FOSS in Africa
FOSS Africa ConventionIndaba HotelApril 2010
Paul Scotthttp://www.paulscott.za.net/
Casting a larger net
Working collaborativelyAfrican talent
Bandwidth constraints
Cultural constraints
Communication is key
How do you collaborate?
We need to use low(er) bandwidth friendly technology
Mailing lists, IRC, Web optimised for low bandwidth
Constant communication to create community
Everyone feels part of the community, no matter what the situation is!
Version Control
What is version control?
Must be used in any collaborative effort
Not just for code, docs, wiki and images too!
Must be distributed and provide a central repository
Single point of truth for collab efforts
Able to operate in low bandwidth environments
Marketing
Single most difficult thing to do
We have a culture of not thinking the best of ourselves
US and EU projects look to us for the lead (Drupal, Joomla! Etc)
Marketing costs a lot of money
Not many people experienced in tech/FOSS marketing and community building in Africa
Social Media
Marketing can be achieved informally too
Search Twitter for #Chisimba! Constant tweets and updates from many sources
Subversion also tweets so stakeholders are made aware of progress constantly and in real time
Facebook group
Flickr group
Blogs, forum and Google Groups
IP / Patents
IP laws are becoming restrictive
In SA, software patents are not yet a major risk, but have the potential to be soon.
US and EU patent systems can be limiting, but with careful licensing and distribution channels the risks can be mitigated.
MSN case
The tangible dangers
Licensing
GPL is a Free license
Allows works to be used in commercial projects too
All we ask is that if you make enhancements THAT DO NOT CONTAIN YOUR BUSINESS MODEL (i.e. NON differentiating software), please share them and make the world a better place
Many other Free licenses, all in simple English and minimal legalese
Documentation
The bane of a developers' existance!
Self documenting code is the norm in FOSS
Great docs can be generated autoatically from the sourcecode
User manuals are written more slowly, but do appear.
Great way to contribute to FOSS projects if you are not a coder!
Sharing is caring
There is very little software that contains proprietary business process within the sourcecode
There is no reason not to release most source into the public domain. Who knows, you may even get some improvements free (as in beer)!
Leverage the FOSS communities and they will help you out. Contribute back for added fun and profit!
"The most fundamental way of helping other people,is to teach people how to do things betteror how to better their lives.
For people who use computers,this means sharing the recipes you use on your computer,in other words the programs you run."
Richard StallmanFree Software Foundation.
What does Free mean?
The freedom torun the program for any purpose
study how the program works,
and to adapt it to your needsredistribute copies
improve the program, and release your improvements to the public.
These freedoms require access to the source code
Source code:if encrypt(password) == encryptedpassword, then login=1, end
Compiled code:001001011101010011001100001111011000110001110001101
What are you getting into?
Hugee.g. IBM > 1 billion $ per year
e.g. 230K projects, 2M contributors @ sourceforge.net
Well organised
Several business models
User friendly written by users for users
Cross-platform recompile source code
High development pace reuse of best modules
High quality peer review, reuse = survival of the fittest
High security peer review, Unix origin, modular, encryption
Why FOSS?
reduce (license) costs
reduce digital divide
eliminate software piracy
easier license management
easy to localize and customize
better quality(peer review, intrinsic-motivated developers)
increase security(security by design vs security by obscurity)
increase interoperability (open standards)
reduce dependencies from monopolies & foreign software companies
Percieved barriers
Perceived barriers
Perceived barriers
Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt aboutfeatures?
quality? (hobbyist programmers)
sustainability?
support?
requirement to participate in the community?
Perceived barriers
anti-competitive behaviourmonopoly abuse
secret formats
secret protocols
data and vendor lock-ins
It comes down to
EducationWe teach MS because that is what companies use
CompaniesWe cannot use FOSS because our employees don't know it
EmployeesGrowing number starts using FOSS at home
Not happy with inferior software at work
When to migrate?
Time transitionsat the end of existing contracts
at hardware / software upgrade times
Consider migrating in phasesservers
desktop applications multi-platform
web-based
desktop OS
Key success factors
resources to experiment
an evidence-based choice
involvement of both technical and non-technical users in the selection process
choice for a new system which is in all aspects at least as good and easy as the previous one
reporting detailed migration plan to management and get their approval and support
in-house expertise with open source software and communities
contact with the developers and users community
The Open Way
avoid local customization withoutcontributing back
participating in the community
establish an 'open source culture' of re-use, collaboration and sharing
share experiences
Acknowledgements
PicturesDoubt by Elenaa Marie (Flickr)
Lockin, claustrofobia by Laororo (Flickr)
SlidesSome slides remixed from Prof. Dr. Frederick Questier
Some slides remixed from Prof. Dr. Derek Keats
Some slides remixed from previous AVOIR slides
All slides licensed under Creative Commons By Attribution Sharealike
We are grateful to the IDRC, USAID, the Department of Science
and Technology,
UNESCO and Sun Microsystems for financial and other support to the
AVOIR project. We are also grateful to those organizations who had
enough confidence to contract us to develop applications even
though we were then unproven.Online: http://www.chisimba.comEmail:
[email protected]
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