OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE COULD BOOST ICT SECTOR IN
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
SAYS UNCTAD REPORT
Free and open-source software (FOSS) - software that has made its source
code or programming language public - is dramatically affecting the evolving
information and communications technology (ICT) landscape. Multinational
companies and governments have begun using it in earnest, and influential
software firms that previously balked at its anti-proprietary nature have
now stepped into the fray. But aside from what it means to the computer
industry and the business community in general, FOSS has major implications
for developing countries, reducing barriers to market entry, cutting costs
and facilitating the rapid expansion of skills and technology. It may
"dramatically improve the digital inclusion of the developing world", finds
UNCTAD in its E-commerce and Development Report 2003 , released today.
As computer hardware becomes increasingly sophisticated and reliable, the
software to go with it is more and more complicated, sometimes more
expensive and almost always more difficult to configure and maintain. FOSS
produces better software that can match the unending improvements in
hardware - which explains the promise it holds for developing countries. Its
success demonstrates that complex software can be built, maintained,
developed and extended without anyone owning the underlying intellectual
property. As such, the Report contends, it represents "a viable mode of
software production that presents a real choice for firms and governments
making ICT decisions", particularly in developing countries.
With the emergence of FOSS, software use policy becomes an important issue,
and the Report maintains that countries need to reformulate ICT policy
accordingly if they are to benefit from it. An annual publication of UNCTAD
since 2001, it looks at developments in the area of e-commerce and ICT,
particularly as they relate to developing countries. This year's edition
examines FOSS and some of the issues involved in choosing between
open-source and proprietary software.
What is FOSS?
The "free" in FOSS means the freedom to run a programme for any purpose,
study how it works and adapt it to one's own needs, redistribute copies to
others, improve the programme and share those improvements with the
community so that all benefit. Its open source code - which is how software
was originally developed in the 1960s -- encourages users to freely inspect,
modify and redistribute derivative versions. Its copyright statements vary
in strictness and formality. All FOSS programmes, however, promote the
notion that the source code - a list of instructions that make up the
"recipe" for a particular software application -- should not be "closed" by
making it the property of a particular business or institution which might
then cease to distribute it publicly and impose legal and technical
restrictions on copying, alteration and redistribution. Its technological
opposite, closed-source or proprietary software, is "the touchstone of the
conventional intellectual property regime for computer software", the Report
says, and "an important reason why the software industry can generate
sizeable revenues and earnings". The source code of proprietary software is
deliberately kept secret by its producers, who rely on user licences and
copy protection technology to restrict users' rights to copy and install
their programmes. The open-source process inverts that logic.
UNCTAD believes that FOSS is here to stay for the foreseeable future: it is
unlikely that anyone using a personal computer connected to the Internet
today is not regularly accessing some FOSS programme. More than half of all
Internet servers are running on FOSS versions of the UNIX operating system,
and 30% run on the GNU/Linux operating system. Some 65% of Internet servers
use the open-source Apache Web server to send out webpages, while the
FOSS-based Sendmail software routes about 40% of all e-mail travelling over
the Internet. Nearly 90% of all domain name system (DNS) servers rely on
FOSS to match Web addresses (URLs) to the computers that host website files.
As such FOSS products as GNU/Linux, Apache and OpenOffice gain market share,
a large part of the IT industry is developing FOSS-based products (see
table). IBM is now a major champion of open-source software, and last year
announced $1-billion-plus revenues from sales of Linux-based software,
hardware and services. Other technology leaders, including Hewlett-Packard,
Motorola, Dell, Oracle, Intel and Sun Microsystems, have also made major
commitments to FOSS.
Wide range of benefits
Open-source environments often produce reliable, secure and upgradeable
software at relatively low cost. FOSS helps eliminate the national-level
economic losses resulting from duplication of work, particularly in public
and academic settings. It can have an anti-monopolistic effect on the IT
market and industry in a country because it allows anyone to provide IT
services, administration, management and maintenance for compliant software
and thus reduces barriers to entry. FOSS also helps users avoid getting
locked into financially disadvantageous and long-term relationships with
particular proprietary software vendors or producers.
Open-source software also meets the need for public and open standards for
software applications and data files that handle public information. It
saves governments being forced to upgrade or convert hardware or software
systems when vendors discontinue support for technical or financial reasons,
with the resulting cost implications.
FOSS can also produce synergistic effects throughout the IT services
industry and the broader economy, leading to job creation and export
opportunities, UNCTAD finds. Its ability to "look under the hood" allows for
extensive customization that can take account of the technical, commercial,
regulatory, cultural and linguistic particularities of a multitude of users
and localities. Its low cost may accelerate overall ICT adoption in
developing countries, particularly given the increasingly stringent
enforcement of intellectual property rights demanded by proprietary software
producers. Money spent on licences may be better used to create more and
better technically qualified employees whose skills can be put to wider use,
providing higher service levels than is possible with proprietary
applications. Such experts could perform real software development, fix
"bugs" rather than just reporting them, and eventually create customized
software for export. By making FOSS a policy prerogative, governments can
ensure that the sharing of software knowledge benefits all IT stakeholders,
down to the end user.
While cost reduction is not a goal, it is a useful side benefit that FOSS
tends to be more affordable. The service component for managing a software
environment in a public or corporate institution can be so high as to reduce
proprietary software licensing costs and fees to a marginal status, but this
may not always be the case in developing countries, where the services of an
IT expert and programmer may be available locally, unlike the hard currency
needed to pay for licences and upgrades.
An often-debated notion is how local ICT industries can develop if they are
"giving away" their intellectual property by producing and using FOSS. The
reality is that the bulk of ICT software business comes from selling
solutions that bundle system development, deployment and management,
software customization and hardware, rather than just end-user licences.
