Open Source Resource Center

1
Open Source Resource Center

• OSRC

An Initiative of Pakistan Software Export Board
(PSEB) http//www.osrc.org.pk
2
Governments OSS Objectives

• To raise OSS core software development awareness
  in masses
• Decrease dependency on proprietary software
• Address the issues of International Proprietary
  Rights effectively
• Decrease deployment costs in education and
  government sector

3
GoPs OSS Strategy
Demand Creation
Supply
OSS Training
Industrial Automation on OSS
transactional
4
Industrial Automation on Open Source

• To develop specialized software solutions for
  approximately 4-5 industrial sectors. The
  proposed software solutions would generally
  concentrate on the business process automation
  modules such as
• Accounting
• Inventory
• Production
• Sales
• HR Payroll

5
End Users and Systems Administrators Training
on Open Source Software

• Scope of this project is
• To provide training to 4,000 End Users and 200
  Systems Administrators on Open Source Software
• To prepare training material for Open Source
  Software in simplistic form for End Users
  Administrators.

6
Open Source Resource Center

• Develop a community for open source   
• Hold workshops over Open Source Development in
  all major cities 
• Create a network of Open Source developers  
• Groom an environment of Open Source Development
  in Pakistan
• Encourage OSS RD activities in local
  universities with international collaboration

7
STRATEGY

• Mobilize the OSS practicing community (through
  OSRC web-portal academia)
• Conduct Training/Awareness workshops (ensuring
  local industry participation)
• Promote OSS in industry (seminars, training
  material, discussion forums, network with
  hardware/software vendors)
• Build in-house support capability
• Back-up support on solution(s) given to the
  industry on OSS

8
Current Activities

• OSRC Portal to act as a comprehensive online
  resource for FOSS
• Gateway to online resources on FOSS
• Means for the FOSS community to contribute and to
  interact
• News on FOSS
• Discussion forums
• FOSS activities in the region
• FAQ
• www.osrc.org (temp website up portal in process)

9
Activities

• OSRC Stall at ITCN Asia 2004
• OSS Community displayed available products
• Open source introduced to visitors
• Workshop on OSS awareness planned in the 2nd week
  of September
• International Event planned with NIIT ComTech
  Japan in October 2004.
• Joint Seminar planned with Computer Society of
  Pakistan in December 2004
• Developing a graduate level course on OSS to be
  introduced in local universities.

10
Activities

• Other activities
• Develop a repository of OSS
• Directory FOSS activists in Pakistan
• Online workshops/training in collaboration with
  Virtual University
• Development of Localization toolkits in
  collaboration with local universities

11
OSS in Universities

• Grid Computing
• Agent based Applications
• Agent Platform Development
• Distributed System Monitoring and Security
• Cluster Computing
• Web Services
• Peer to Peer Applications and Platforms
• Application for Wireless devices
• High performance computing
• Research on Localization of OSS
• Developing Urdu fonts

12
University Collaborations

• European Organization For Nuclear Research
  (CERN), Switzerland
• University of West England, UK
• Stanford University, USA
• California Institute of Technology, USA
• Kyoung Hee University, Korea
• University of Portsmouth, UK
• University of Melbourne, Australia
• Communication Technologies, Japan
• NEC, Japan

13
University RD Projects

• SAGE (Scalable fAult tolerant agent Grooming
  Environment)
• Application e-commerce, network management,
  information retrieval processing, digital
  tourism, supply chain management, support
  systems, web services, medical and grid, semantic
  web, utility computing etc.
• 2. MOAINA (Monitoring Agent for Intelligent
  Network Analysis)
• Application Semantic Grid, Network Management,
  Ubiquitous Computing
• 3. Constella IP Network Topology Discovery for
  Large, Multi-subnet dynamic Networks.
• Applications Network Management, Grid Resource
  discovery

14
University Projects

• ICAMELS
• Applications All colleges/universities, Govt.
  Departments, Industry where Linux is deployed to
  get rid of heavy amounts of licenses and
  administration pays
• DIAMonDS ( Distributed Agents for Mobile
  Dynamic Services)
• Applications Distributed Applications and Grid
• Center for Research in Urdu Language Processing
  (CRULP)
• Description CRULP is providing the platform for
  the concerned researchers to put together their
  efforts for the advancement in Urdu computation.

15
Local OSS Activities

• LPI exams being conducted on the 25th of August.
  (35 students will sit the Linux certification
  test).
• Inbox has started testing its low-cost Linux
  ready PC
• SZABIST students are currently developing a Urdu
  NAST Open Source Editing Software to compliment
  the Low-Cost Linux PC
• Allied Bank, EFU general, Dollar Industries, Al
  Karam Textiles, Pizza Hut, Shanawaz Textiles have
  already migrated major Servers
• LUMS and Sir Syed Graduates won the Linux
  challenge in 2003.

16
Local Cos. Working on OSS

• ANTS Consulting (Migration Consultants), Karachi
• PING Systems (Security Network Consultants),
  Karachi
• INBOX (Low cost PCs), Karachi
• Iinix Solutions (OSS based Solutions), Islamabad
• Digital Research Labs (OSS based solutions),
  Islamabad
• Margalla Soft (OSS based products), Islamabad

17
Local Forums on OSS

• LinuxPakistan.net
• Computer Society of Pakistan FOSS Special
  Interest Group