NGOs, SEARCHING LONG FOR ALTERNATIVES, FIND FLAVOUR IN ALT.SOFTWARE >From Frederick Noronha
For an sector that talks of alternatives, the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or voluntary sector stays surprisingly aloof from one significant alternative that has really worked -- free software. But there are stirrings to bridge this huge chasm. In end-January, India's technology mecca Bangalore is to be the venue for an international 'camp' meant to promote FLOSS among the NGO sector. Others talk of building 'another world'; in free software, it is already there. Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS, using the newish acronomy that better describe both diverse strands that make it up) today allows just about anyone to avoid globally dominant players, and to find more freedom-oriented options. It also, at the same time, works very efficiently in the growing world of computing. Asia Source, as the 'tech camp' is called, will be held from January 28 to February 4, 2005 and "hopes to bring together over a hundred people from 20 countries to increase the use and awareness of FLOSS amongst the non-profit sector in South and South East Asia." There will be participants coming in from a range of backgrounds. Sucharat "Ying" Sathapornanon from Thailand looks after IT for the Asia-Pacific Regional Resource Center for Human Rights Edcuation. says Ying: "I hope to learn more new skills, exchange tips and share experiences. Interaction and discussion between people from different cultures have enriched me a lot (in the past). I wish to gain a lot of knowledge in the global family of this camp." Umesh Pradhan comes in from Thimphu, Bhutan. Prior to launching his own software firm, he worked with the Royal Institute of Management as the training coordinator and was involved in the promotion of ICTs (information and communication technologies) there. Ujjwal from Nepal is a "technical supporter" of organizations like Wildlife Watch Group (WWG), Environment Camps for Conservation Awareness (ECCA), and Kathmandu 2020. Currently, they've launched a 'Crafted in Kathmandu' concept to preserve the craftmenship in the valley. This hopes to leverage the world wide market to preserve the world heritage cities. Yee Yee Htun from Myanmar lives along the Thai-Myanmar border, and is a volunteer webmaster for AAPPB (Assistance Association for Political Prisoners-Burma) -- www.aappb.org -- and a member of the Democratic Party for New Society. Alecks Pabico from the Philippines is a journalist working with the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. Says he: "In the center's multitasking scheme of things, I'm designated the online manager (only because nobody was "techie" enough for the job) and also double as training assistant." Kuma Raj Subedi of Nepal has launched the Silicon Village Computer Institute -- http://opart.org/svcs www.dbev.de -- which provides courses to local school and uiversity students and we have started some localisation projects. >From a range of Asian countries, NGOs and grassroots technology support professionals will come in "to learn new skills, exchange tips, and share experiences", organisers say. Local hosts reminded participants that Bangalore is famous for its silk, sandle wood, handicrafts, designer jewelery and (tasty vegetarian) food. But beyond the names and faces and local attractions, there's a more important message. FLOSS bestows on the user four freedoms -- freedom to use the software for any purpose; freedom to study how the software works; freedom to modify the software; and freedom to share the software with others. From a technical perspective, this can be used to reduce costs and hardware requirements while also improving security, reliability, performance, stability, and scalability. >From a wider philosophical perspective, FLOSS can transform patterns of access, usage, control and ownership of knowledge and technologies. Globally, FLOSS has grown after several hundred thousand hackers and students scattered across the globe collaborated to produce a unified body of knowledge without resorting to hierarchical structures and exploitative relationships. This movement is also seen by some to demonstrate how wealth can be created by entrepreneurs in the free market without using the proprietary copyright regime. LOCALISATION, THE KEY In Bangalore, four themes will flow throughout the event. FLOSSophy for NGOs (or, why Free Software and Open Source makes sense), migration and access to non-proprietorial software, tools for content-building and communication, and the localisation of computing to make it relevant to countries across Asia. Elizabeth, originally Timorese (from East Timor), is currently doing her internship at the Open Forum of Cambodia with KhmerOS (Khmer Open Source). The KhmerOs is working to localise software to Khmer, the Cambodian language. Says she: "I'm learning from them while also preparing a localization document for Tetum, one of our national language in Timor Leste." Tetum uses the Latin script with some accents, since it has words imported from Portuguese. For Sanat Kumar Bista, an assistant professor of computer science and engineering at Kathmandu University, this isn't just a good escape from the chilly Nepalese cold, but is a chance for building useful links too. Bista has been working on the Nepali language Computing Project. Talat Numanov from Dushanbe, Tajikistan works in Central Asian Development Agency as an IT specialist, and his goal is to learn more about FLOSS and distribute it to users. Says he: "My friends use Mandrake Linux (because it has been