Availability of Software
● Software Piracy
● Localization of non­English languages

ASEAN
Singapore
● 10 countries in ASEAN
Malaysia
– Association of South­East Asian Nations
Brunei D.
● UNDP:
Thailand
– “The vision is that developing countries in
the Asia­Pacific Region can achieve rapid Philippines
and sustained economic and social Indonesia
development by using affordable yet Viet Nam
effective FOSS ICT solutions to bridge
Cambodia
the digital divide.”
Myanmar
Laos
UNDP International Open Source Network: http://www.iosn.net/

Methodology
Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3
OSS adoption in
ASEAN nations
Indonesia Indonesia
Singapore IT Infrastructure
Malaysia Software Industry
Thailand Geographic spread Adoption Survey
Vietnam Local involvement
Cambodia Government actions
Laos Localization efforts
Brunei
Philippines
Myanmar

Use of FOSS across ASEAN

Studies
● ASEAN group of nations
– Data collection
– Profiling
– Policies
● Indonesia
– Survey
– Interviews

Policies matter...
...but implementation speaks volumes

Classroom: Unit of focus
vocational or educational

Multimedia Applications
● The experiment
– Software needed for the class: Approx. $200
– Will a student at a public university spend $200 on
software for a semester?
– Can FOSS tools adequately fill the need?
● Important: Choice of tool should be based on
the curriculum and not the other way around.

Applications
• GIMP – Bitmapped graphics
• Blender – 3D rendering
• Inkscape – Scalable Vector Graphics
• Audacity – Audio editing and manipulation
• Scribus – Desktop Publishing
• Tux paint – Fun for kids...and grown ups!
• Kino – Non­linear Digital Video Editor
• Drupal* – Web 2.0 CMS
Total: $0.00
*Server-side

Assignment
● ccmixter.org
• Audio assignment
based on ccmixter.org
samples and loops
• Students download
vocals, drum loops,
effects, etc. and use
Audacity to mix and
recreate tracks.
• Learn audio tools and
legal aspects via
Creative Commons
licenses

Assessment
● Are students really satisfied with a FOSS
platform?
● Are we providing education or training?
● We are conducted surveys using a “user
satisfaction” instrument.

Lessons learned
● FOSS must meet curricular needs.
● Advocacy works. Evangelism does not.
● Innovative technology.
● Collaborative software development.
● Ethics and legalities of the digital domain.

Campus IT services
learning management systems

Learning Management at SF State
● Moodle, Drupal, DIVA, Mahara,
Coursestream, ...
– Software Fanaticism or Weighted Scoring?

Community Service
[global] community

One Laptop Per Child
OLPC­SF
Somebody is finally
thinking of the
children!

a different generation
­my compi!
Mira Verma

School Galadima, Abuja City, Nigeria
See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Galadima

Samkha village located in the suburbs of northern Thailand
See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Thailand/Ban_Samkha

Khairat school is India's pilot site.
See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_India

Sugar: a different interface

Sweet as Sugar!
http://laptopgiving.org/en/software­and­interface.php

school...to go

FOSS makes it happen

OLPC Enthusiasts, Jamaica
● Mailing list
– http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc­jamaica
● Web
– http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Jamaica

Beyond Software
● Wealth of Networks (Yochai Benkler)
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Networks
● Creative Commons (Lawrence Lessig)
– http://creativecommons.org/
● Wikipedia
– http://www.wikipedia.org/
● Open Access Journals
● Public Library of Science (http://www.plos.org/)
● BioMedCentral (http://www.biomedcentral.com/)
● Harvard Open Access Policy (http://fas.harvard.edu/)

free, open, creative, meritocratic, peer­reviewed,
educational, innovative
you

free, open, creative, meritocratic, peer­reviewed,
educational, innovative
participate
you

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
­­mohandas k. gandhi

meritocracy rules!