1. Accelerating and promoting
the use of FOSS in Africa
Yves MIEZAN EZO
IT Systems Urbanization Consultant
CHALA Project Manager
ISOC France Administrator
2. Sommaire
1. Definitions
2. The huge african continent potential
3. Great experience and projects
4. FOSS adoption trend within companies
5. Cases studies
6. How governments may help FOSS promotion
4. FOSS Definition
• FOSS is defined following the principles of freedom
• a matter to use freedom to
• run,
• copy,
• distribute,
• study,
• change,
• improve the software
FOSS is not a freeware or a shareware
5. Like 4 like
Type of
Type of software Proprietary FOSS Proprietary FOSS
software
Linux,
Ubuntu, MS Office,
Windows,
Operating Redhat, Star Office, OOo, Koffice,
MacOS, Sun Office Suite
systems Mandriva, Lotus Notes, …
Solaris, …
OpenSolaris.. …
. MySQL,
Oracle, SQL
PostgreSQL,
Web server IIS Apache Database Server,
EnterpriseDB,
Informix, …
…
Firefox,
IE,
Proxy ISA Squid Browser Safari,
Netscape,...
Konqueror,...
IPTable, Microsoft
ISA, Qmail, Exim,
Security Snort, Mail server Exchange,
Checkpoint,... Sendmail,...
IPFIlter, … Groupwise, …
Norton, Thunderbrid,
Outlook, CC
Antivirus McAfee, ClamaV, Mail client Kmail,
Mail
Kaspersky Evolution, …
Mitigating Financial Crisis with OSS IGF
2009
6. Challenges
1. FOSS started from an obscure, unknown position in comparison
to proprietary software
2. FOSS freedom principles mitigates a clear business model /
revenue stream
3. Perceptions and attitudes against FOSS and its use
4. Explicit lack of political will
5. Infrastructure and access remains a major challenge
8. The huge african potentiel
➢70% of the worldwide population lives in
developping courntries
+ de 5 billions people
➢
In
➢
➢ China, Pakistan, Nigeria,
➢ Bangladesh, Indonésie, Inde
➢ 45% of this population is 15 years old or
less
44% of them lives in Africa
➢
9. The huge african potentiel
➢ Huge increase of the NTIC activities
➢ Ex : The mobile phone penetration rate goes from 3,6% in
2006 to 8% in 2007...
➢ The UN axes its social and economic policy in Reasearch
and edcuation
➢ Capacity builind policy based on the Millenium goals
13. Concrete experiences and projects
➢ Several public and private initiatives to develop actions aiming to
reach the millenium goals and reducing the numerci gap
➢ FOSS strategies in Tunisia, South Africa, Vietnam, Brazil, …
➢ Infrastructure and acces strategic policies in Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire,
Kenya, ,...
➢
➢
➢
Ressources Éducatives Libres : more than 4500 GFDL (GNU Free
➢
Documentation Licence), coming from 350 University.
➢ Campus numériques in more than 60 countries (Burundi, Haiti,
Bulgarie, Moldavie, Maroc, Algérie, Madagascar, Comores, Cambodge,
Vanuatu, ...)
14. Concrete experiences and projects
➢ Business consortium
➢ CHALA Club des Hommes et femmes d'Affaires du Libre en Afrique
➢ FOSSFA – Free and Open Source Software Foundation for Africa
➢ Users consortium
➢ AAUL – Panafrican FOSS Association
➢ The CJK Initiative China, Japan and Korea Consotrium
➢ Software Livre – Latin american consortium
➢ Initiatives politiques
➢ GovWiFi, Digital 21 strategy – Hong Kong : the whole free wifi city
➢ Seneclic – Senegal : reducing the numeric gap by FOSS based
educative equipment
➢ Linux Educacional 2.0 – Brazil : 54 000 research laboratoies
computers and servers on GNU/Debian KDE
15. Concrete projects
➢ Akwaba (Côte d'Ivoire)
➢ The proprietary billing program of the regional ISP ran off
➢ The editor told the ISP it will take 1 month to solve the problem
➢ The IT manager raise his own team to develop another billing
software, based on LAMP in less than a month
➢ Akwaba is now used in Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Niger...instaed of
the former proprietary software
OpenYalim (Mali)
➢
• OpenYaLIM is an Open Source software build to provide medical
diagnosis to remote area in development countries. This software is
developped by IDC SARL (www.idcmali.com)
• It provides recording of the patient file and pictures, dispatchs the file via
Internet to the specialist, and, after the interpretation of exams, returns
reports to the former hospital
• http://www.openyalim.org/news.php
16. Concrete projects
RIF – Ressources Internet Francophone
➢ Panafrican FOSS mirrors sites
➢ The project is born in 2001, created by IFN, IRD, AAUL and CHALA
➢ The goal :
➢ Ensure local FOSS download, by using the national or regional Internet
instead of using the international one
➢ 5 countries :
• Burkina Faso,
• Cameroon,
• Côte d’Ivoire,
• Madagascar
• Mali
➢ IT infrastructure base in local campus with a high broadband and huge datacenter
20. FOSS Adption trend
32 CPU install and + 16 CPU / year (eq. To 80 CPU after 4 6 biproc (dual core) servers eq. to 12 CPU. Illimited users and
years). perpetual licence.
