The discussion started by introduction to FOSS by Y.B. Agusnugroho, IT Coordinator of FORMASI Indonesia, also participant at Asia Source II. Basically, FOSS programs are programs whose licenses give users the freedom to run the program for any purpose, to study and modify the program, and to redistribute copies of either the original or modified program without having to pay royalties to previous developers.

Therefore, because of those freedom, then FOSS have several benefits, such as security, because every bug will soon be find out and fixed. FOSS is usually based on multi-user’s and for networking purpose, therefore, it has security level, so user can only works at the privileges that he was granted. In other hands, FOSS uses the open standards, so it can be modified to meet our expected standards. FOSS is also allowing the users to do localization, so it can be modified to meet the condition of each region and cultural needs. This will allowed users to get better understanding and help learned FOSS in simpler way, because it use the local language and understand easily.

If we looked at the benefit of FOSS, NGOs, SMEs, and Cooperatives are the sectors that will get more of the benefits of FOSS. This is because these sectors usually limited on budget. Although FOSS is not an absolute free as in “free of charge”, at least FOSS helps those who have the limitation on budget on accessing the technology. Kemas Y. Antonius, activist of FOSS from IlmuKomputer.Com and Brainmatics.Com, also participant on Asia Source II, gives example on financial benefits on using FOSS. Comparing some companies that use FOSS and proprietary software, there are significant savings on the use of FOSS.

Further, Kemas told that FOSS is actually help us to build good moral value in our society, such as working together, respect on others work, healthy competition, and developing capacity and creativity. From economic and business point of view, the use of FOSS will help in savings, and budget optimalization. In other hands, FOSS also strengthen the entrepreneurship and help the have not to access the technology.

There are some problems that organization may face on doing migration from proprietary software to FOSS. This can be understood, since sometimes we don’t really want to change from the status quo. This also limited us to learn more new knowledge, especially on FOSS. This was stated by Sony Setiawan, from PT Mitra Integrasi Informatika, who comes as IT Consultant of FORMASI Indonesia on the project of IT@Coops. Therefore, Sony was hoping that the leader of the organization will help on giving support of the use of FOSS.

In detail, Didieb Ajibaskoro, IT practitioner from PT. Bajau Escorindo, also participant on Asia Source II, explain about the process of migration. He said that migration is actually about willingness and seriousness from the organization to do the migration. He give an example that a lot of client that his company has already support for migrating to proprietary software to FOSS, there is almost no difficulties face in the following days. “The problems is how to make people using and feel comfortable with FOSS after they was using proprietary software”, he said to convinced the audience.

There are several stages that we have to pass when we think about doing migration to FOSS. First, we have to make a list of what software we need for our works, and is there any equivalent software at FOSS. Mostly speaking, almost all programs has already have the equivalent program at FOSS. The second step is choosing what operating system we are going to use. Right now, there are plenty of distros of Operating systems, such as Ubuntu, Fedora, SuSE, Mandriva, etc. The third step is don’t forget to make backups of our data.

Didieb convinced that the use of FOSS in three month in a row will make you use to and at last, you will feel that there is no problem on using FOSS.

We also share the experience from the Asia Source II participants on this discussion. One of what the participants share is about the use of FOSS for computer networking in organization. Firdaus Tjahyadi from Nurulfikri Cipta Inovasi and Sari Hidayati from CU Melati, both are the participants of Asia Source II, share their experience when they was in the camp. They share that with FOSS we can use old computers to run as new computer. This can be done with the LTSP (Linux Terminal Server Project) system, where the network client uses the old computers that usually are no longer be use.

This kind of network only use a server with big capacity on memory and storage, which use as central server to run the network client which use Pentium I or Pentium II generation. The server use Linux Operating System, and the network client connected to the server so the clients can run software from the server as in their own computer. This system will provide us with savings, because the investment that we spent is only big capacity server. For software, we use FOSS, so it can be very cheap.

Other solution for communication is the use of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to minimize the use of analog phone. VoIP can be used to connected several branch offices. This solution can minimize communication cost, because we are no longer use the TELKOM facility to contact other branches, and we only need stable internet connection to applied VoIP.

Other things that also shared in this discussion is example of ready-to-use-software that already packaged by IOSN team into CDs. There are several packages that the participants introduce to the audience, e.g. NGO in the Box, SME in the Box, Publishing in the Box, and Video/Audio in the box. NGO in the Box contain ready-to-use-software that usually needed by NGO sectors to do it social works, such as Resource Management Systems and Financial Management Systems. SME in the box also contains of ready-to-use-software that usually needed by SMEs. “All of these are FOSS base”, Olivia Dwi Ayu from Ministry of Law and Human Right, also participant on Asia Source II, explained.

As result of Discussion and Knowledge sharing which conducted for three hours, the audiences come to conclusion that it is really necessary to have a seminars or training of what is FOSS and the benefit of it for organization’s decision maker, so the decision on migrating to FOSS is also supported by the leader of organizations. Some are agree, that what happened inside organizations, there are difficulties to do migration because of the lack of knowledge of the leader about FOSS, and also the consequences on using pirated software. So, the audience hopes that FORMASI Indonesia as umbrella organization, can do something about this, or at least ask the leader of organizations to discuss about the use of FOSS in their organization.

What is becoming problem now is needed more than just curiosity to choose between FOSS and proprietary software. So, with all the consequences behind, do we have guts to choose? (YBA)