The East Rand Linux Users Group (Elug) and SA Linux have agreed to work together to jointly promote Linux and open source software in South Africa and increase collaboration between open source companies.
“With over 380 members, Elug is ideally positioned to assist SA Linux members when it comes to skills sets,” said Elug spokesperson Jane Trembath. “More than that, the ability to collaborate means that we are exposing our members to new intellectual challenges which means everyone is gaining from the relationship.”
Trembath said that the South African open source industry was facing a significant challenge with a dearth of appropriate skills. She said that this lack of skills was exacerbating the challenges already faced by small open source companies.
The relationship will also see Elug and SA Linux collaborating on marketing and events, with the first major collaborative event taking place on the 19 September with two gatherings in the east of Gauteng to celebrate Software Freedom Day.
“Through considered collaboration many small companies can now produce marketing materials and advertise in media. The additional exposure can be invaluable to small and micro companies in a time in our economy when sales cycles are longer and IT spend has been cut,” said Andre Coetzee, SA Linux spokesperson.
People nominated to co-ordinate the various Elug resources are:
- Hennie Venter
- Lloyd Tucker
- Clive Whitburn
- John M Smith
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Open Source Resource Centre Launced
A centre that would serve as a hub to research and develop open source software in West Africa was opened at the Ghana India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) on Thursday, to improve access to ICT. An Open Source Software is computer software, which gives users accesses to its source code to enable users to modify and make it available to the public under special licensing agreements. The centre, which was launched through the initiative of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), aims at harnessing Information Technology potentials in West Africa as well as support entrepreneurs to successfully run open source businesses. Mr Gideon Quarcoo, Deputy Minister of Communications, who launched the programme, lauded the establishment of such a centre in Ghana, noting that Africa was not well represented in active growth of Open Source initiatives.
Quoting the Centre of Strategic and International Studies, the Deputy Minister said as at April this year only 9 out of 350 globally recognized open source initiatives are in Africa. Mr Quarcoo said Africans needed to work together to advance ownership of technology and explained that capacity building of open source technologies could make a real difference in the speed with which Africa achieved technology goals.
"We need to reduce dependency on technologies that have not been developed for our need and working environment," Mr Quarcoo said. He asked the ECOWAS High Level Advisory Panel on ICT to raise public awareness about the use of open resource, saying, "Let's endeavour to liberate knowledge for the use of our citizens." Ms Dorothy Gordon, Director of the Centre, noted that there were many technologies available for use.
However, many people were not using them due to several reasons such as the lack of awareness, cost or other unidentified reasons. She noted that the centre would help governments, businesses, non-governmental agencies, institutions, departments and citizens in general with the needed technical support in training, development, research and deployment of open source solutions. Dr Shola Afolabi, who represented the Vice President of ECOWAS, said the centre would be affiliated to the ECOWAS Commission. He said African youth had the potential to create software that would help solve the continent's problems.
Quoting the Centre of Strategic and International Studies, the Deputy Minister said as at April this year only 9 out of 350 globally recognized open source initiatives are in Africa. Mr Quarcoo said Africans needed to work together to advance ownership of technology and explained that capacity building of open source technologies could make a real difference in the speed with which Africa achieved technology goals.
"We need to reduce dependency on technologies that have not been developed for our need and working environment," Mr Quarcoo said. He asked the ECOWAS High Level Advisory Panel on ICT to raise public awareness about the use of open resource, saying, "Let's endeavour to liberate knowledge for the use of our citizens." Ms Dorothy Gordon, Director of the Centre, noted that there were many technologies available for use.
However, many people were not using them due to several reasons such as the lack of awareness, cost or other unidentified reasons. She noted that the centre would help governments, businesses, non-governmental agencies, institutions, departments and citizens in general with the needed technical support in training, development, research and deployment of open source solutions. Dr Shola Afolabi, who represented the Vice President of ECOWAS, said the centre would be affiliated to the ECOWAS Commission. He said African youth had the potential to create software that would help solve the continent's problems.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Last month’s Idlelo conference in Ghana was a small thing, but it may have been the most important open source conference so far this year.
That is because open source can do far more for Africa than it can any other continent.
Americans think of open source mainly as a business model. It reduces development costs, reduces marketing costs, and brings more of the money you do bring in to the bottom line.
What we don’t consider, as Americans, are the localization benefits of open source, or the development benefits of open source. We tend to think of it in terms of the latest-and-greatest platforms, not in terms of old tech.
But Idlelo (it’s said to mean common grazing ground) is all about those benefits.
Take for example Ushahidi (it means testimony in Swahili). Originally created by Kenyan programmers around that country’s 2007 election, it was deployed in South Africa and Uganda during 2008, and was used to crowdsource reports on the Haiti earthquake this year.
The software maps SMS text messages. Even people in the Sudan have access to text messaging now. And the benefits flow worldwide — here is a crime map, created using Ushahidi software, covering my own part of Atlanta. I know exactly where my neighbor hoods hang out.
Because open source gives you equal rights with other software developers, it can be used effectively to localize software in small language groups, such as those found across Africa. And the applications can be deployed using technology that is already in place, so the results are truly independent.
In fact that was the theme of the Ghana conference — development with ownership.
It’s true that some speakers at Idlelo, like Cliff Schmidt of Literacy Bridge and John “Maddog” Hall of Linux International, were Americans. But the majority were Africans — government officials, development experts and (perhaps most important) entrepreneurs.
The numbers being discussed here are, in American terms, pathetic. But the impact on people who have so little can be enormous. And what they have, with open source, they hold.
It’s this kind of thing that brings me the most joy in covering open source.
That is because open source can do far more for Africa than it can any other continent.
Americans think of open source mainly as a business model. It reduces development costs, reduces marketing costs, and brings more of the money you do bring in to the bottom line.
What we don’t consider, as Americans, are the localization benefits of open source, or the development benefits of open source. We tend to think of it in terms of the latest-and-greatest platforms, not in terms of old tech.
But Idlelo (it’s said to mean common grazing ground) is all about those benefits.
Take for example Ushahidi (it means testimony in Swahili). Originally created by Kenyan programmers around that country’s 2007 election, it was deployed in South Africa and Uganda during 2008, and was used to crowdsource reports on the Haiti earthquake this year.
The software maps SMS text messages. Even people in the Sudan have access to text messaging now. And the benefits flow worldwide — here is a crime map, created using Ushahidi software, covering my own part of Atlanta. I know exactly where my neighbor hoods hang out.
Because open source gives you equal rights with other software developers, it can be used effectively to localize software in small language groups, such as those found across Africa. And the applications can be deployed using technology that is already in place, so the results are truly independent.
In fact that was the theme of the Ghana conference — development with ownership.
It’s true that some speakers at Idlelo, like Cliff Schmidt of Literacy Bridge and John “Maddog” Hall of Linux International, were Americans. But the majority were Africans — government officials, development experts and (perhaps most important) entrepreneurs.
The numbers being discussed here are, in American terms, pathetic. But the impact on people who have so little can be enormous. And what they have, with open source, they hold.
It’s this kind of thing that brings me the most joy in covering open source.
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