Fwd: Better Living Through Open Source?

Subject: Better Living Through Open Source?
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 15:10:27 +0700
From: Michael Coleman <michael.coleman@undp.org>

TECHNOLOGY:
* Better Living Through Open Source?*
Stephen Leahy

*BROOKLIN, Canada, Mar 20 (IPS) - Electronic governance promises to cut
corruption and improve transparency, and open source software offers a
way to break the South's technological dependence on industrialised
countries, experts say. *

Open source software such as Linux is non-proprietary, less complex,
more efficient and freely available to anyone -- unlike Microsoft's
Windows operating system, says Mike Reed, director of the United Nations
University (UNU) International Institute for Software Technology
(UNU-IIST), based in Macao, China.

"Linux is now the fastest growing software and powers eight of the 10
fastest supercomputers in the world," Reed told IPS.

Open source software like Linux is embedded in many types of electronic
devices like mobile phones and cameras. Open source is also starting to
cut into the near complete domination of the personal computer market by
the Windows operating system, he said.

"Developing countries can't afford to buy Windows-based software. The
basic Windows operating system costs a year and half salary for the
average Vietnamese citizen," he noted.

That's led to rampant theft or illegal copying of Microsoft software.
However, such software cannot be modified or customised to meet local
needs. Companies and governments have no other choice than to commission
expensive custom programming from California's Silicon Valley.

Open source, on the other hand, is easy to customise and not
particularly difficult to learn, says Reed.

Although Linux has been around for more than 10 years, only a few
developing countries like Brazil have a significant number of home-grown
open source programmers. And without local programmers, setting up
electronic governance -- use of computer technology by governments to
improve public access to information and services -- becomes very
expensive and difficult.

Access to computers is one major problem in the developing world, and so
is the lack of local programming projects so that programmers can learn,
says Reed.

Vietnam is one exception. A few years ago Vietnam launched a very
ambitious effort to modernise, developing its own version of Linux
called Vietkeylinux, partnering with the computer chip manufacturer
Intel and moving to electronic governance (e-governance).

"Vietnam has more things on-line than the U.S. government," Reed said.

Isolated Vietnamese villages now have public computer kiosks where
citizens can conduct business with the government on line such as
registering for birth certificates.

"That reduces mid- to low-level government corruption because it's
easier to keep track of paperwork and everything is visible and public,"
he said.

Government services are easier and cheaper to provide electronically.
And such an electronic/information infrastructure and expertise in these
areas is crucial for a country like Vietnam to successfully participate
in the global economy.

South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore are very successful examples of low
levels of corruption and high levels of economic activity that other
Asian countries are hoping to emulate, Reed said.

The information revolution has been very slow in reaching two-thirds of
the world, according to Darrell West, an e-governance researcher at the
Centre for Public Policy at Brown University in the U.S.

"Many countries don't have the money and some don't see the benefits or
have the desire to make the public sector open and transparent," West
told IPS.

In an exhaustive survey of the e-governance capabilities of 191
countries, West found that it is practically non-existent in most
African countries, as well as those in the Middle East. While money is
the main problem in the former, the latter are dominated by "rich
monarchical governments that have a very different view of public
service and are not interested in e-governance", he said.

Although e-governance can reduce "street-level corruption", the biggest
motivator for most countries is to improve their economic development
and boost their trade capacity, he said.

In the long term, West is optimistic. "Countries are beginning to see
the benefits and the cost reductions of e-governance," he said. However,
launching such initiatives isn't easy and requires technical expertise,
financing and political leadership, Reed added.

It required a major two-year effort in the UNU home base of Macau, on
the coast of China. Among the most difficult parts of moving to
e-governance is getting government departments to open up, share their
information and cooperate with each other, he said..

"It used to require permissions and licenses from 10 different agencies
to start a business in Macau. Now there is just one on-line form," the
researcher explained. And it took a strong leadership that insisted that
government officials make it happen, he said.

The impoverished country of Nepal was on the verge of achieving a good
level of e-governance until the current political strife erupted a year
ago. Nepal's high level of literacy and good mathematical education made
it possible to develop Nepalese programmers who, with UNU training and
two million dollars in outside funding, built an open source
e-governance infrastructure for the country.

E-governance in Nepal is effectively on hold now, said Reed.

This month, India announced an extremely ambitious national e-governance
plan to computerise data in public sector banks, insurance companies and
tax departments, create national citizen databases, put passports, visas
and immigration information and data on line and much more. The two-year
effort is expected to cost 1.5 billion dollars.

To assist these e-governance attempts and to help other countries get
started, the UNU has established an interactive information
clearinghouse on the Internet that it calls UneGov.net.

In addition to having instructional how-to materials on line, the portal
will have software that can be used, and research papers and contact
information for others who have or are setting up e-governance in their
own countries.

The World Bank among other funding agencies are being approached.
Already, Vietnam is sharing some of its experience with Nigeria, Reed said.

"People love to share their success stories," he concluded. (END/2006)

To facilitate co-ordination regarding the introduction of OSS SW in Vietnam

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