Yayasan Penggerak Linux Indonesia or the Indonesian Linux Mover Foundation has come out with a localized Indonesian distribution of GNU/Linux called BlankOn Linux. This Linux distribution (distro) is based on Fedora Linux and is targeted at the first-time user. The main objective of creating BlankOn Linux is to enable the people of Indonesia, most of whom are not English-literate, to be exposed to Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and GNU/Linux. It is hoped that with a version of GNU/Linux that is available in the Indonesian language, more people will turn to FOSS as an alternative to using illegal unlicensed proprietary software (a practice that is currently rampant).

BlankOn Linux is simpler to install than many of the normal Linux distros and it comes ready with many packages for computer education, office applications, multimedia and Internet access, file sharing, etc. A BlankOn development kit is being prepared and this should make it easier for other developers to build other specialized Linux distros based on BlankOn Linux. The project deployment was unique in that it took only a short time to develop BlankOn Linux and the team spent a relatively small amount of money to achieve this.

The availability of BlankOn Linux will have a positive impact on the digital divide in Indonesia as more people can now have access to software in their local language to use the Internet and other information and communications technology (ICT) facilities. Internet kiosks and cafes will benefit from BlankOn Linux too as this software can be utilized to power these outlets and it is affordable and easy to install, use and support.

One major lesson learned from the project is that without enough money for full-time developers, the use of developers who held full-time jobs elsewhere meant that they had to sacrifice their free time and holidays in order to develop BlankOn Linux. As such, human resources in the development effort can be stretched thin at times. In spite of this, the BlankOn Linux project is still being maintained and the team is preparing to come out with the next release soon. However, the long-term sustainability of the project has yet to be tested and only time will tell whether the project can garner sufficient resources to successfully maintain and develop BlankOn Linux.

 
Background of Organization

Yayasan Penggerak Linux Indonesia or the Indonesian Linux Mover Foundation is an organization dedicated to the promotion of Free and Open Source Software, especially GNU/Linux, so as to enable it to be widely accepted for mainstream usage as well as for software development in Indonesia. Its main activities are holding awareness events across the country, developing and contributing to FOSS projects, establishing contacts with other FOSS-related organizations and collecting data on FOSS growth in the country.

The Foundation runs the Indonesian Linux Certification programme and works on projects like the BlankOn Linux distribution and the OpenSyariah project for banking.

Objectives of Project

The main objective of this project is to come up with a local Indonesian GNU/Linux distribution. It is desirable to have an Indonesian distribution of Linux so that the language used for the desktop environment and some of the applications can be in the Indonesian language (Bahasa Indonesia); this will enable the mainly non-English literate users in the country to be exposed to ICT and to use the computer more effectively. In the long term, the BlankOn Linux project aims to be the standard GNU/Linux distribution for desktop computers in Indonesia.

The primary target group for BlankOn Linux are the new computer users, especially those in Internet kiosks, schools, and the government. A second target group is the Linux distro (distribution) developers so that they can develop a new distro based on BlankOn Linux.

The BlankOn development is sponsored by UNESCO, one of the UN agencies
which has programmes in the promotion of FOSS for education, Indoglobal web hosting, InfoLINUX magazine, Linuxindo Training and Consultant, Nurul Fikri Training Centre and some Internet service providers.

FOSS Application

Description

BlankOn Linux is an Indonesian distribution of GNU/Linux based on the Fedora Linux distribution. It consists of the Linux operating system kernel, office application software suite, Internet access software (e.g. web browser, email, chat etc.), file sharing and multimedia applications. The desktop environment and applications have been localized so that Bahasa Indonesia is used and they have an Indonesian look and feel.

Choice of FOSS

The majority of Indonesian computer users require software for doing a number of common tasks like office applications, accessing the Internet and multimedia. However, to be affordable the software has to have a low cost and preferably no licensing fees at all. FOSS and GNU/Linux in particular meet all these requirements as it is free for use and can be freely copied, modified and distributed. It can also be easily localized to meet local needs and language. GNU/Linux is also relatively immune to common computer viruses, worms and spyware.

Development and Implementation

BlankOn Linux was developed from Fedora Core 3. There are three key steps to follow in order to produce BlankOn Linux from Fedora Core:

• translation and localization
• repackaging and installer building
• testing and quality assurance

The localization and packaging of BlankOn Linux took about three months. New versions for BlankOn are being planned for release once or twice a year, following the release schedule of Fedora Core.

Deployment

About a few hundred systems have been deployed with BlankOn Linux, for example at some Internet kiosks or Internet cafes. InfoLINUX Magazine has bundled BlankOn Linux CDs with its printed magazine for mass distribution.

Impact

This project will contribute towards providing the local people with affordable legal software that they can use on their PCs. BlankOn Linux is simple and quick to install and it comes only on one CD. Unlike many of the Linux distros available, its multimedia applications have been packaged so that they support most of the proprietary multimedia formats. Its Indonesian theme and menu should make local users feel comfortable with it. As such, it is ideal for the first-time user especially those who want a desktop with local language support and look-and-feel. It is also ideal for Internet kiosks as these are small companies that cannot afford to purchase proprietary commercial software and have a lot of problems with viruses and other malicious software.

The Indonesian government is attempting to bridge the digital divide and at the same time encourage the use of legally licensed software. This is problematic with proprietary software as its license does not allow it to be freely copied for distribution and hence the costs involved can be prohibitive. The availability of BlankOn Linux can have a positive impact on this issue as it is a properly licensed software and at the same time its licence allows users the freedom to copy, modify and distribute it.

The soon to be available BlankOn software development kit (SDK) will facilitate the packaging of new Linux distros based on it.

Lessons Learned

The main lesson learned from the project is that as most of the software developers in Indonesia have full-time jobs, only a handful are willing or able to sacrifice their time after work and their holidays to work on the project. While some financial assistance for the project is received from UNESCO and some Indonesian FOSS companies, it is not enough to pay a few developers to work full-time on the project.

Current Status of Project

Currently, the project is developing a special distro (BlankOn SDK) targeted at helping developers create new distributions for specific environments based on BlankOn Linux. BlankOn SDK version 1.1 has been released with manual book in Bahasa Indonesia. Parallel to this effort, the development of the next release BlankOn Linux 2.0, based on the Fedora Core 5 distribution has also commenced.

Benefits and Challenges

The main benefit of the project is the availability of a localized Linux distribution that is easy to install and use and comes with ready applications for the office, the Internet and multimedia. The availability of a desktop environment in the local language can go a long way in attracting new users. This and the fact that BlankOn Linux is FOSS and hence can be freely copied and distributed will help more Indonesians gain access to ICT facilities as they become readily available and affordable.

The main disadvantage of using BlankOn Linux is that some effort has to be made to interoperate with the dominant desktop environment of Microsoft Windows as well as possibly other proprietary application software. Moreover, some less popular hardware and peripheral devices may not be supported by it.

