Title: Introduction to FOSS
1Introduction to FOSS the International Open
Source NetworkPacINET 2005, Tarawa, Kiribati
22-27 August 2005
Shahid Akthar, Programme Coordinator - APDIP
2IOSN is supported by IDRC and UNDP-APDIPwww.idrc.
ca www.apdip.net
3- IOSN is a centre of excellence and information
clearing-house and resource facility for
Free/Open Source Software that is focussed on - Open Source
- Open Content
- Open Standards
- Open Source or Free Software Freedom to use,
study, modify and share software. - Open Content Freedom to use, study, modify and
share scientific and creative works. - Open Standards Publicly licensed standards that
allow different hardware/software vendors to make
products that inter-operate.
4- Advantages of FOSS Greater freedom, stability,
scalability, security. Can be customised and
localised. Reduced hardware and software costs.
Builds local capacity, reduces dependence on
imports. - Disadvantages of FOSS Dearth of trained
personnel. Incompatibility with proprietary
software using closed standards, formats and
protocols. High cost of migration of proprietary
applications to FOSS. - Development Rationale FOSS changes patterns of
access, control and ownership of information and
knowledge systems. FOSS philosophy and
methodologies can be applied to all areas of
development endeavour - generic HIV/AIDS
medicine, free textbooks etc.
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6- Cost Every license for Office plus Windows in
Brazil - a country in which 22 million people are
living a life of subsistence - means that they
have to export 60 sacks of soybeans in order to
pay for it. When I explain this to farmers, they
go nuts - Marcelo D'Elia Branco, Brazil, Free
Software Foundation -
- Capacity Building The best way to learn how to
write good computer programs is to study what has
been written by others, especially real-life
high-quality programs. Take writing a novel a
writer cannot be expected to write a good novel
if s/he has not read numerous works of others -
Tan Wooi Tong, FOSS Education Primer
7- Market penetration
- 67.22 percent of the World Wide Web is powered
by Apache. - 75 of all Domain Name Servers use Bind
- 42 if all Email Servers run Send Mail
- PHP is used to power 9 million web sites
- Apache, Bind, Send Mail and PHP are all FOSS
- http//www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html
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10- IOSH has
- Over 1500 members from the Asia Pacific region
- Almost 215,000 unique visitors, over 1 million
pages visited in the last 12 months. - Multiple volunteer managers for most country and
thematic sections - Features multilingual pages with full support for
search, sort, and indexing - Accompanying mailing lists FOSS Policy and
Development Implications around 250 members and
IOSN-General around 150 members
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14Blog of an IOSN Community Member
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17FOSS Primers
- Published
- General Introduction
- Education
- Government Policy
- Localisation
- In the pipeline
- Licensing
- Network, Infrastructure and Security
- Open Content
- Open Access
- Open Standards
- eGovernment
18FOSS Primers
- Series Foreword by Richard Stallman
- FOSS production methodology with public and peer
reviews - Authors from Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, Laos,
Nepal, India, Pakistan etc. - More than 20,000 downloads from IOSN portal and
mirrors - Translated into Vietnamese and distributed at the
4th national conference on FOSS in HCM City - Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution
License Ver. 2.0
19FOSS Country Reports
- Six country reports by Frederick Noronha, leading
ICT4D expert and founder of BytesForAll mailing
List. - Reports include Level of FOSS activities
profiles of key projects main priorities for
FOSS deployment official pronouncements
policies listing of Linux User Groups listing
of the key-players scope for intervention and
support. - China and India reports currently available
online for review and feedback. - To be published as e-books on iosn.net by
December 2005
20- IOSN Training and Certification
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22End-User Training Manual
- Introduces the GNU/Linux Desktop
- Launch news featured on more than 60 websites
- More than 20,000 visitors on a single day
- Volunteer translators working on German, Dutch,
Filipino, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish
versions - Volunteer mirrors provided Australia,
Switzerland, Germany, Italy and USA - Available downloads from peer-to-peer networks
such as eDonkey - Estimated more than 30,000 downloads from the
website, mirrors etc.
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25Multimedia Training Module
26Multimedia Training Module
- Multimedia End-User Training Module, featuring
video clips, voice over and interactive features - Partners include Get IT multimedia from Singapore
and experts from Malaysia and Australia - Available for download at
- www.iosn.net/training/end-user-manual/interactiv
e/ - Will be available on IOSN Live CD soon.
27Open Content Training Material
- Training material that is certified by Linux
Professional Institute certification and
available under a FOSS license. - Covers LPI 101 and LPI 102 Exams.
- Will be ready by December 2005.
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29- 10 day pilot training of 26 trainers from Vietnam
and 7 proctors from Lao PDR, Malaysia, Indonesia,
Philippines, Cambodia and Vietnam, 1st and 12th
November 2004 - Partners included Linux Professional Institute,
Vietnamese Ministry of Science and Technology,
Management Office of IT project - HoChiMinh City,
Professional Network Training Center (Pronet) of
Information Technology Park - Vietnam National
University - Course content used was licensed under GNU
Documentation License - Proctor administers affordable paper tests for
LPI I and LP II certification.
30Localisation How-To Guidebook Tool Kit
31- Localisation How-To Guidebook and Toolkit in
collaboration with Centre the Development for
Advanced Computing CDAC, India - Step by step tutorial with screen grabs and
examples to get started with localising FOSS - Reviewed by experts from Pakistan, Greece,
Cambodia, Lao PDR, India and Thailand. - Available at
- iosn.net/l10n/l10n-howto-toolkit/guide.pdf
- Hardcopy will be available soon.
32- 20 micro-grants for software projects from the
South Pacific - Partner - University of South Pacific
- First round of grant applications have been
received. - Some examples
- TikiMaps collaborative Geographic Information
System - Point of Sale Software for Small-and-Medium-Enterp
rises - Fijian Spell-Checker for Open Office.
33 34- FOSSAP 2004, 9_11 February, Malaysia
- FOSSAP 2005, 1-4 September, Cambodia
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36Asia Source Week long FOSS Camp for 115 people
from 20 countries in Bangalore.
37WSIS Forum on Development Implications of
FOSS Speakers Lawrence Lessig, Richard Stallman,
Bruce Perens and others from UNCTAD, UN-JIU, etc
38Thank youWe would like to extend a warm
invitation to all those who are interested in
collaborating on existing projects or new ideas.
Please contact khairil_at_apdip.net or
sunil_at_apdip.net