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'Breaking Barriers' paper on open source and development

Posted to: Open Source by Douglas Arellanes (216), Thu, 26 Apr 2007 10:23:44 PDT
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Tags:  digital-divide open-source
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Viewed: 42 times by 21 members

I'm in Accra, Ghana, where I've been one of the facilitators of a training event for media organizations on the use of free and open source software. I've been both a presenter (presenting our Campcaster software for radio broadcasting, as well as our Campsite software for web-based news publishing).

The participants and facilitators have been excellent. One facilitator, Paul Scott of the University of Western Cape, has just finished a presentation on the Chisimba PHP framework (looks quite good). He also pointed us to an interesting report called 'Breaking Barriers: The Potential of Free and Open Source Software for Sustainable Human Development' by Nah Soon Hoe.

The paper includes a number of case studies, including Paul's AVOIR network to spread ICT competencies in Africa. It's definitely a must-have in terms of providing good arguments for promoting open source efforts anywhere.

http://www.ifap.ru/library/book1 36.pdf


By nmw (1876), Thu, 26 Apr 2007 11:11:02 PDT
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2 Excerpts from "Lessons Learned"

The four fundamental freedoms inherent in FOSS make it an ideal choice to bridge the digital divide and promote digital literacy to all people, irrespective of their geographical, economic or cultural situations.

versus (?)

It is important to partner with a good local organization for projects that are not developed by local people. To provide sustainability, local institutions and businesses that are actively committed to the project are needed to collaborate with technology providers. It should be remembered that volunteerism can only get a project so far; to ensure that the project can go to completion, it has to be properly funded and the people working on it paid realistically. Similarly, donor funding can take projects only so far. For projects to turn into proper, ongoing programmes and services, their initial design must take sustainability into account as a key design factor.

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interesting link nmw pos disc 80
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