The project sees as its main challenge efforts to migrate the 8 million computers in Indonesia, the majority of which are using illegal software, to FOSS and BlankOn Linux in particular. Another possible challenge to the sustainability of the project is the availability of resources to maintain the BlankOn distribution. It has to be remembered that apart from coming out with the initial distribution, as long as the product is supported, updates to the packages of the distro to cater for patches and bug fixes have to be maintained and this can be a drain on the human resources, given that the developers in the project are working on a part-time mainly voluntary basis.

Conclusion

The BlankOn Linux project has given rise to an Indonesian distribution of GNU/Linux targeted at the first-time user. In spite of the constraints on human and financial resources, the team was able to build this Linux distribution in a relatively short time. Deployment has taken place in Internet kiosks and cafes. As BlankOn Linux is localized and uses the Bahasa Indonesia, it should result in getting more local people exposed to ICT and the Internet thereby helping to bridge the digital divide. It will also have an impact in helping to reduce the number of unlicensed proprietary software in use as more people turn to it as an alternative.

The project is ongoing and a development kit for BlankOn Linux to make it easier to build customized distros based on it as well as the next release of the software is currently being worked on.

Contact Information

Project: BlankOn Linux
Organization: Yayasan Penggerak Linux Indonesia (Indonesian Linux Mover Foundation)
Contact Person: Rusmanto Maryanto
Street / Postal Address: Jalan Mampang Prapatan X No. 4, Jakarta Selatan 12790, Indonesia
Email: rus@infolinux.co.id
Phone: +62 21 797 5235
Fax: +62 21 790 1205

Website

BlankOn Linux project website
http://blankonlinux.or.id

The AgriBazaar project is a joint effort between the Malaysian Institute of Microelectronic Systems (MIMOS) and the Agriculture Department of Malaysia to boost the Malaysian agriculture industry by enabling the various stakeholders (e.g. farmers, fishermen, agri-based food manufacturers, retailers, distributors, exporters and importers) to conduct their daily agriculture production trading online. AgriBazaar consists of a web portal as the front-end interface to the users and a Supply Chain Management (SCM) system as the back-end application. It allows the stakeholders to put up their products for sale as well as access market information and check on the latest prices. Through this project the government hopes to enhance the productivity of the local agriculture community and the competitiveness of the Malaysian agriculture industry while, at the same time, introduce the use of information and communications technology (ICT) and the Internet to the target rural agricultural communities.

Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) development tools are used to develop the portal and backend application and the portal runs on a FOSS platform. Access to the portal is via the Internet using a web browser. For the users who do not have the necessary computers or network setup to access the portal, a FOSS-based thin-client computer system and/or FOSS live-CDs are deployed at some suitable site for stakeholders to use.

The AgriBazaar deployment attempts to provide a solution to specific economic problems of the target users as well as address the more general digital divide issue facing the target community. The use of FOSS allows the development of the software and the maintenance of the system to take place without incurring high costs. Local software developers were used to develop the application and this will add on to the pool of local software expertise and knowledge. Using FOSS thin-client and/or FOSS live-CD solutions as the access mechanism make it easier for the deployment of the system to other rural areas that may lack the necessary ICT resources.

Challenges to the deployment of the system in rural areas include the availability of adequate Internet-access infrastructure, effective community adoption to new technology, sustainability of the project and the willingness of the target community to take ownership of it.

A pilot trial had been conducted in one of the districts in the country and the results and feedback have been positive and encouraging. The project has since moved beyond this pilot stage and it is now being implemented in stages at various agriculture department offices nationwide.

Background of Organization

The Malaysian Institute of Microelectronic Systems is an agency under the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation of the Government of Malaysia. It plays an important role towards the development of Malaysia by acting as a technology promoter, partner or provider for innovation in and through ICT; mainly in the technology thrust areas of Pervasive Computing, Cyberspace Security and Microelectronics. One of MIMOS’ main development strategies is to extend smart partnership with universities, industries, research institutes and the Government. Currently MIMOS employs about 400 employees.

Objectives of Project

The AgriBazaar project is a joint effort between MIMOS and the Agriculture Department of Malaysia to boost the Malaysian agriculture industry by enabling farmers, breeders, fishermen, producers, agri-based food manufacturers, retailers, distributors, exporters and importers to conduct their daily agriculture production trading online. This project is intended to provide an opportunity for local agriculture producers to extend the market reach of their agricultural produce. Through the use of ICT and the Internet, the project aims to:

• Bridge the digital divide between the rural and urban communities since most of the rural community is engaged in the agriculture industry.
• Enhance the productivity of the local agriculture community through better planning and management of their activities and businesses, thereby leading to better quality products and increased food exports.
• Enhance the competitiveness of the Malaysian agriculture industry.

The target groups of this project include the small and medium farmers, breeders, fishermen and manufacturers of agriculture-based products and services located in the rural areas. Also targeted are the small- and medium-sized enterprises involved in agriculture-based industries such as producing snacks, delicacies, bakery and herbal products.

MIMOS has three key partners for AgriBazaar: the Department of Agriculture from the Ministry of Agriculture which provides the domain expertise, the financial institution required for the payment for business to business transactions and the retailers and producers who are the users of the AgriBazaar system.

FOSS Application

Description

AgriBazaar consists of a web portal as the front-end interface to the users and a Supply Chain Management (SCM) system as the back-end application. It allows the target stakeholders to sell online their daily production as well as access market information and the latest prices of their produce. The users of the system make use of thin-client computers (essentially PCs without hard drives) located at some suitable location to access the portal. The web-based applications available from the portal as well as the thin-client system for the users were all developed using FOSS.

The FOSS software used for the development of AgriBazaar are:

• GNU/Linux operating system
• Apache web server
• Apache-Tomcat servlet container
• STRUTS Java application development framework
• CVS version control system
• MySQL and PostGreSQL database systems
• GNU/Linux thin-client system and GNU/Linux live-CD for deployment to users

Choice of FOSS

FOSS development and deployment platforms were chosen for the project because a cost-effective solution with a high degree of security and low maintenance was needed for the application. The use of FOSS will also encourage local capacity building in ICT technology and software development. Proprietary software solutions were not used as MIMOS intended AgriBazaar to be a showcase of how FOSS can be utilized for large-scale applications and at the same time introduce the rural farmers to the usage of computers thereby helping to bridge the digital divide. For sustainability it is important that in the end the project can be economically owned by the target community and there should be little risk of vendor dependence and lock-in. FOSS offers a cost-effective way to achieve these objectives.

Development and Implementation

The web portal acts as the gateway that connects all the players to the back-end SCM application via the web browser. The SCM system is developed internally by MIMOS to manage the production of products up to the point of selling and marketing the product. This system is based on the problems peculiar to the local agriculture industry. The industry deals with products that have short life cycles and the SCM contains seven modules to address these issues:

• eBuySell – posting new offers, sending requests for quotations, negotiation on quotation and making ordering online
• eLogistic – scheduling and managing transport booking and list of transport provider in the country
• eStock – product, warehouse, and inventory management
• eMake – production and raw material management
• eSupport – management of company's FAQ and assisting customer support.
• ePlan – forecasting and estimation model
• ePayment – payment via online business-to-business transaction

A key design consideration is that the solution developed should conform and comply with applicable standards and mechanisms for collaboration and distribution of ICT solutions/applications. The solution should not be tied to any proprietary vendor or technology and be accessible via any mode or channel of delivery. Open standards are adhered to as strictly as possible in the development of the solution.