localised to Tajik)." Russell T. Kyaw Oo from Myanmar says: "I am focusing on localization, translation and modification. Recently I have been doing localization and translation on Zope/Plone Content Management Interface to simplify ICTs for each and everyone of Burma/Myanmar's ethnics' nationalities. I am also involved with Burma Internet Guide (BIG) group, which intends to penetrate through to the six major ethnic groups by localizing the sources regarding media news, human rights, political views, democracy, ICT knowledge -- which are otherwise beyond their reach and they have a very less chance to get in their own languages. Visit us at our site http://www.burmait.net " If all goes as planned, the guests from overseas should be meeting up with Guntupalli Karunakar. This soft-spoken extremely low-key Mumbai-based champion of localisation is one of the quiet workers contributing hugely but silently to the cause. He's part of the Indian Linux Project (http://www.indlinux.org). Explains Karunakar: "My primary experience is in F(L)OSS localization. I have been working on this for last four years, We have almost completed Hindi localization part." Not-so-friendly neighbouring regions are sometimes united by common concerns. From Pakistan, Sufyan told Karunakar in a pre-conference online discussion: "We at Open Source Resource Center of Pakistan (www.osrc.org.pk) will be grateful to you if you can give us an action plan for localization in Urdu. What expertise will we be needed? We are willing to hire experts who can perform the job. And if we dont get the experts, we can get our personnel trained." Localisation is an issue that many are addressing in the FLOSS world, and taking computing to communities which otherwise might just be seen as an unviable market. Javier Sola, a Spaniard living in Cambodia, is coordinator of the KhmerOS project. "Our goal is to make Cambodia OpenSource-Country by means of localization. I am an enthusiast of F(L)OSS localization. I believe that it is the key to adoption of F(L)OSS by users," says he. He has been also working on a "toolkit" on how to do FLOSS localization. In Javier's view, localization and making migration easy are the two "keys to FLOSS adoption". In Bangalore, he regrets not being able to attend both tracks. Hok Kakada, another Cambodian, works for the KhmerOS project, which she sees as aiming to "enable all the Cambodian people to use a computer in their own language". She says that by using FLOSS, their team has already localized a number of applications into the Khmer language -- actually, not just applications, but even the operating system as well. OVER A HUNDRED Over a hundred participants are expected at this global meet. Together with experts and specialists, they'll look at how technology and free and open source software makes sense within the non-profit sector -- in terms of access and content. Asia Source organisers -- the Dutch TacticalTech.org network and Mahiti.org in Bangalore -- say theirs will be the "first event of its kind" in the region. Peer-learning will take top priority. Participants will look at available options, learn how to select and apply alternative technologies. They'll access skills and tools to utilise this in their daily work. There will be experts to share the skills. Colin Charles, also from Malaysia, considers himself an "all round open source person, actively involved in The Fedora Project and OpenOffice.org." He has helped numerous NGOs, companies and individuals make the switch, first to the Windows-like Open Office and then to GNU/Linux. He's going to play the role of being one of the facilitators on the migration track, that guides people how to shift over to free software. Soon-Son 'Shawn' Kwon from South Korea works with a "big corporation" by day and by night has been managing the highly-successful Korean Linux Documentation Project, the biggest FLOSS portal in Korea since 1996. He does this "as a hobby". David Tremblay is a French Canadian volunteer working for Oxfam Quebec as an IT analyst in Ha Noi, Viet Nam. He says: "I'm implementing websites, intranet, extranet and networks using -- as much as I can -- open source, open standards and accessible technologies. I'm trying to build a strong open source community in Ha Noi. I'm also a proud [GNU]Linux desktop user." Tremblay argues that he wants "to raise awareness among my NGOs that are too often giving away computers without thinking what their are doing.... I want to raise awareness that software choice isn't genuine. Too often, they think of their computers as a hammer, and everything become a MS-nail." David's sig(nature) file to one recent email carries a quotation that said all about his belief-system: "To mess up a [GNU]Linux box, you need to work at it; to mess up your Windows box, you just need to work on it." One of the more colourful and high-profile though is "Rasta coder" Jaromil. Denis 'Jaromil' Rojo is the maintainer of dyne:bolic, HasciiCam MuSE and FreeJ. He calls himself "a nomadic rastafari of south Italian origins" and a free software developer. Dynebolic (dynebolic.org) comes out with a GNU/Linux multimedia-oriented distribution. Jaromil sees it as being suitable for "audio/video manipulation, network radio streaming, veejaying and anything else we can come up with together". He points out that this is a "100% free" operating system. (In the world of FLOSS, the word 'free' doesn't refer to zero-cost, but refers to the freedom to run, study, redistribute and improve software.) Dyne:bolic GNU/Linux is a live bootable cd, containing a whole operating system that works straight