<incom> FW: [Wsis-pct] Free and Open Source Software at the United
Nations
Gurstein, Michael
gurstein at ADM.NJIT.EDU
Sun Aug 6 00:13:41 CEST 2006
-----Original Message-----
From: wsis-pct-bounces at fsfeurope.org
[mailto:wsis-pct-bounces at fsfeurope.org] On Behalf Of Dr. Francis MUGUET
Sent: July 22, 2006 6:11 AM
To: wsis-pct at fsfeurope.org
Subject: [Wsis-pct] Free and Open Source Software at the United Nations
FYI
recent article :
http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2006/07/20/un_and_foss.html
Free and Open Source Software at the United Nations
by David Boswell
07/20/2006
Advances in technology have revolutionized the way people live, learn
and work, but these benefits have not spread around the world evenly. A
digital divide exists between communities in their access to computers,
the Internet, and other technologies. The United Nations is aware of the
importance of including technology development as part of a larger
effort to bridge this global digital divide. This article looks at how
various United Nations agencies use free and open source software to
meet the goal of putting technology at the service of people around the
world.
The Millennium Development Goals
The Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) are a set of eight targets to
help end extreme poverty worldwide by 2015. The United Nations
Information and Communication Technologies Task Force, created in March
2001, has worked to advance the development goals and targets of the UN,
in particular those set by the Millennium Declaration. The Global
Alliance for ICT and Development (GAID) group replaced UNICTTF, and now
has the task of providing an open policy dialogue on the role of
information and communication technologies in development.
In their report The Role of Information and Communication Technologies
in Global Development: Analyses and Policy Recommendations, the Task
Force states that information and communication technologies will
increasingly become one of the main enablers in the pursuit of poverty
alleviation and wealth creation in developed and developing countries
alike. It's easy to overlook the importance of technology in
development, though. When people are starving and don't have access to
clean water, does it matter if they have access to the Internet?
Technology is not an end in itself in these situations, but it is a tool
to achieve wider goals such as eradicating hunger and achieving
universal primary education.
To help raise awareness of the potential for free and open source
software in this area, various UN organizations and nonprofits have
created the FOSS: Policy and Development Implications (FOSS-PDI)
initiative. Part of this initiative consists of a mailing list that
discusses specific FOSS applications that address the different MDGs,
information about how different countries are using open source
software, and coordination for events being planned around the world.
International Open Source Network
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) created the
International Open Source Network (IOSN) with the goal of helping
developing countries in the Asia-Pacific Region achieve rapid and
sustained economic and social development by using free and open source
software. To achieve this goal, the IOSN acts as an open source
information repository, maintains a database of FOSS programmers and
experts, offers technical support and training, and provides research
and development grants to programmers to work on localization efforts
and local font development. IOSN also organizes and sponsors events to
help advocate on behalf of FOSS and creates primers and guides for the
use of FOSS in education, government, and other areas.
IOSN hosts information about how different countries are getting
involved in the open source community. The IOSN country report for Sri
Lanka has information about how local developers quickly built the
Sahana Disaster Management System to help coordinate the relief effort
after the country was hit by a tsunami in 2004. Other IOSN Sri Lanka
contributions include several Sinhala-enabled Linux distributions and a
Linux download accelerator. There are additional country reports for
Cambodia, China, India, and Malaysia.
Although the IOSN effort works only within the Asia-Pacific region, the
UNDP is promoting the use of FOSS in other developing countries. For
example, there is an initiative to support local e-government projects
in South-Eastern Europe. The pilot project was started in Bulgaria, and
there are plans to extend to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia,
Serbia and Montenegro, and Romania. A (PDF) report on progress of the
South-Eastern Europe e-government project shows that eight
municipalities have migrated to FOSS, providing cost savings and
increased effectiveness of services.
The project is part of a larger UNDP Global Programme focused on
developing national capacities by establishing a series of regional
centers using FOSS. Currently, all coordination happens on a national
and regional scale, because there is considerable opposition to using
FOSS for development coming from parts of the developed world. Most of
the traditional software industry has its base in the developed world;
there is concern that promoting FOSS could hurt this industry. From the
developing countries' perspective, however, FOSS is a way to introduce
competition in order to lower costs and expand options. The different
views of the role of software in development have hindered the UN's
ability to create a single coherent strategy for FOSS to apply to all
member states.
Free & Open Source Software Portal
The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) has also recently become interested in using free and open
source software as part of its own programs. UNESCO's mission is to
promote international collaboration through education, science, and
culture. They have recognized that FOSS can play a key role in extending
and disseminating human knowledge. In a review of UNESCO's activities in
this area, Jean-Claude Dauphin, Computer Systems Analyst from the
Information Society Division, states that "the software development
models used by FOSS movements are also good examples of the power of
sharing knowledge. These models encourage international solidarity,
collaboration, and voluntary community work."