Deployment

The district of Batu Pahat in the state of Johor was chosen for the pilot run of the project. The district agriculture office there is the place where the local farmers and cottage industry agriculture community go to seek advice and guidance related to agriculture activities. It is thus an appropriate site to engage the target users in the usage of the AgriBazaar portal. A GNU/Linux thin-client system was set up beside this district agriculture office in the same building. A thin-client system enables easier and more efficient system administration and management contributing to a lower total cost of ownership. The system setup there consisted of one server and ten diskless clients connected to it via a local area network (LAN); this LAN was connected to the Internet via a router and an asynchronous digital subscriber line link. The centre was also equipped with GNU/Linux live-CDs (localized MIMOS/GNU live-CD based on Knoppix live-CD) to enable the diskless clients to run as stand-alone stations to access AgriBazaar should the server encounter any problems that could not be resolved quickly enough.

The web-based application can be easily accessible by the users from any computer connected to the Internet. The use of thin-client technology facilitates the access from a centre managed by a local authority or government agency without the need to install or upgrade to new and expensive computer systems. The existing infrastructure can be leveraged to access and use AgriBazaar and this is very useful, especially for rural communities where such a model will make it easier for them to adopt the usage of AgriBazaar.

For the SCM system, a total of four modules have been deployed for the community to use - ePlan, eBuySell, eStock, and eLogistic. The remaining three modules - eSupport, eMake, and ePayment, are still under development and will be released in the first quarter of 2006.

Impact

The project is focused on bridging the digital divide and enhancing productivity and competitiveness in the agriculture sector of Malaysia. Some of the expected outcomes from this project are increased ICT literacy and income, and improved livelihood for the people in the agriculture and rural sectors. It is also hoped that a pool of local talent with the ability to develop local software applications for social benefits will emerge.

AgriBazaar provides an alternative to the traditional way of doing business. Through it, both the producers and the buyers have direct and better access to the market and each other and the middleman is eliminated. This will result in a more open and competitive market with the seller being able to sell directly to the buyer and the latter obtaining a better value for the items purchased.
 
AgriBazaar can be accessible anywhere and any time. It is more flexible for the producers or the buyers to do business without time constraint thereby increasing their productivity, since buying and selling can be made whenever they are free with less disturbance to their daily jobs or activities. By being a web-based application, AgriBazaar is globally accessible and buyers from other countries have used AgriBazaar as a platform to do business with local producers. In addition to the latest prices of the agricultural products, AgriBazaar also provides up-to-date information on market analysis and estimation data on fruit production. Through this information, producers or buyers are able to stay better informed and be more competitive.

In the deployment of AgriBazaar, a very important impact is the bridging of the digital divide. Most of the farmers or people who are involved in the agriculture industry have low ICT literacy. Through this project, these people are given training regularly so that they know how to access and make use of the AgriBazaar portal; thereby making them ICT-literate.

The use of FOSS and the thin-client approach make it easier to deploy the system even to places where there is low ownership of computers. This will enable the project to reach a wider section of the target communities.

Lessons Learned

Several important lessons were learned in the pilot run of the project.

As the fear among some of the suppliers and providers that their products may not be up to quality resulted in considerable apprehension in using the system, some means of measuring or ensuring quality of their products is needed.

The community adoption to new technology is slow. Changes take time and the rural divide issue is not the only issue at hand. Even the personnel within the organizations involved needed to be inculcated with ICT culture. Users are reluctant to try out and use new things and/or features if their benefits are not seen or obtained immediately.

The usage and availability of appropriate Internet access technologies have to be considered beforehand. As the Internet is required to use AgriBazaar, technologies available in remote areas for Internet access (e.g. broadband versus dial-up) are key factors towards the effective use of the application.

The project must be scalable and sustainable in the future for it to have a longer-term impact. The use of FOSS helps towards this especially in the deployment and maintenance part of the project.

Current Status of Project

The project has moved beyond its pilot stage testing and it is now being implemented in stages at various agriculture department offices nationwide. As part of the implementation plan, MIMOS is distributing PCs, in stages, to these agriculture offices to those who need the access as an incentive to encourage more people to use AgriBazaar. The distribution of the first stage has started where thirteen PCs have been distributed to selected offices recommended by Department of Agriculture.

The second stage of the software development is almost completed and new releases will be seen in early 2006.

AgriBazaar is in the stage of transferring the first level support to the Department of Agriculture for operational matters. Currently, the statistics for AgriBazaar are as follows:

• Number of registered members – 11,500
• Number of offers for purchases of goods - 770
• Value amount of offers - more than MYR 15 million (USD 4 million)

Although, the portal targeted local users involved in agriculture activities, there are also users from other countries registered on the AgriBazaar portal and making offers through the portal. These account for 3 percent of the registered members and they come from countries such as Australia, Canada, China, Egypt, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Spain, United Kingdom and all the ASEAN countries.

Benefits and Challenges

The general benefits gained from using FOSS are experienced in this project. These include the relatively low-cost, reliability and security of the software. More importantly, by using FOSS, the developers were able to grasp and learn advanced concepts of software development and were able to deliver prototypes quickly. FOSS provided the tools needed to do the job and the good references given by the resources available from the FOSS community made it possible to develop a complex system like the applications for AgriBazaar.

FOSS allows the development of the software and the maintenance of the system to take place without incurring high costs. AgriBazaar is a national project funded by the Malaysian government and so there is a need to have a cost-effective platform. The use of FOSS also goes towards the creation of a local pool of software developers and architects and this will in turn create more local content or applications that address the local needs of the nation and industry.

Among the challenges experienced in using FOSS are that a learning period is required before the developers can become productive and efficient as many of them have not been exposed to the FOSS development environment.

The biggest challenge to the project itself is the issue of sustainability. The application needs to be sustainable in order for it to create the impact and benefits envisaged.

Clear ownership of AgriBazaar is also required so that its potential can be further explored and expanded. A dedicated team comprising technical, support groups and domain experts must be focused in providing not only the best solution and technology but also addressing the industry needs. Currently, this is a challenge as AgriBazaar is still at the demonstration stage and is fully funded by the government. The people in the community must also be willing to take ownership of the project and its programmes and activities and be convinced that they are for the betterment of their own livelihood.

Other Information

Much useful feedback has been received asking for the enhancement of the portal from the portal members themselves. The statistics and comments give a good indication that the application is being used actively by the members. The media and press have also given good reviews and comments saying that AgriBazaar benefits the agriculture community.