BEA WebLogic Premium : 14 000 € per CPU and 21 %
support and maintenance with 30 % discount on licences and
the 1st year of support.
20
22. FOSS Adoption trend
33%
8%
Non mature offer
17%
Support and
Maintenance
Security
Availability of
ressources
Risky development
25%
17%
Main fears
22
24. Costs Benefit Analysis – Big one
• French Finance Ministry (2003) Weblogic → Jboss migration : 21 m€ to 3 m€
(3 years licences & support)
• Hard distributor - Aix/Websphere to Linux/Jboss migration : server costs
divided by 7
• French Bank - Oracle to OSS database : 19 k€ / CPU for Oracle compared to
100 k€ for unlimited PostgreSQL servers
• French Parliament : Linux Desktop → <150 € / year
24
25. Cost Benefit Analysis – Small enterprise
• Small Enterprise
• Marketing – 5 Staff
• Finance – 10 staff
• Common – 7 Staff
• Production 50
• Total: 72 staff
26. Cost Benefit Analysis
• Typical Enterprise Needs
• Desktop Resources
• Operating System
• Office Applications
• Business application/ERP (not included in this study)
• Network Resources
• Login and authentication
• File sharing
• Messaging and Groupware
• Relational Database Engine
27. Cost Benefit Analysis
Proprietary Software – Microsoft
Function Product No Lic Unit Amount/USD
Price/USD
Desktop Operating System Windows 7 (upg) 75 200 15000
Office Applications MS Office 2007 (Upg) 75 239 17929
Authentication and File/Print windows server 2008 (CAL) 75 29 2175
Server
Groupware and Messaging Microsoft Exchange Enterprise 50 3970
2010
Microsoft Exchange Enterprise 25 41 1025
2010 CAL
Enterprise Database Server MS SQL Server Enterprise 2008 75 8420
TOTAL INVESTMENT 48,515
28. Cost Benefit Analysis
FOSS
Function Product No Lic Unit Amount/USD
Price
/USD
Desktop Operating System Ubuntu Desktop
Office Applications OpenOffice
Authentication and File/Print Server Ubuntu Server
Groupware and Messaging eGroupware + Cyrus
Imap
Enterprise Database Server MySQL 6.0
TOTAL INVESTMENT
29. Cost Benefit Analysis
Related Costs
• Implementation
• Training
• Support and Maintenance
For Open Source, the above costs could potentially be higher
depending on the availability of skills
The cost of ownership may be appreciated on a short period
depending on the fit between your need and your independance
30. Cost Benefit Analysis
Related Costs Estimates (Europe)
Proprietary/USD Open Source/Euros
Implementation 10,000 12,000 10,000 15,000
Training 5,000 – 6,000 5,000
Annual Support and 4,000 3,000
Maintenance
32. How governments may help FOSS
• Several government initiatives do exist :
• Open Source, Open Standards and Re-Use: Government Action
Plan in Great Britain (2009) : Using OpenSource each time it
gives a better « quality/price » advantage
• Instructions for IT Services in Brazil (2009) : an application list
that the state IT services are obliged to use because the
efficiency has been proved. This list contains the e-learning
module « e-Proinfo », developped by the brazilian Education
Ministry, Plone or Zope.
• FOSS national strategy in Tunisia (since 2006) : an incitative
policy to adopt FOSS.
• ISP FOSS Web servers : 73%
• ISP FOSS mail server : 99%
• ISP FOSS databases : 36%
• Administration IT staff certified in FOSS : 151 (on 1594)
33. How governments may help FOSS
• In South Africa :
• 2007 : Announcement of a national FOSS adoption strategy
• Creation of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research
(CSIR) and the State Information Technology Agency (Sita)
• Government Open Source Software Resource Center (GOV-OSS-RC)
www.gossrc.org
• The African Virtual Open Initiatives and Resources (AVOIR)
• Capacity building in software engineering ; Partnership of 13
African Universities in an alliance that includes North America,
Europe, and Afghanistan
• The Linux Professional Institute (LPI) in South Africa with official LPI
Training Partner. The LPI qualifications are an internationally
recognised Linux industry certification.
34. How governments may help FOSS
• All these initiatives have to be recognized and applauzed
• But FOSS promotion begins with Education of choice
• In school, with FOSS and non FOSS
• In IT schools with specialisation degrees and diploma
• And with affirmation of the stakes
• Reducing the numeric gap doesn't mean doing the same as the
neighbourgs
• Local initiative is the key
35. How governments may help FOSS
• Create, optimize and implement national IT training plans for
teachers
• Sharing and capitalizing on available expertises-countries
• Promote available education means
• Including in other field such as Literacy tuition, Hygiene Health,
Agriculture,..;)
• Encourage creation of strategies of mutualisation of the
means of education at sub-regional, regional and interAfricain levels
• Create in every state, a « TIC for development » department,
working and supporting IT programs as the priority development
policy
• Ministry of Education will lead as Ministries of Health, Agriculture,
Economy and Finances, Industry, Energy, Telecommunications,
the Equipment will have vocation to be part of the global
program.