from boot, without the need to install or change anything on the hard disk. It is user-friendly: recognizes your hardware devices (sound, video, firewire, and USB), and offers a really vast range of free software applications for multimedia production, audio and video manipulation, sound composition and synthesis, 3D modeling, photography, peer2peer filesharing, web browsing, desktop publishing, word processing, cd burning, email, encryption, remote conferencing, funky games, a world atlas navigator and even more. Rasta software? What's that? Jaromil is making a political point through his work. Says he: "This is Rasta software! It is about Resistance in a babylon world which tries to control and limit the way we communicate and we share informations and knowledge." Besides, it wants to be inclusivist too. As Jaromil puts it: "This software is for all those who don't want to afford the latest expensive hardware to speak out their words of consciousness and good will, still offering a complete operating system with more features than some other proprietary system affected by viruses and full of spyware." Jaromil stresses that the roots of Rasta culture can be found in Resistance to slavery. Says he: "This software is not a business. This software is free as of speech and is one step in the struggle for Redemption and Freedom. This software is dedicated to the memory of Patrice Lumumba, Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King, Steve Biko, Walter Rodney, Malcom X, Mumia Abu Jamal and all those who still resist to slavery, racism and oppression, who still fight imperialism and seek an alternative to the hegemony of capitalism in our World." At the 'camp', there will be a range of sessions. From planning and helping an NGO to migrate to FLOSS, to sharing tips and techniques on using tools for content development, advocacy and campaigning. In parallel to this they will look beneath user-level scenarios, and break-down tricky issues such as techniques for localising software and forms of understanding the real cost of technology use. Asia Source will be held in a small artists community on the outskirts of Bangalore. But perhaps this needs to be recognised as an endeavour that goes beyond just code. FLOSS ideals are spreading to other fields. It's amazing to see the manner in which the sharing of knowledge and information is catching on in other circles too. Today, like sharing Free Software, the same ideals are growing in fields like open law, open source biology, MIT's OpenCourseWare, Project Gutenberg and Books Online (that distributes e-texts free online), free dictionaries and encyclopedias, and the open music movement. Mumbai-based Shekhar Krishnan, a freelance researcher and consultant, is also a social scientist and writer. He plans to help produce a half-hour video documentary on Asia Source and FLOSSophy, the philosophy of FLOSS. It's goal? To be used by the hackers and the free/libre and open source movement to explain their practices and projects to the NGO sector, and distributed as a low-cost and free speech media to other organisations. In keeping with the FLOSS style of creating collaboratively, Krishnan is keen to post their initial ideas for the script, and "invite everyone in the community to add their ideas and comments". There are others coming in with various planned contributions, backgrounds and experiences. Bangalorean Kiran Jonnalagadda will be conducting sessions on 'open publishing'. He jokes: "I'd much rather be taking pictures and listening to good music and generally hanging around, but I'm not complaining." Klaikong Vaidhyakarn has been manager at the Information Technology Institute for Education (ITIE), Thailand. ITIE is NGO that promotes and support ICT usage for NGOs, education institutes and community organizations. Says Klaikong: "We also use F(L)OSS for many of our projects, for example, free web hosting for non-profit organizations, live radio streaming server, E-learning application." VENTURES THAT MAKE SENSE Various experiments are seeing FLOSS being deployed to bridge the 'digital divide'. While the potential is vast, and significant achievements are being reported at the ground level, there probably just isn't enough awareness about it. Tomas Krag in Copenhagen runs a small non-profit called wire.less.dk. It works primarily with low-cost wireless solutions for remote areas (mostly in the so-called 'developing world'). With a background as a web-developer, technical architect, and technology evangelist, his interest is "in a variety of open (standards, source, spectrum, doors) technology solutions to bring more people on to the Internet, and make it a richer better place". Adi Nugroho lives in Makassar, a small town in Sulawesi Island in Indonesia. He's been using FLOSS since 1998. In March 1999, with some friends, they founded the Linux User Group Ujung Pandang, to learn GNU/Linux together and to help each other to migrate and use it. Way back in September 1999, they build iNterNUX, the first full-GNU/Linux Internet cafe in Indonesia, which use FLOSS for all servers and workstations. That too, at a time when FLOSS hadn't matured as it has now, and before the media hype drew 'Open Source' (its predecessor Free Software often gets ignored) the attention deserved. Their cybercafe subsequently grew into an Internet Service Provider (http://www.internux.net.id). Says Nugroho: "And of course we are still using Linux." SHIFTING TO THE CLASSROOM The 'free' bug and the 'knowledge sharing' virus is already catching on. Some discussions are looking at how FLOSS can be implemented in schools and