Conclusion

The AgriBazaar project has shown how FOSS can be leveraged as an enabling tool to build ICT solutions that can benefit targeted sectors of a community, in this case, the agriculture and rural communities in Malaysia. FOSS has been utilized successfully to develop and run the system. The project has contributed towards directly improving the economic status of the rural agriculture producers by providing a platform for them to have better access to buyers and eliminating the middleman. Through the usage of the system, the users have become ICT-literate thereby addressing the digital divide between the rural and urban population. The use of thin-client technology to provide access to the AgriBazaar portal is very useful for rural communities where computer resources are lacking and such a model will make it easier for rural areas to adopt the usage of AgriBazaar.

While the initial feedback to the pilot phase of the project has been positive and encouraging, key issues of sustainability and ownership remain as the project attempts to move from the pilot phase into nationwide roll out.

Contact Information

Project: AgriBazaar
Organization: MIMOS Berhad
Contact Person: Norlidza Mohd Yassin
Street / Postal Address: Technology Park Malaysia, 57000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Email: mwliza@mimos.my
Phone: +603 8996 5000
Fax: +603 8657 9449

Websites

The AgriBazaar portal
http://www.agribazaar.com.my

MIMOS Berhad website
http://www.mimos.my

The African Virtual Open Initiatives and Resources (AVOIR) project, initiated by the University of the Western Cape (UWC), is a collaborative effort among several African higher education institutions. It attempts to create educational and business opportunities that contribute towards the development of Africa through Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) development activities. To start off this effort, it has taken an existing e-learning platform application, Knowledge Environment for Web-based Learning (KEWL) that was developed at UWC, and rebuilt it to run on a FOSS platform. The new version of the software, KEWL.NextGen, is based entirely on FOSS and it has an innovative modular architecture that is implemented using a model-view-controller (MVC) design pattern and offers great flexibility to adapt the framework for any purpose. It also has unique features like the support of offline authoring of content, active mirroring, and instructional design capabilities.

The FOSS collaborative development model utilized by the AVOIR project allows many institutions, organizations and individuals all over Africa to volunteer or contribute to the project. With the choice of using FOSS and its related technologies, the core AVOIR team has been able to benefit from FOSS and offer FOSS-related services to the local government, education and business sectors. All this has contributed towards capacity building and as the project management is based at UWC, the project has resulted in a broad knowledge of FOSS being developed there too. This has enabled UWC to successfully implement an enterprise architecture strategy in which FOSS technologies and solutions are preferred.

The first phase of the KEWL.NextGen e-learning platform development has been largely completed successfully. As a result of this success, alliances have been established between AVOIR and initiatives for other projects utilizing FOSS. Some of the desired shorter term outcomes of the AVOIR project like the use of higher educational institutions to drive the production of innovative software and to provide advice, accessibility and enhanced local support for FOSS have been realized with the KEWL.NextGen project. However, it is still too early at this stage of the AVOIR project to determine if the desired long-term outcome, in which FOSS is to contribute significantly towards sustainable growth and development within Africa, can be realized.

Background of Organization

The AVOIR project is a collaboration by several African higher education institutions to build a group of core FOSS developers in Africa who are able, through software development activities, to create educational and business opportunities that contribute to development on the continent.

AVOIR is not primarily a software development project; it is a project about human development, capacity building and creating opportunities for people through the formation of transnational alliances both within and outside of Africa. Core developers from African universities and other organizations participate in most of the software development activities, particularly the first software project from AVOIR, KEWL.NextGen. After the first working code had been released, other institutions and individuals have been encouraged to volunteer their contributions to the project in true FOSS community fashion.
 
The AVOIR project is governed by a board consisting of volunteers within the partner institutions. Each of the formal partner institutions receives a salary for one developer funded by AVOIR and there is a partially-funded project manager and funded researcher based at UWC. Participating institutions are encouraged to seek their own funding for extended participation, this being the only mechanism currently available to bring new partners into AVOIR.

The project was initiated by UWC, and at present UWC employs 13 full-time developers, graphic artists, usability testers and a project manager. There is also a very strong internship programme, and at any one time there are at least three interns working on the project. AVOIR's partner network consists of 15 developers and development teams scattered throughout Africa, all of whom are actively involved in developing and contributing to the projects that AVOIR is involved in.

Objectives of Project

The main goal of the AVOIR project is to see if concepts of knowledge ecology can be used to build a sustainable and expanding system of free software creation that contributes to economic development in Africa. The knowledge ecology can be viewed as having three core components: people, processes and technology. These are seen against the background of the higher education and broader socio-political landscape in much the same way that energy, nutrients and trophic relationships interplay with the broader physical environment in natural ecosystems.

Some of the desired outcomes of AVOIR are as follows:

• Higher education institutions in Africa to drive the production of new and innovative software for use in the higher education, education, business and government sectors.
• The availability of better advice, accessibility and enhanced local support for FOSS in education, business and government.
• An increase in the number of graduates trained in the application of FOSS principles and enhanced employment opportunities for graduates of higher education institutions.
• Enhanced relationships between higher education and business built around the development and support of FOSS.

Aside from the above medium-term outcomes, a long-term outcome is to contribute towards sustainable growth and development within Africa.

The target audience for AVOIR includes public higher education institutions and software developers in Africa, working in collaboration with one another and with software developers in other parts of the world. Side benefits of the tools being developed will also accrue to other educational institutions, including schools, private education and training organizations, and businesses.

The African higher education institutions involved in the project are: University of the Western Cape, University of Jos, Catholic University of Mozambique, University of Dar es Salaam, University of Nairobi, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Universite Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar, Makerere University, Uganda Martyrs University, National University of Rwanda, University of Ghana, and the University of Eduardo Mondlane. In addition, Nelson Mandela Metropole University, University of Namibia, Sokoine University (Tanzania), Polytechnic in Blantyre (Malawi) and Monash University (Johannesburg campus) have found their own means to participate. Outside of Africa, Washington State University, Colgate University and Kabul University are involved in various ways.

FOSS Application

Description

The first FOSS application that is being developed under AVOIR is KEWL.NextGen. This is a port of the original KEWL learning management system that was developed to run on the proprietary Microsoft Windows platform. KEWL.NextGen is based on a PHP framework called KINKY (a recursive acronym for KINKY Is Not KEWL Yet). KINKY is implemented using an MVC design pattern, with a front controller web implementation, and has a fully modular architecture. Where possible, it uses PHP PEAR heavily, including the database abstraction. Apart from a web platform, the application also has offline authoring and active dynamic mirroring (ADM) capabilities to allow improved wide-area collaboration activities.

Choice of FOSS

The AVOIR project is a project on capacity building and the creation of opportunities for the people of Africa through information and communications technology (ICT). The idea is to to build a sustainable software ecosystem that contributes to economic development in Africa. FOSS is used as the enabler for this to take place. As a first project, an existing application, KEWL, is implemented in the FOSS scripting language, PHP, and this is used as the basis for building an improved next-generation FOSS learning management system - KEWL.NextGen. A FOSS collaborative development model allows many institutions, organizations as well as individuals to volunteer or contribute to the project. Using FOSS and the FOSS development model and environment, AVOIR is able to bring together cutting edge educational research with cutting edge computer science to produce an advanced application development framework and a learning management system based on it. With this project, the core AVOIR team has been able to offer services on e-learning as well as the development and use of FOSS to the government, education and business sectors.

