Free and Open Source Software ; challenges and opportunities in telecentres

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Seuwandi Yapa on December 24, 2009 at 2:46pm

Dear Wandila,

Thankx a lot for posting this forum and I find it as a well timed topic. I hope all of you may agree that there is a growing importance on this topic as we recently celebrate the Software Freedom Day 2009.
Software Freedom Day (http://softwarefreedomday.org/) is now an annual event celebrated around the world to celebrate the freedom in the software world, usually in the 3rd week's Saturday of September. This year it was on the 19th September 2009.

However, in Sri Lanka, we Information & Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka) has made a huge attempt to promote free and open source softwares among the Nenasala Centres (National telecentres in Sri Lanka) due to the reason that its cost effectiveness. Let me share one of the valuable attempts with you all.

As year 2009 is declared as the Year of IT and English by the Government of Sri Lanka, The Presidential Task Force on English and IT launched a series of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) Awareness Programs, as one of its objectives to assist in national ICT capacity building. FOSS is a software that is freely available under a liberal license to study, change, improve and release for the benefit of the whole community. The first FOSS Awareness Program will be held on September 22, 2009 at the SLIIT Auditorium, Malabe. This program was conducted by eminent persons in the ICT field, and in partnership with the Lanka Software Foundation, the Sri Lankan FOSS community, and SLIIT and sponsored by Virtusa is sponsoring the event and ICTA provided the strategic partnership for this program. The program was offered free of charge for the participants.
If you are interested in knowing more about the Advocating and Promoting Free & Open Source Software in Sri Lanka, please visit www.foss.lk

Meantime, I hope to share several free and open source software that are available for us :)
Best Regards, Seuwandi

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Permalink Reply by Seuwandi Yapa on December 24, 2009 at 3:20pm

www.opensource.lk

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Permalink Reply by Seuwandi Yapa on December 24, 2009 at 3:44pm

I would like to add another experience from Nenasala Network in Sri Lanka with regards to the opportunities generated through the free and open source softwares.

Gnu Cash is a free accounting software available online. It is a personal and small-business financial-accounting software, freely licensed under the GNU and available for GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows. Designed to be easy to use, yet powerful and flexible, GnuCash allows the user to track bank accounts, stocks, income and expenses. As quick and intuitive to use as a checkbook register, it is based on professional accounting principles to ensure balanced books and accurate reports. GnuCash 2.2.9 is the latest version of this free accounting software.

With the financial assistance of CAP project grants from ICTA, Thanamalwila Nenasala (telecentre) has developed the Gnu Cash free software user guide in Sinhala and Tamil languages.
The main purpose of this project was to introduce the free accounting softwares to the nenasala community and to the entrepreneurs and facilitate them with the user guides that developed in local languages. As a result, it was expected that an innovation in the field of accounting which is benefited with ICT. By identifying Gnu Cash as a simple and user friendly free accounting software which is based on formal accounting principles, Thanamalwila Nenasala developed local languages user guides - Sinhala and Tamil, and made them available online. The respective user guides in local languages can be downloaded from www.nenasala.org
If you would like to read more about the project, please follow the link below
http://telecentre.org/profiles/blogs/icta-grants-powered-gnu-cash

Thank you.

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Permalink Reply by Wandila Simon on December 24, 2009 at 6:52pm

Seuwandi,

This is realy a wonder sharing .I hope the whole community finds this to be beneficial . It is also cardinal and worthy replicating.
Thanks for contributing , lets continue .

Wandila

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Permalink Reply by Seuwandi Yapa on January 5, 2010 at 1:53pm

Hi Wandila, Its a pleasure indeed... I can see the progress of the discussion. hope the telecentre.org community members will find it really helpful. KUDOS !!!!!!
SEUwandi

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Permalink Reply by RANABIR DAS on December 24, 2009 at 4:16pm

Let me provide to you an interesting insight based on our experience.

Our company SREI SAHAJ evillage Limited has been manadated to set up 30000 Common Service Center or Telecenters in 6 States of India. This is Central Government sponsored project to provide G2C, B2C and B2B services to the Rural Populace. Currently we have installed 14000 centers. We are also providing elearning services and tie up with Indira Gandhi Open University (IGNOU) for giving their Diploma & Degree courses. This is Revenue sustainable Business Model where the entrepreuner invests 25% money and balance is funded through us or Banks. We have a DATACENTER at Kolkata from where all the Telecenters were connected through VSATs. All the services are routed through the DC.

When we Started in the State of West Bengal (4943 centers), we needed Windows XP & MS Office 2003 to be installed in each of the Laptops(2) provided at the Telecenters . Putting together both and after alot of negotiations with Microsoft a total price of Rs18000 approx.($380). This was making the entire model unviable. Ultimately we entered into negotiation with Red Hat for Linux based OS software. Freeware open source Office package was used. For the OS the cost was Rs3500($76) approx. This made the CAPEX attractive and viable. We had to retrain all the young Entrepreuners in Linux who were the owners of the Telecenters.

After sometime we noticed that the Entrepreuners were not really happy since compatibility issues were coming up. Besides Photo editing etc was a little complex. Our elearning courses too were tuned to Linux.

By this time additional centers from other States were contracted to us. Microsoft realizing that would lose the market, commenced with renegotiations with us. They gave us a price of Rs3500($76) including MS office matching Linux OS. This we readily accepted.

So for the balance 5 States we installed windows based system.