UNESCO has created a Free & Open Source Software Portal that both
promotes existing FOSS projects and hosts free and open source software
created and released by the United Nations. The portal, started in
November 2001, focuses on providing software that matches UNESCO's
fields of competence: specifically, information processing applications
and education tools. Future additions to the portal may add
collaborative development tools that would allow for certain developers
to host their own projects on the site.
UNESCO has developed several projects in cooperation with libraries,
universities, and programmers from many different countries. They
include:
* IDAMS (Internationally Developed Data Analysis and Management
Software), a software package used for data mining, numerical
information processing, and statistical analysis.
* Open eNRICH, a tool that assists with the creation and sharing of
locally relevant content and knowledge between communities.
* CDS/ISIS (Computerized Documentation Service/Integrated Set of
Information Systems), an information storage and retrieval system used
by libraries around the world.
* Greenstone, a suite of software for building and distributing
digital library collections.
* The Virtual Laboratory Toolkit, a suite of communication tools
that allow people separated physically to coordinate on scientific
projects.
UNESCO's CDS/ISIS software is part of a (PDF) multilingual library in
Amman, Jordan. Greenstone is in use in Africa as part of training local
archivists and librarians to create and customize digital libraries.
Free software is also part of UNESCO's radio-in-a-box prototype that
features a self-contained laptop and transmitter that can quickly set up
a broadcasting station in remote areas or in disaster areas with damaged
infrastructure.
One Laptop per Child
In 2002, Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued a challenge to Silicon
Valley to create the technologies that would enable the digital
have-nots to enter the Information Age. He urged the information
technology industry to "broaden its horizon and bring more of its
remarkable dynamism and innovation to the developing world." He also
announced that the General Assembly was planning to hold a World Summit
on the Information Society in 2003 in Geneva and in 2005 in Tunis.
Many organizations and groups have worked to answer this challenge.
There have been several low-cost computing initiatives started in the
last few years, including India's Simputer project, Intel's Community PC
program, and AMD's 50x15 initiative. Perhaps the most well known of
these efforts is the $100 laptop project. The One Laptop Per Child
(OLPC) organization is a nonprofit created by Nicholas Negroponte, the
former director of MIT's Media Lab. The OLPC's goal is to create a
laptop to sell for $100 each to governments to give away at no cost to
school-aged children.
The $100 laptop, designed specifically for use in developing countries,
should reach production in 2007. The laptops will consume very low
amounts of energy and will come with a crank to provide manual power
without the need to plug in to an existing power source. FOSS is a
crucial component to the success of this initiative. The laptop will
come installed with free and open source software in order to help reach
the $100 price point and to allow for the creation of localized
education applications and content.
At the summit in Tunis in 2005, Kofi Annan helped Negroponte demonstrate
an OLPC prototype. The United Nation's involvement with the project took
a step forward the next year at the 2006 World Economic Forum in Davos.
At Davos, Kemal Dervis, head of the UNDP, signed a memorandum of
understanding with the OLPC stating that the UNDP will work closely with
OLPC and other UN agencies on the ground to assist national governments
deploy the laptops to targeted public schools.
Other UN Agencies
Several other UN agencies also use FOSS to support their own missions.
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has
promoted the benefits of FOSS for trade through reports and conferences.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has
developed several of FOSS applications that provide spatial mapping
functions, food production analysis tools, and animal disease data
management.
In April 2006, the United Nations University (UNU) hosted a conference
about knowledge issues in open source and medicine that analyzed the
role of FOSS and other collaborative models of knowledge production in
economic development. The UNU's International Institute for Software
Technology (IIST), has also recently launched the Global Desktop Project
as part of an effort to increase the number of open source developers in
East Asia. The UNU is also hosting UNeGov.net, a site that provides a
forum for exchanging experiences, sharing technical information, and
reaching consensus on the best practices in the field of electronic
governance.
Too Early to Tell
The United Nation uses FOSS in various ways across several different
agencies. Most of the initiatives have only begun recently, so it is too
early to tell if the promise of information technology in general and of
free and open source software in particular will be able to live up to
their potential. There is no doubt that technological advances can
improve people's lives around the world, but will software that is
freely available and free to customize be able to play a part in
bridging the gap between those that already have access to technology
and those that do not?
David Boswell has been involved in the Mozilla community for more than
six years. He is also a coauthor of Creating Applications with Mozilla
and helped launch mozdev.org.
--
------------------------------------------------------
Francis F. MUGUET Ph.D
MDPI Foundation Open Access Journals
Associate Publisher
http://www.mdpi.org http://www.mdpi.net
muguet at mdpi.org muguet at mdpi.net
ENSTA Paris, France
KNIS lab. Director
"Knowledge Networks & Information Society" (KNIS)
muguet at ensta.fr http://www.ensta.fr/~muguet
World Summit On the Information Society (WSIS)
Civil Society Working Groups
Scientific Information : http://www.wsis-si.org chair
Patents & Copyrights : http://www.wsis-pct.org co-chair
Financing Mechanismns : http://www.wsis-finance.org web
UNMSP project : http://www.unmsp.org
WTIS initiative: http://www.wtis.org
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