Development and Implementation

The KINKY application framework and KEWL.NextGen were developed following good design principles, resulting in a framework that will cater to the requirements of other new applications across many application domains. The application framework used is an implementation of the MVC design pattern as it is generally interpreted for web applications. This has been implemented using the Front Controller web design pattern, thus providing all modules with access to core functionality, and enabling the core framework classes to respond consistently across modules. The view part of the MVC architecture is implemented using templates. Currently only PHP templates are used, although a template engine can easily be incorporated into the architecture if it becomes necessary.

By using this architecture, a modular system is implemented, making it easy to add new modules on an ongoing basis without needing to alter any code other than that of the module being implemented. In addition, most of the key terminology used to describe functionality is abstracted. This has enabled the developers to use the framework to build applications as diverse as group-collaboration, content management systems, portal applications, clinical tracking, hospital pharmacy management, labour relations management and others by enabling specialized and unspecialized modules to be mixed in ways that would not be possible without abstraction.

KEWL.NextGen makes use of the following FOSS software: Apache web server, MySQL database, PHP with the PEAR Library and a number of PHP extensions. While the AVOIR project recommends implementing KEWL.NextGen on the GNU/Linux operating system, it is also possible to use it on Microsoft Windows (2000, XP, 2003) and Sun Solaris platforms.

A guide for planning implementation is available. For the lowest and least costly implementation, the guidelines provide for implementation using a single entry-level server capable of supporting a few hundred simultaneous users. In such a case, the database and web server are on the same machine. With a dual processor server, and a large amount of RAM, such a system can support a few thousand users, but has no redundancy at all. At the other end of the scale, KEWL.NextGen and other KINKY-based applications can scale to support even millions of users through load balancing, clustering and other techniques.

KEWL.NextGen and all KINKY applications can implement an innovative technique known as ADM. ADM allows a set of KEWL.NextGen servers to actively mirror all data and file system objects among one another in realistic time according to the limitations of available bandwidth. Servers among which such objects are mirrored are participants in an ADM virtual cluster and are known to one another. If the state of data or file system objects change on any server in the system, the changes are propagated to all other servers in the ADM virtual cluster. This means that learning content, interactive discussions, uploaded assignments, etc. are accessible across servers in the ADM virtual cluster. This should happen even in bandwidth-constrained environments to the extent possible. Advanced data compression techniques will play a role in facilitating this process.

Deployment

KEWL.NextGen has been deployed in each of the partner institutions, and many of them have established or are establishing e-learning support teams to support academics wishing to use the system. In partnership with the NetTel @ Africa  project, the system is being used to deliver e-learning for the Master’s Degree programme on ICT Policy and Regulation that is offered collaboratively by 21 universities. Outside Africa, the system is also in use at Kabul University in Afghanistan. Various other implementations are in early stages of development.

Deployments of KEWL.NextGen in projects centred at UWC include:

• Alumni Portal (keeping track of Alumni and their activities)
• Brawaamsisswam Community Outreach (mentoring system for high school children)
• Electronic Theses and Dissertations
• kPostgraduate (post-graduate mentoring system)
• Student Enrolment Management System (SEMS)
• Clinical tracking of Nurses
• HIV/AIDS training for teachers
• kGroups group-based collaboration
• Thetha community bulletin board
• The University of the Western Cape portal

There have also been deployments of KEWL.NextGen in other projects outside of UWC and these include:

• Namibian e-learning programme
• Commonwealth of learning in Namibia and SchoolNet Namibia
• National Information Society Learnership (Ecological Informatics)
• NetTom in Malawi

Impact

The AVOIR project has had a tremendous impact on UWC and most of the partner institutions. Some of this is a result of the institutionalization of KEWL.NextGen, but some of it is also a result of having developed a broad base of knowledge and skills through AVOIR and the projects with which it has synergy.

KEWL.NextGen has been fully institutionalized at UWC. This included the development of an e-learning strategy and the creation of an e-learning support unit with proper support procedures and training. The staff at UWC have begun to use KEWL.NextGen and the older version of KEWL will be phased out soon.

UWC is currently implementing a Free Content and Free Open Courseware strategy. This strategy will require all courses to have a representation on KEWL.NextGen, and that content be made available with preference for a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. In relation to this, it is noted that while it is now possible to import all of the MIT Open Courseware into KEWL.NextGen, actual deployment is hindered by its restrictive license. Other, less restrictive alternatives to the MIT OpenCourseware, for example the Rice University Connections project, are being explored.

The impact on partner institutions is only just beginning to be explored, but for many of them, KEWL.NextGen and other KINKY applications have already become part of their institutional strategy. In addition, for some, business opportunities are being created out of the software.

Lessons Learned

• Within the AVOIR project, some key lessons have evolved that are worth reporting:
• Nodes should grow through their own processes (for example, by creating opportunities for student projects).
• Nodes should be able to replicate (for example, by providing training and support to institutions wishing to establish new nodes).
• Agility must win over politics.
• Inclusive not exclusive.
• The ecosystem as a whole should work towards sustainability beyond research funding.

Current Status of Project

The first phase of the KEWL.NextGen e-learning platform development has been completed and the software currently is in version 1.3. Apart from this, the following applications have been released as part of the AVOIR project:

• kGroups - a system for online, group-based collaboration
• kForums - a system to run the community board at UWC
• kPortal - a system to run the UWC main portal

Other applications like kClinicalTrack for tracking nursing students in clinical placements and kSurvey for running web and paper-based surveys will be released in June and July of 2006 respectively. Several other applications are also in the release stream for 2006, including version 2 of the KINKY framework with full support for services implementation.

Two developer workshops have been conducted, and developers in each of the partner institutions are now fully trained in all aspects of the methodology of the project. Several conference presentations have been made and peer-reviewed conference papers have been published. Alliances have been established between AVOIR and a number of other projects and initiatives, including the NetTel@Africa programme, Kabul University and the Afghan E-Quality Alliance, Philippines E-Quality Alliance, New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), and the Department of Science and Technology (South Africa).

Benefits and Challenges

A major problem in African and other developing countries is one of access to expensive licensed propriety software. AVOIR encourages the use of FOSS and under it, projects like the KINKY framework and KEWL.NextGen, make the software and content freely available and accessible to anyone with access to a computer. Having access to the source code and given the modular nature and database abstraction, the framework and its applications move beyond a learning management system and can be applied to other areas such as business and government. The modularity of KEWL.NextGen and its underlying KINKY architecture makes it flexible and relatively easy to incorporate new features and functionalities.

