FOSS in the Philippines: A different face
March 12th, 2007Attending the FOSS conference I mentioned in my previous two posts has sort of given me a glimpse of some aspects of Free and Open Source Software in my country (the Philippines). I’m a newcomer to the FOSS scene, and much less in the local FOSS circles. In fact, my only connection to a local FOSS group is Ubuntu-PH (the Ubuntu Philippine Team). So if my views don’t accurately reflect reality, please pardon my ignorance. These are the thoughts and reflections of a benjamin.
1. FOSS in the Philippines, and in neighboring ASEAN countries has a more “social” face. In some countries like the U.S. and European countries, FOSS leans more towards the technical side. The primary concerns are code, standards, formats, etc. Here, focus is more on human development, education, and in making technology reach the common people. One speaker noted that FOSS has a very big social relevance, specially in third world countries. I believe this is one reason why FOSS has a more social identity here. We must first bridge the gap that separates technology and the common people before the technical benefits of FOSS is felt. In this sense, FOSS is a great way to bring technology to the masses, which is why the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project is a very interesting endeavor.
2. Cost is probably the biggest selling point of FOSS. More than the technical, moral, or legal merits of FOSS, lower costs is probably the most convincing factor in accepting FOSS, specially in government units (which the whole conference was focusing on). Interoperability, flexibility, adaptability, etc. are all good arguments for embracing FOSS. Yet price is always the bottom line in most of the reasons for choosing FOSS over proprietary software. Again, considering the economic situation of the Philippines, it’s not surprising that people find a low cost alternative particularly enticing.
3. FOSS security (more than stability) is the most common concern. It’s a common misconception that since the code is open and available for all, the system will be very susceptible to attacks and to malicious code being inserted. Of course this isn’t really accurate. Linux and BSD, being used on servers, are proof enough of the security of FOSS. I guess this fear is brought about by the presumption that anyone at anytime can modify code upstream. Anyone who has worked for any big FOSS project knows how difficult it is to get an SVN account to be able to commit code directly.
4. FOSS is very much still a geek thing. While ordinary people in other parts of the world are already using Firefox or OpenOffice.org, and while in some other parts of the world, Linux is not an alien word, such terms still strike a mixture of fear, reverence, and awe in the hearts of Filipino people. Even among people involved in IT, Linux users are revered as sages and masters. So stuff like Linux, KDE, and FOSS are still way up there, together with Star Trek.
These are just some reflections that I’ve had during the two-day conference. Like I said, they might not entirely be accurate, but I believe they’re not entirely wrong either. I think FOSS can play a very important and large role in the Philippines, not only in improving the ICT (Information and Communications Technology) industry, but more specially in improving computer literacy in the country, mostly by providing easy and affordable access to computers and software to the masses.
As a footnote, there’s a FOSS Bill that has been proposed in Congress, and it’s still in the works. This bill seeks to mandate (in one way or another) the use of Free and Open Source Software in government units. It doesn’t (and can’t) mandate anything on the private sector, though. I haven’t really looked into this bill, or the discussion surrounding it, since it has caused a lot of flames. But imho, the bill should focus more on promoting open standards first rather than on the software immediately. But that’s probably for another future post.
I still haven’t uploaded the photos I took of the event. Hooray for procrastination!
P.S. I’m writing this post using vim, or Vi IMproved, as part of my one- (or two-) week trial of two of the most highly debated text editors: vi vs. emacs. So far so good.
6-13 days to go. ^_^
Just some small updates, while I'm trying to get off my ass and migrate the site completely to Textpattern.
January 9th, 2008 at 1:37 am
[...] nicks, and to get to know other people involved with FOSS in the country. I was also treated to a different face of FOSS from what I’ve been used to in my limited world of the Internet. FOSS in the Philippines, and [...]