Open Asia: Under the radar, FLOSS thrives

– by Frederick Noronha –
As we discussed last week, Free Software is flourishing in Korea and Japan, but the movement is strong elsewhere as well. Contrary to the presumption that GNU/Linux is almost unknown in Asia, FLOSS takes on
the shape of a ‘silent revolution’ — spreading across modems linking small brotherhoods (the lack of women’s participation in computing in Asia is an issue yet to be seriously addressed).

GNU/Linux is already reporting some interesting deployments in the populous
cash-strapped countries of the region. In India, it is no coincidence that a
number of low-cost PCs hitting the market are now opting for Free
Software-based solutions. China has already worked out national distros of
GNU/Linux that are in the local language and also meet national concerns in
terms of security. Pakistan has seen government initiatives to boost the
role of FLOSS, so as to become less dependent on proprietary software,
with it accompanying allegations of piracy against countries with low
incomes and poor conversion rates against the dollar. Thailand is finding
GNU/Linux a useful solution in its Schoolnet program.

Different regions in Asia seem to be playing diverging roles when it comes
to fitting into the global partnership that is GNU/Linux. Web sites of LUGs
in countries like Singapore and Pakistan suggest that users in these areas seem to see themselves as consumers of
internationally generated information coming out of the international FLOSS
marketplace. Such a positioning could be dependent on the
software base of the country involved, maturity of GNU/Linux skills, or even
the number of years for which countries involved have had widely available
access to the Internet. Other countries, like India, see themselves as significant
contributors to GNU/Linux since Net access first became
widespread as late as August 1997.

Earning from FLOSS

An Indian firm, Sanisoft, run by pediatrician-turned-software guru Dr. Tarique Sani, has propounded its own model for doing open source business. It says: “Having an open source business model does NOT mean that we will give away/open the code written for our clients, nor does it mean that we will do your work for free.” It says open source developers can make money by being selling support, earning from “accessories” that go with the software, or selling a product initally and then making it free, among a total of eight ways in which to earn from open source. Needless to say, such perspectives and approaches have implications for countries seeking to earn from software, the software producers themselves, and also so-called developing societies hoping to benefit from affordably-priced software.

Implications for the future

We are already seeing hints of how GNU/Linux could
positively impact Asia, especially in a developmental sense:

• Free/Libre and Open Source Software will open
  software and computing to a far wider segment of the
  people than proprietary software could. While ‘free’ does not refer to the price of software
  (but rather to the ‘freedom’ aspect), it is inevitable that
  the structure of the GPL licence will ensure that FLOSS
  prices will be far lower than proprietary software.
• Because of its not-for-profit-alone orientation, GNU/Linux
  is already spurring initiatives in which there is simply
  no money, but which are vital for Third World development
  in the long run. Take the case of GNU/Linux’s involvement
  in education and localisation — two very critical issues for
  the Third World. There are interesting examples from Thailand,
  India, and elsewhere. More significantly, the lessons learnt
  are being replicated in other regions.
  Such initiatives have spurred proprietary software companies
  to look closely, and promise funding, to fields like education,
  where until the late ’90s they were reluctant to even
  offer discounts for school software purchases.
• Ideas of sharing knowledge and skills have a subversive way
  of spreading to other areas, apart from software. We are already
  seeing this happen in the field of education (where the talk of
  sharing educational resources is catching on), and also in
  fields like journalism. Free Software Foundation founder Richard M. Stallman puts it aptly
  when he says: “The most fundamental way of helping other people is
  to teach people how to do things better, to tell people things
  that you know that will enable them to better their lives.”
• Free software products like Mailman have helped social campaigners
  to network and raise concerns of developmental importance. Other
  tools like PostNuke and PHPNuke have shown their ability to give
  non-technical but socially aware citizens the chance to
  communicate and share their ideas.
• At a technical level, the low barriers for entry into a
  ‘transparent’ OS like GNU/Linux make it easy for a wider segment
  to equip themselves with the required skills. Even in countries
  like India which have earned bulk of their software profits
  from proprietary software exports, the potential from this
  field is seen as a largely positive tradeoff.