The purpose of my giving you this insight is simply the economics of a viable Telecenter and ready acceptance of the Telecenter operator of the OS. May be for the future, cloud computing will replace all OS and Appilcation softwares which will definitely be cheaper and platform independent.

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Permalink Reply by DR. SYED MD. ZAINUL ABEDIN on December 24, 2009 at 5:45pm

I am enjoying the series of discussions.Experiences from India is pretty interesting.It reflects the need of
competing opportunities for IT accessibility.Open source offers this competition.Let us hear about experiences from other countries.Thanks to all participants for joining a very practical discussion.

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Permalink Reply by Wandila Simon on December 24, 2009 at 7:03pm

Dear Ranabir,

Your sharing is an indication of the practical opportunities that free and open source software has , Iam realy impressed with this practical sharing . I hope all telecentre operators having a glance at this have their eye caught .

I have noticed a very important point in your sharing , its about the retraining of operators and users of free and open source software . I believe many would look at this as a challenge as many are exposed to a particular software , e.g. Windows OS. However , this point I believe is justifiable , through the production of user manuals that will reduce on the costs of retraining the operators and users . And from your sharing I can see that the cost effectiveness of free and open source software would make most projects viable . This is an indication that the use of free and open source software should be promoted especially for telecentres facing sustainability challenges . It is my appeal as well that telecentres may consult with those who have implemented the use of this kind of software and consider riplicating the model.

Lets continue sharing .

Wandila

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Permalink Reply by hicham taouil on December 25, 2009 at 5:03am

i need your help to open center
i have loocal and i need certificate or any agrement
i m a cyber net know .

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Permalink Reply by Wandila Simon on December 24, 2009 at 7:05pm

Hello everybody !

Thanks to all of you who are taking part is this discussion. This is really an interesting topic and it has just come at the right time. Lets continue sharing.

Wandila

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Permalink Reply by George Mwika Kayange on December 24, 2009 at 8:20pm

Thanks Wandila, Seuwandi and others for this important debate.

I just want to inform you that this morning i was contributing to another discussion list on Raising Voices, on a different topic entiled "Funders and Citizen Media" and i brought up some issues which are also linked to the this debate about the challenges and opportunities in telecentres. There was a question on whether indeed there is need for funding for digital media libraries (and they may include telecenters) which already have computers and internet access... and i felt Wandila had raised important points in relation to the cost-effectiveness that goes with the utilisation of open source software, as well as the need to spend on technical skills to make good use of the software."

This is what i contributed:

Thanks David for raising this very important topic.

i will contribute to this topic from the perspective of local community digital libraries/telecenters as opposed to university libraries..

While i may seem to agree with the view that if one has access to computers and an internet connection at a public library or public university, "then all of the other tools for a digital media training project are free to use" i may not totally agree with implication that, therefore, the issue of funding might not be very critical.

Our own exprience here (Malawi) is that what is often critical is not necessarily the availability of (financial) resources in itself, rather the capacity/skills to be able to utilize the other resources as well as the generation of local content itself. Therefore, if funding is to be made, it should very much be directed towards the two aspects. We have a sad situation here where the Malawi Government has made very commendable strides to establish telecenters in remote, rural and semi-urban areas accross the country. But in terms of impact, they seem to have achieved almost ZERO. Because (1) the local people (the majority of whom are illiterate or semi-illiterate) have not been trained how to effectively access the information they need, and (2) even those who are lucky to have the basic skills, they just cannot access the information that is relevant to their own set up (local content).

So yes, we need some funding as long as the purposes, objectives and goals are clearly defined (as in the context above) and the results and impact are measurable.

However, in our case though, we would not require funding ad infinitum. There are always issues of sustainability. You train a bunch of locals at a community level so they can train the rest voluntarily. you empower and inspire a group of community members by providing them with the expertise to translate and simplify a number of documents in their own language and generate locally relevant material (e.g. it could be in form of e-books, etc)... and they pass the skills to the other members voluntarily. In that way, i wouldn't see a case of hurting the credibility and autonomy of local citizen media projects, as long as there is emphasis of sustainability (and need) right from the beginning.

And then, there is also an interesting issue of open source software, which at times also strengthens your case on the controversy surrounding funding.

You may find a posting on the telecenters.org discussion list [http://telecentrecommunity.ning.com/forum/topics/free-and-open-sour...] about the dilemma that even those who are are using open source as cost-effective means of running telecenters are facing. I quote: "...so telecentres would not spend much to deploy the software (therefore needing less funding), but would rather need technical skills to make good use of the software."

Thanks once again for bringing the issue.

Kind regards and Merry Christmas
George

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Permalink Reply by Wandila Simon on December 24, 2009 at 10:53pm

Thanks George for the sharing.

You have nicely highlighted on cost-effectiveness of using free and open source software and the need to spend on technical skills to make good use of the software. I agree with you that there should not be completly no funding in this area as the telecentre will be meaning less if it does not have an impact on the users . The case you have sighted is very critical and an indication that issues of user friendliness and or the ability of the users to use the software (FOSS) and content should considered in the plan for deployment of such. I hope the referal you made to this discussion has given and will continue giving the benefits to those who are participate in the other discussion at Raising Voices . I would like to encourage all members of the community to make such references as the discussions in this community can be spread widely in other networks and would make many to benefit from the powerful knowledge sharing here at telecentre.org .

Lets continue sharing.

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