The general benefits that the AVOIR KEWL.NextGen project has brought to its participants are capacity building and expertise in FOSS development work. Being based at UWC, the project has resulted in a broad knowledge of FOSS being developed at UWC. This has enabled the institution to embark on an enterprise architecture strategy that stipulates that any new technology implemented at UWC has to be done using FOSS unless it can be proven that it cannot be implemented that way. This strategy has resulted in savings for the institution where FOSS solutions are used over proprietary ones, and more importantly, it has allowed the institution to integrate systems to a level not possible with proprietary software and within its budget.

Other Information

One of the principles of AVOIR is that it should work towards sustainability. It is too early in the project to have made much progress in this matter, particularly in those institutions that are still new to the collaborative development of FOSS. However, at UWC, several options for sustainability are being explored and these can serve as models for the other AVOIR partners. In addition, the business world is exploring how to create business opportunities out of the work that was done at UWC and beginning to establish partnerships with UWC in a number of countries in Africa.

Conclusion

The AVOIR project has successfully completed the first phase of the KEWL.NextGen e-learning platform by migrating over to FOSS an earlier implementation of KEWL. As a result of this success, alliances have been established between AVOIR and initiatives for other projects utilizing FOSS. All of this will go towards helping achieve the objective of the AVOIR project in which the knowledge ecology, comprising people, processes and technology, is used to build a sustainable and expanding system of FOSS creation that contributes to economic development in Africa. In the meantime, some of the desired shorter term outcomes of the AVOIR project like the use of higher educational institutions to drive the production of innovative software and the availability of improved skills, accessibility and enhanced local support for FOSS have been realized with the KEWL.NextGen project.

Contact Information

Project: African Virtual Open Initiatives and Resources (AVOIR)
Organization: AVOIR / University of the Western Cape (UWC)
Contact Persons: Paul Scott / Derek Keats
Street / Postal Address: Modderdam Road, Bellville, Western Cape, South Africa
Emails: pscott@uwc.ac.za / dkeats@uwc.ac.za
Phone: +27 21 959 3759
Fax: +27 21 959 1234

Websites

The AVOIR project website
http://avoir.uwc.ac.za/

The KEWL.NextGen project site
http://avoir.uwc.ac.za/projects/nextgen/

Colnodo is a non-profit organization in Colombia that provides a wide range of information and communications technology (ICT) and Internet services, primarily to NGOs and other non-profit organizations. The services offered by Colnodo are targeted at organizations that make strategic use of the Internet for development, empowering the local communities and promoting the peace process. Currently, Colnodo services over 500 organizations in Colombia.

Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is used extensively by Colnodo for its ICT and Internet services. In particular, the Action Applications (ActionApps) content management system, a collaborative web publishing tool especially suited for NGOs, is used to enable the organizations served by Colnodo to manage the content of their websites, as well as to exchange information with other sites easily by themselves. ActionApps runs on the LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) platform and therefore, fits well into the FOSS environment in Colnodo.

Besides providing basic Internet services, Colnodo is also involved in the development of complex information systems such as the Internet for Accountability System and the Basic Municipality Environmental Information System. The former is an information system that allows municipalities to publish information to their communities online. To implement this project, Colnodo developed a system to administer the set-up of the several hundred sites that are under the system. For the Basic Municipality Environmental Information System, environmental information stored in a database is correlated to a geographical information system (GIS) and this information can be accessed using mobile phones with Internet connectivity.

Colnodo has been in operation for twelve years and it is able to generate its own income from the services it provides. This is something unique as its customers are mainly organizations that are not well-off and it is a non-profit setup that does not depend on funding from donors. FOSS has been a key contributory factor to the success of Colnodo, as FOSS applications are able to provide all the important services required by Colnodo's customers and they are available without licensing fees.

 
Background of Organization

The Colombian Non-Governmental Organizations’ Association for Communication via Electronic Mail (Asociación Colombiana de Organizaciones No Gubernamentales para la Comunicación Vía Correo Electrónico) or Colnodo was founded in 1993 by seven non-profit civil society organizations and is one of the first Internet Services Providers (ISPs) in Colombia. Colnodo provides a wide range of Internet services, including email, discussion forums, online databases, web hosting, audio and video broadcast, and search engines to over 500 organizations in Colombia. It also facilitates the effective use of Internet technologies by these organizations to enable their projects to have a bigger impact on their target audience.

Colnodo is the only non-profit ISP in Colombia. It has a full-time staff of about 15 members and several volunteers and contractors working in different projects. Its mission is to empower and support groups and individuals working for peace, human rights, development and protection of the environment, through the strategic use of the Internet. Colnodo Is a member of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and the Colombian National Confederation of NGOs.

Objectives of Project

Colnodo's main objective is to facilitate the communication and exchange of information and experiences among Colombian NGOs at the local, national and international level. It supports the initiatives of grass-roots NGOs by providing ICT and Internet facilities and services to the people. Projects that have been carried out by Colnodo include Internet access to local communities, training in the strategic uses of the Internet for peace and conflict resolution, online education services, support for women networking online and the promotion of local services and content.

Another major objective of the organization is the empowerment of local communities using the Action Applications (ActionApps) content management system. This software is available as FOSS and with it Colnodo has been able to support many organizations in the effective publication of online information.

The services offered by Colnodo are targeted at organizations that initiate projects that make strategic use of the Internet for development and allow people to have equal access to information. Some of the sites developed by Colnodo using ActionApps include:

• Youth Information Network (http://www.rij.org.co)
• Education for Peace Network (http://www.educacionparalapaz.org.co)
• Good Practices to Solve Conflict (http://www.saliendodelcallejon.pnud.org.co)
• Sustainable Development Network (http://www.rds.org.co)

During the development of Colnodo, several key partners such as the Sustainable Development Network, the Internet Society and APC were involved in building up the Colnodo network. Currently, in carrying out its mission, it is involved with various partners in ongoing projects. These partners include: Transparency for Colombia; Colombian Connectivity Agenda; the Development Gateway Foundation; and the Presidential Program Youth Colombia.

FOSS Application

Description

Most of the projects that Colnodo is involved with make use of ActionApps. This is a collaborative web publishing tool especially suited for NGOs and non-profit organizations. It is created by APC.

ActionApps are publishing tools that plug into websites. In addition to publishing information, ActionApps allows the organization to create, what it calls, “Content Pools”, to share articles with partner websites. This unique Content Pooling technology enables participating organizations to exchange articles between their sites. The organizations working with Colnodo find in this content management system an efficient tool to publish information online and to build strong networks by exchanging information between sites.

As ActionApps is built using the web scripting language, PHP and it uses MySQL as the database to store the data published, it integrates easily into a FOSS-based web platform running the Apache web server on a GNU/Linux operating system.

