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Open Source in Developing Countries

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Open Source in Developing Countries JANUARY 2004 • SANJIVA WEERAWARANA • JIVAKA WEERATUNGA Open Source in Developing Countries Content About the Authors ......................................................................... 3 1 Executive Summary ................................................................... 5 2 Introduction ........................................................................... 10 2.1 Scope of Study ............................................................................ 10 2.2 Key Issues .................................................................................... 11 2.3 What is Open Source .................................................................. 11 3 Open Source Phenomenon and Dynamics ................................ 14 3.1 Historic Development ................................................................. 14 3.2 Motivational Model ..................................................................... 16 3.3 Organizational Model ................................................................. 19 4 Open Source and Software Markets ......................................... 22 4.1 Software Products Market ........................................................... 22 4.2 Embedded Software and Services Market .................................. 23 4.3 Software-Related Services Market .............................................. 23 5 Business Models Based on Open Source Software ................... 24 5.1 Developing Country Business Models......................................... 25 6 Open Source Strategy for Developing Countries ....................... 27 6.1 Opportunities and Threats for Developing Countries ................ 28 6.2 Strategy Map for Developing Countries ..................................... 32 6.3 Strengths and Weaknesses of IT Infrastructure and skills for Developing Countries ...................... 35 7 Strategy Implementation ......................................................... 37 7.1 IT Policy ...................................................................................... 37 7.2 Advocacy and Education............................................................. 40 7.3 Capacity Building in the Local Software Industry ...................... 41 7.4 Positioning the Local Software Industry in the Global Industry 42 7.5 E-Government ............................................................................. 43 8 Role Of Donor Agencies .......................................................... 45 8.1 Case Study: Sri Lanka ................................................................. 47 8.2 Related Work ............................................................................... 48 9 Conclusion ............................................................................. 50 1 10 References ............................................................................ 52 Appendix A. OSS Licenses........................................................... 55 A.1 The Legal Landscape is evolving................................................ 55 Appendix B. Open Source and Software Markets ........................... 58 B.1 The Software Market .................................................................. 58 B.2 Business dynamics and influence of Open Source software ...... 58 Appendix C. Business Models on open source software ................. 66 C.1 Overview .................................................................................... 66 C.2 OSS-related Services .................................................................. 69 Appendix D. Edgar Villanueva letter to Microsoft ........................... 72 Appendix E. Selected Survey Responses ...................................... 83 E.1 Linus Torvalds, Father of Linux ................................................. 83 E.2 Brian Behlendorf, Co-Founder Apache ...................................... 86 E.3 Michael Roberts, BellaNet .......................................................... 90 Appendix F. Paper on “Role of Open-Source in e-Sri Lanka” ............ 92 Appendix G. E-GovOS.org Guidelines for Viable Government Open Source Policy.................................... 97 Appendix H. License Fees and GDP Per Capita ........................... 100 Appendix I. Important OSS Information Sources .......................... 103 I.1 Books .......................................................................................... 103 I.2 Web sites..................................................................................... 103 I.3 Articles on economics of open source ....................................... 104 Appendix J. Terms of Reference ................................................. 105 Acknowledgements ................................................................... 109 Published by Sida 2004 Department for Infrastructure and Economic Cooperation Author: Sanjiva Weerawarana, Jivaka Weeratunge Printed by Edita Sverige AB, 2003 Art. no.: SIDA3460en ISBN 91-586-8613-4 This publication can be downloaded/ordered from www.sida.se/publications This document has been finaced by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Sida. Sida does not necessarily share the views expressed in this material. Responsibility for its contents rests entirely with the authors. 2 About the Authors Sanjiva Weerawarana received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Purdue University in 1994. After 3 years at Purdue as visiting faculty, he joined IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center, NY, USA in 1997 where he is currently a Research Staff Member in the Component Systems Group. He was previously manager of the group from 1999 until 2002. Since joining IBM Research he has focused on component-oriented program- ming approaches to distributed application infrastructure and is currently focusing on Web services, where he is a lead architect of IBM’s technical strategy. He was elected as a member of the IBM Academy of Technol- ogy in 2003. He has been involved with open-source software both in IBM and in Apache for several years. He was elected a member of the Apache Software Foundation in 2003 where he is active in the Web services project as a lead architect and implementer of several of the Apache Web services projects. He is the co-founder of the Lanka Software Foundation (LSF), a non-profit foundation formed in Sri Lanka to promote open-source participation from Sri Lanka. He is currently the Chairman and Executive Director of LSF. He is now resident in Sri Lanka and telecommutes to his work in New York. He is also a visiting lecturer in the Computer Science Department of the University of Moratuwa where he teaches classes and helps drive student R&D projects. Jivaka Weeratunge completed his MBA from the London Business School in 1978, having served articles at Turquand Young & Co. (presently Ernst & Young) and qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1974. He has worked as a business analyst in a multinational international headquar- ters in London, as a management consultant at Ernst & Young, as a chief executive of a fee related financial services company Forbes Finan- cial Services (Pvt) Ltd., in Sri Lanka and as a joint founder and managing director of his own management consulting company, Strategy Consult- ing Group. He was also jointly responsible for establishing and managing a fund management company, in which International Finance Corpora- tion, Templeton Group, National Development Bank, John Keels Group and the Central Finance Group were investors. His last assignment in 3 general management was to establish an investment holding company, which made strategic investments in mini-hydro power and information technology. He is the co-founder of the Lanka Software Foundation (LSF), a non- profit foundation formed in Sri Lanka to promote open-source participa- tion from Sri Lanka. He has also been a member of the Board of Direc- tors of the Colombo Stock Exchange and several public quoted compa- nies. He is engaged in a management consulting practice at present. 4 1 Executive Summary The case for a developing country to adopt an open source software (OSS) driven Information Technology strategy is a compelling one. In a wider context IT is about the production, flow and control of informa- tion in a modern state and the rules which govern such activities are thus fundamental to its economic development. Software is a driver of those rules. OSS under these circumstances cannot be viewed as a mere product choice. It reflects more fundamentally an alternative strategy for building, maintaining and changing the rules that govern information flows in the economy. To create value or wealth in a developing country economy as a matter of pragmatic strategy it must create business opportunities for private firms, reduce cost of IT investment in the private and/or public sectors of the economy and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of government. A strategy map has been developed to demonstrate that OS based strategic initiatives will create value through the key drivers of business opportunities, reduced investment cost and greater efficiency and effectiveness of government. These strategic initiatives which are primarily driven by government encompass IT policy, advocacy and education, capacity building, E-government and positioning of the country’s IT industry in a globally competitive one. The actual execution of such strategies require in varying degrees, collaboration between government, universities and educational institutions and private firms. It must be emphasized however that the momentum generated by such
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