FLOSSInclude

Project Update July 2010

The FLOSS Include Project is in the final stages of publishing their case studies and preparing a final report. The research funded by this group provides a valuable insight into the slow adoption rates of FLOSS in the world. Many of the issues identified are not technology but social and political and involve better awareness campaigns and strategic training initiatives.

Canonical hopes to use these lessons and networking opportunities to work toward shared goals in future collaborations.

More information on the FLOSS Include project can be found on the project's homepage: http://www.flossinclude.org/

Project Summary and Objectives

The FLOSSInclude Project is funded by the EU.

In recent years, FLOSS (Free/Libre or Open Source Software) has developed as a novel form of collaborative production. Since its origin as a collaboration between individual volunteers, it has seen tremendous success, both in terms of the commercial and technical strengths of the produced software itself, but also as a model of organisation and development: FLOSS is arguably one of the best examples of open, collaborative, internationally distributed production and development that exists today. This international aspect has resulted in tremendous interest in the domain of open source from around the world, from all communities: government, policy, business, academic research. The EU, thanks in part to its support for projects such as FLOSS and FLOSSWorld, is currently the world leader in open source development and proactive policies, as well as research on the subject of open source. There is thus a great potential in enhancing existing levels of international cooperation on this topic.

FLOSS provides benefits that are particularly important for developing countries. One obvious factor is cost. With no license fees to be paid, and no upgrade choices imposed by vendors, research has shown that costs can often be much lower with free software, especially in the long term. But a second important feature of FLOSS is adaptation, especially to local needs. In many parts of the world, FLOSS communities have allowed computers to reach people who may have previously been ignored by proprietary vendors. For instance, KhmerOS, a FLOSS initiative (and partner in this proposal), first provided Khmer speakers - the majority of the population in Cambodia - the ability to use computers in their own language across several application areas. Developing countries need to avoid being locked out of acquiring skills and competencies. Skills are crucial to technological take-up and innovation. The FLOSSPOLS and FLOSSWorld studies have shown that FLOSS works as a free-of-charge high quality training environment for technical as well as non-technical skills, such as teamwork. Worldwide surveys have shown that such skills are often more effectively learnt through community participation than from formal courses, and are valued by employers.

Despite these benefits to FLOSS, there remain large gaps between the present reality and the full potential FLOSS can provide for economic development and growth, innovation, competition and participation in the information society. This is especially true for large parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America where, although FLOSS is potentially a key enabler for entry into the information society, several barriers exist to the widespread use, deployment and development of FLOSS. These barriers exist at many levels, from the lack of information on FLOSS available to policy makers and ICT decision makers, through gaps in appropriate business models and support infrastructure, to technical issues with interoperability, security, accessibility and localisation that may hamper the easy deployment of FLOSS. Infrastructure and mindsets to encourage participants to play an active role in the global FLOSS developer community may also need to be instilled, in order to ensure that Europe and North America do not continue to dominate the actual development of FLOSS code.

Project Aim

This proposed project aims to strengthen Europe’s participation in international research in FLOSS and open standards, by studying what is needed to increase the deployment, development and societal impact of FLOSS in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Covering skills, government policies, business frameworks as well as actual technical requirements analysis, this project will result in a sound understanding of the FLOSS-related needs of the target regions; building a development policy community around FLOSS through dissemination and interaction; and supporting Europe’s significant role in FLOSS research collaborations with a roadmap for future EU R&D in the context of FLOSS and international collaboration.

Project Approach & Objectives

The project will build upon the work of the concluding FLOSSWorld project, which gathered data of unprecedented breadth through international FLOSS surveys, and follow three phases:

  1. Further analysis of available data, including surveys of developers, businesses, governments and higher education institutes, and data collected on hundreds of actual software projects from Africa, Asia and Latin America. This will identify key problem areas with high societal impact, especially in relation to affordability, maintainability, dependability, quality of service and security.
  2. Regional partners will further elaborate key issues for each region: societal issues, including awareness among policy makers; economic and business issues, interoperability and models for new businesses, employment generation and local value addition; technical / OSS tool-specific issues including security, localisation, maintainability and quality. This process will involve workshops and educational discussions with regional stakeholders, bringing together participants in technical and economic development – policy makers, businesses and the software / ICT community.

  3. Build a roadmap for future R&D to fill the gaps discovered, especially through the technical requirements analysis, with the intention to highlight R&D that could be supported by the EU through international cooperation.

We propose to have a consortium with a core of three EU partners, MERIT, FUNDECYT and URJC. The Ubuntu project will provide an trans-national dimension and regional partners will provide expertise and access to their networks.

  1. MERIT, as coordinator and particularly responsible for societal/economic issues;

  2. FUNDECYT, from the regional govt of Extremadura, which has implemented FLOSS widely in education and to generate local employment and businesses. They will draw on their own experience with the societal impact of FLOSS and government policy planning as well as their experience sharing their model through formal agreements with countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America;

  3. URJC, whose computer science department is very involved in FLOSS technical studies and has studied international differences in FLOSS contribution in the FLOSSWorld project;

  4. Ubuntu, the world’s most popular distribution of FLOSS software with lots of experience addressing technical usability, security, maintainability and related issues, especially in Africa from where the project originated. Ubuntu will be represented through Canonical;

  5. University of the Western Cape in South Africa, leading several FLOSS development projects as well as FLOSS-related R&D partner in FLOSSWorld;

  6. Fundacion via Libre in Argentina, FLOSSWorld partner which has extensive links to the FLOSS developer and policy community in several Latin American countries for the past several years;

  7. Tsinghua University, Beijing, the leading university in China and FLOSSWorld partner is home to the largest academic network CERNET , the source of several Chinese FLOSS development projects;

  8. ITfC (IT for Change) is a non-profit organisation located in India involved in policy synthesis and actual execution of development projects related to IT. They have organised innovative workshops bringing together high-level government officials, non-profit development agencies and software developers to work out practical ways of using IT for development;

  9. Sarai / Centre for the Study of Developing Societies is a non-profit organisation in India that has been involved in several FLOSS development efforts including Indian language versions of Linux and OpenOffice;

  10. Open Institute, a non-profit organisation based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, is behind the KhmerOS project and helps implement the government’s Master Plan for the Implementation of Open Source Software in Cambodia. Its coordinator, Javier Sola, has been involved in localisation projects in several countries across Asia.

Participating Organisations

The following organistions are contracted to the project:

  • UM
    • NL: University of Maastricht – UNU-MERIT
  • URJC
    • ES: Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid
  • FUND
    • ES: Government of Extremadura –FUNDECYT
  • FVL
    • Argentina: Fundacion via libre
  • UWC
    • South Africa: University of the Western Cape
  • IT4C
    • India: IT for Change

  • OpenInst

    • Cambodia: Open Institute / KhmerOS
  • CERNET
    • China: China Education Research Network
  • Canonical, Ubuntu
    • Isle of Man: Canonical Ltd
  • Sarai
    • India: Sarai/Centre for Study of Developing Societies
  • CAMP
    • Brazil: University of Campinas

Project Coordinator

  • Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (based in San Francisco)

Canonical/Ubuntu Contact

FLOSSInclude (last edited 2010-07-27 15:45:36 by c-98-195-219-156)