Other FOSS applications used in the sites developed by Colnodo, include:

• Mailman to manage mailing lists
• Sendmail to manage email
• Htdig for search engines
• Bekerley Internet Name Daemon (BIND) to manage domain name services
• Horde and Squirrel for web based email systems
• Teleduc as support for online education
• Other content management systems for specific needs: Typo3, Drupal and Wikis
• Mapserver to provide access to geographical information system (GIS) data through the Internet

Choice of FOSS

Most of the organizations served by Colnodo are NGOs and non-profit organizations that cannot afford to pay expensive prices for using proprietary software for the content management system and database. Since FOSS has been found to be able to meet all the requirements of Colnodo's clients and partners, it is used. Also, for some of the projects that are intended to be distributed freely and widely, e.g. Internet for Accountability and the Municipal Basic Information System, it will be very difficult to implement them using proprietary software as the latter will not be able to offer the free distribution and customization flexibility of FOSS.

Development and Implementation

Originally Colnodo used GNU/Linux as a platform to replace its old Bulletin Board Systems so that many more users can be supported. After that, with the advent of the Internet and the World Wide Web, Colnodo started to provide web hosting and other Internet services to organizations so that they do not have to invest in too many resources to have a presence on the Internet. Colnodo also started to provide very specialized services such as online GIS, online broadcast of radio programmes and the creation of efficient and reliable search engines.

The implementation of ActionApps enable Colnodo to offer its customers an affordable and easy means to manage their site content and to exchange information with other sites.

Colnodo has developed complex information systems such as the Internet for Accountability System that allows municipalities to publish information to their communities online. To implement this project Colnodo developed a FOSS-based system to administer efficiently the set-up of the 460 sites that are under the system. The sites also provide tools that allow citizens to request for information and track their request online, Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds, email alerts, accessibility that allows access to the information to anyone irrespective of their physical limitations or the platforms they are using.

In the Basic Municipality Environmental Information System, Colnodo developed an efficient system that correlates environmental information that is stored in the MySQL database with a GIS system and this information can be accessed by using mobile phones with Internet connectivity.

Deployment

Initially, Colnodo used very cheap IBM compatible machines for the servers, but in the last 6-7 years, HP and Dell servers with hard disks arrays have been deployed so as to guarantee a reliable 24 hour operation. All of the servers run GNU/Linux while 70 percent of the desktops do so.

Currently, Colnodo runs more than 150 sites. Most of them use ActionApps and FOSS tools to support the communities that access them and use their services.

Most of the systems are accessed through the Internet. Communities are assisted to gain access through the telecentres and through local partners such as public schools and governmental programmes. However, this is still a problem as less than 10 percent of Colombians have access to the Internet. In some cases, access to information is provided through the use of CDs.

Colnodo is a self-sustaining, non-profit organization that is in existence for 12 years. It is only though the extensive use of FOSS that it is able to keep running its projects depending exclusively on its own income from the services it provides.

Impact

Colnodo serves more than 500 Colombian NGOs and non-profit organizations in projects that work for the betterment of humanity and the environment and promote world peace; its success will have a huge impact on the development and well-being of people everywhere and on the people of Colombia in particular. With the extensive use of FOSS, the tools and technology created can be more easily distributed and replicated to other developing countries. In particular, some of the projects served by Colnodo, like the Internet for Accountability, can have an enormous impact upon successful deployment as it allows the community to have access to the information that affects their lives.

The extensive use of the ActionApps enables NGOS to share their news and information readily. A conducive environment for information exchange and discussion is made available and these organizations should be able to coordinate their activities better and cooperate on important social issues.

Lessons Learned

The success of Colnodo shows that FOSS applications can be used in developing countries. The lesson learned is that FOSS can make many of the projects in developing countries feasible as implementing them using proprietary software will be prohibitively expensive.

FOSS can provide a chance for developing countries to make a difference and to allow them to participate globally in producing technology rather than just remain as mere consumers of technology.

Current Status of Project

Colnodo is an ongoing endeavour. It is still providing Internet services to its customers and working with various parties on specific Internet social development projects, some of which have been mentioned in this book.

Other activities in the future include the setting up of wireless networks in rural areas that will help connect isolated communities and the integration of Internet tools with mobile phones, e.g. text message alerts that can be sent from networks to prevent catastrophes.

Benefits and Challenges

FOSS has benefited Colnodo tremendously in that it depends on FOSS for the numerous services and benefits that it provides to the organizations working with it. These include the economic hosting and easy management of their websites and the provision of Internet services that are usually very expensive such as GIS systems, online multimedia services and efficient search engines for large databases.

The ActionApps content management system solves many problems faced by the organizations that want to publish and exchange information in a cheap and easy fashion. With ActionApps, organizations have the power to publish and exchange information in a very efficient and easy way, allowing them to spend less time and resources in maintaining their sites. Using ActionApps Colnodo can be competitive when compared with commercial ICT companies that charge high fees for the setting up and maintenance of websites.

Colnodo found many advantages of using FOSS at the server level and did not experience any real disadvantages. At the desktop level it experienced some compatibility issues with proprietary platforms, e.g. the compatibility between Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.org. Also, for some desktop Linux distributions, there were difficulties in the support of certain hardware where there are no drivers available.

A key challenge is the integration of mobile phones and Internet services. In Colombia there are many more mobile phone users than Internet users and so if it is possible to integrate these two services in an efficient way many more people can be served. This situation is generally true in most developing countries.

Other Information

Listed below are some of the current important projects by various organizations working with Colnodo.

• Internet for Accountability

Transparency for Colombia [Transparencia por Colombia] and Colnodo recently donated their new software “Internet for Accountability” to the local municipalities. More than 400 municipalities will receive the software along with Internet access on the signing of a transparency and anti-corruption agreement. With this, the mayor’s office in each municipality is encouraged to have its own website. This should promote transparency in the municipality and introduce accountability practices into the management of the municipal office.

• Basic Municipality Environmental Information System

Colnodo developed, in coordination with the Ministry of Environment, Housing and Territorial Development and six governmental environmental organizations, a tool that allows these organizations and municipalities to publish their technical environmental data so that the information can be presented through a geographic information system.

• Youth Network for Peace and Sharing

This project seeks to strengthen the values of vulnerable youths in the urban areas of Bogota through the use of ICT.

Awards and Recognition Received by Colnodo

Colnodo won a research award in 2000, from the Latin American Social Sciences Foundation (FLACSO) with a project entitled, "How to measure qualitative and quantitative impact: the design and implementation of online registration for public Internet access points mechanisms with Linux platforms".  The measurement tool developed from this project is available at http://www.colnodo.apc.org/registro

Conclusion

Colnodo has had great success providing ICT and Internet services and facilities to other non-profit organizations in Colombia so as to help them have a bigger impact with their activities. FOSS applications are used by Colnodo to provide its services. One of these, the ActionApps, is well suited for the NGOs served by Colnodo and with this they can publish and exchange information in an affordable and easy way. Colnodo has also developed complex information systems such as the Internet for Accountability System and the Basic Municipality Environmental Information System, as part of its mission to empower the people with information through the strategic use of ICT and the Internet.