colleges. Sayamindu Dasgupta, an amazing young man himself just out of his higher secondary and into college from Kolkata in eastern India, shared his experiences of running a localized 'LTSP' (Linux Terminal Server Project) for schools at the West Bengal University of Technology in Kolkata. Says he: "We also managed to enable sound over the network with our setup -- which was quite cool, since the thin clients could be turned into full fledged multimedia enabled systems." Sayamindu Dasgupta has himself worked on the Bengali Free Software localisation project (http://www.bengalinux.org). He has been also involved in some low cost computing projects -- involving thin clients running localised Free software. In addition, he helps FLOSS related projects and communities (www.ilug-cal.org, foundation.gnome.org, planet-india.randomink.org, etc). In terms of education too, participants have already shown an interest in how FLOSS solutions could be applied to the classroom. The Africa Source 2 event, due to take place in the months ahead, will concentrate on that issue, and reports are expected to examine two models -- the Schoolnet Namibia and Shuttleworth Foundation who have their TuxLab project. Bridges have also been built by some in tacticaltech.org and Skolelinux from Sweden -- who have a very good distro -- and Directlearn. In the pre-conference discussions -- thanks to the Internet, a 'conference' today starts before you even touch down -- Wire James from Uganda says he has been able to implement thin clients using Skole Linux in academic institutions in Uganda (with SchoolNet Uganda) and, more recently, in Nigeria where he recently took part in the Fantsuam project. "I find Skole Linux (www.skolelinux.org) a ready to roll solution," says James. Nigeria and Asia were quickly discussing how to make do with less -- using GNU/Linux solutions to do a job it has already got a lot of attention doing, that is, getting it to work with low-powered, older computers. In a world where getting access to a computer can still seem impossible for most, it's terribly wasteful to have to junk computers to the waste heaps, just because they are made obsolete by bloated software. DIVERSE INTERESTS There are others with diverse interests who plan to come in to Bangalore. Andrew from Melbourne works more on the "content side of things with Indymedia (the alternate global media network) nd with techs to put the technology into practice." Indymedia is an independent media network, that has varioius local sites in places like Melbourne, Oceania (for South East Asia and the Pacific). Andrew is working with others to build an online video network for the region. Commented Marcell: "I'm interested in packing some cybercafe liveCD which will enable people to manage usage from a server with descash and also set up thin clients environment all from 1 or 2 CDs (server and/or client)." Some interesting examples of FLOSS's use in NGOs -- or other circuits -- are already meanwhile already trickling in. ONG Pisey works with the Open Forum of Cambodia and uses SuSE Linux Professional on seven servers -- a DNS server, mail server, content management system server, webmail server and others. Erdenemunkh "Muno" Renchinnyam, from Mongolia's capital Ulaanbaatar, works for the Mongolia Development Gateway NGO as a technology coordinator. "Most of my work related to F(L)OSS," says he. Sufyan Kakakhel of Islamabad is with the Pakistan Software Export Board (www.pseb.org.pk) which has a project called the "Open Source Resource Center" (www.osrc.org.pk) The project aims to promote FLOSS in Pakistan, facilitate companies and individuals who want to work on it or migrate to OSS. Earlier, he worked as manager for corporate affairs at iinix Solutions -- www.iinix.com -- an open source company he and three friends founded. Said Sufyan: "The company is among those very few in Pakistan working exclusively for open source (support) and with a good web presence." NEEDING A LEG-UP IN ASIA In the West, FLOSS grew early. But in Asia it is a younger development, mainly because widespread public access to tools vital for collaboration -- like the Internet -- grew in these parts only very recently. >From Pakistan, Sufyan complains that FLOSS "is becoming famous" in Pakistan, but only at a very slow pace. In response, what the OSRC hopes to do is hold awareness workshops in universities across the country, plan training sessions for varsity instructors, build web portals (including discussions , mailing lists, download sections), and employ a couple of experts to assist people and firms to migrate to FLOSS free of cost. Another plan is also to make FLOSS CDs easily available to those needing them. In Bangalore, the camp is being supported by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and Aspiration. This event is sponsored by Hivos, the Open Society Institute, and the International Open Source Network (IOSN). This perhaps marks a shift in the approach of international development organisations, who have come to recognise that the Free Software approach to knowledge and skills makes the most sense in a world where poverty and illiteracy and unconquered enemies for a few thousands millions. Prior to this event, similar 'source' events have taken place in South East Europe, Southern Africa and are planned in 2005 in Western Africa. See http://www.tacticaltech.org/asiasource (ENDS) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha is a freelance journalist who writes often on Free Software, and can be emailed at fred at bytesforall.org # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net