Colnodo is a self-sustaining organization that has been operating for 12 years without any funding from donors. This is probably not achievable without the use of FOSS as it is through FOSS that it is able to generate enough revenue from its services to support itself.

Contact Information

Project: Colnodo
Organization: Asociación Colombiana de Organizaciones No Gubernamentales para la Comunicación Vía Correo Electrónico (Colnodo)
Contact Person: Julián Casasbuenas G
Street / Postal Address: Av 39 14 – 66, Bogotá, Colombia
Email: julian@colnodo.apc.org
Phone: +57 1 232 4246
Fax: +57 1 338 0264

Websites

The Colnodo website
http://www.colnodo.apc.org

Internet for Accountability
http://www.iprc.org.co

Prototype for Internet for Accountability
http://www.municipios2.colnodo.apc.org

The Education secretariat of the State of Paraná in Brazil has developed a web portal that enables the public school teachers in the state to collaborate and develop course contents in various subject areas as well as other teaching resources. Apart from the objective of providing subject materials for the teachers in the preparation of their work, this project also aims to contribute towards increasing the Portuguese content of the Internet as these materials will be published in Portuguese. The application software that provides the environment and facilitates the collaboration and creation of the content is the APC (Ambiente Pedagógico Colaborativo) system. This system was developed using Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) development tools and it is released as FOSS itself.

The portal through the APC system, allows the distribution of curriculum content created by public school teachers in Paraná. The published materials may be worked on collaboratively by registered users of the portal. Through this project, the government of the state of Paraná has taken the initiative to develop information system solutions suited to its needs and making them available to other teaching institutions, both public and private. The usage of FOSS in the project has enabled it to be deployed at low costs and the software solution can be made available for free to other interested states and/or governments.

A culture of collaboration and sharing had to be established first among the teachers before the project can take off and for this to happen the teachers themselves must be convinced of the importance of the project. The teachers had to be trained in the areas of basic computing as well as understand the pedagogical concept of the system.

Currently, the project has resulted in the publication by the public school staff of over 300 course materials covering both primary and secondary education. The Ministry of Education is considering implementing the APC system as a public education policy in Brazil and the Venezuelan government has shown interest in introducing this system into their public education system.

Background of Organization

This project was carried out by the Education Secretariat of the State of Paraná, Brazil as part of its responsibility to ensure universal access to education and to offer complete basic education to its population. The Secretariat is entrusted with raising the level of performance in schools and encouraging improvement among the teaching, technical and administrative staff in the education sector. It is also the Secretariat's responsibility to guide, control and monitor the performance of pre-school, primary and secondary teaching establishments both regular and supplementary, and special education in the public and private sectors.

Objectives of Project

The web portal “Day-to-Day Education” aims to provide educational information, teaching and curriculum content to teachers, students, school managers and the community. Information and content relating to various subject areas as well as other resources that help educators in their teaching tasks are made available in the portal. The portal offers teachers a reliable, free and effective environment to interact and work together thereby encouraging them to collaborate on content production. In this way their knowledge and experience can be passed on to educators and other users of the system.

The project has its own identity that is a result of the collective work of the local teachers at various levels and can be viewed as part of the social benefits of information and communications technology (ICT) to the country. As the portal is in Portuguese, it also contributes to the Portuguese content of the Internet.

The main target groups of the project are the teaching staff in basic education in public and private schools all over Brazil and in Portuguese-speaking countries.

The main partners in the project are the government of the state of Paraná, the Companhia Paranaense de Informática (CELEPAR – the Paraná Computing Company) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

FOSS Application

Description

The interactive education portal is designed to provide information and content collaboration and sharing to the educators and the community. It is designed such that it enables the user to explore resources that are of interest to him or her and contribute new information at any time. Basic FOSS software used in the development of the portal include the Apache web server, PHP web scripting language, PostgreSQL database, OpenOffice.org office application suite and Firefox web browser.

The application software that provides the environment and facilitates the collaboration and creation of the content is the APC system. This has three main modules:

• Publications/Collaboration: interactive system between users (teachers) to collaborate on content production.

• Validation/Correction of Language: interactive system between teachers validating and correcting content to ensure the quality of content being made available.

• Administration: administration system for system managers including sending out reports, updating tables, authorizing users, etc.

The APC system is distributed as FOSS and is licensed under the LPG-AP (Licença Pública Geral da Administração Pública - General Public Licence for Public Administration).

Choice of FOSS

The choice of FOSS is based on reasons of cost and quality. The usage of commercial proprietary software will incur high licensing costs. Another important factor in using FOSS is that it will be possible for the owners/developers of the project to have complete knowledge and understanding of the software used as the source code is available.

Development and Implementation

The portal application is recommended to run on a GNU/Linux platform with Apache, PHP and PostgreSQL. To access the portal, the user only needs a web browser and an Internet connection. Even with low-speed connections, the portal may be accessed satisfactorily.

Several other states/municipalities have started to implement this system too, thereby increasing collaboration on content production and helping to increase the share of Portuguese language content on the Internet.

The developers and implementers of the software have found that by using FOSS they can count on a huge community to help them solve problems that may appear and that the support response time from the FOSS community is faster than that from the commercial companies. There has been a significant increase in productivity in developing the solution using free technologies. One of the advantages is the ability to re-use other free solutions found within the community. The developers are able to re-use codes from other applications in different parts of the world, a situation that has led to the creation of a network of technical cooperation to find solutions and to share knowledge generally.

Deployment

The usage of FOSS in the project has enabled the project to be deployed at low costs and the software solution can be made available for free to other interested parties.

The staff of public schools has participated in the publication of materials and this has resulted in the widespread distribution of curriculum content created by these public school teachers in Paraná. Before publication, to ensure the quality of the information published, these materials are checked by a team of teacher-guides. After publication, these materials may be worked on collaboratively by any user registered with the Day-to-Day Education portal. These registered users can add on to the information published on the APC system. This has generated much technical cooperation between different public and private institutions.

Impact

The system allows teachers in public schools to produce content from within their schools. This content is based on knowledge that teachers have created and gathered from their classroom experience. This initiative aims to encourage the publication of more web pages in Portuguese and Spanish languages.

By means of this initiative, the government of the state of Paraná has become a provider of information systems in the area of education. The state has also become a developer of solutions fitted to its needs and made available to other teaching institutions, both public and private.

The system aims to arm educators with information about the content of the various subject areas and other resources that help in their teaching tasks, making it an official repository of curriculum content. In this way it has an impact on the education community as it can play the role of a communication vehicle in which the value of the intellectual production of public school teachers is recognized and it can offer services relevant to all those working in basic education thereby encouraging the creation of virtual learning communities and stimulating continuing education.

Lessons Learned

To develop the initial content for the Day-to-Day Education portal, training was given to 1,257 teachers working in the 17 subject areas of basic education and representing the 32 Regional Educational Nuclei. From this exercise, it was found that it was a mistake to:

• provide temporary contracts to ICT university teachers to validate content
• have prior definition of content to be developed
• certify teachers for starting production of the content but not for publishing it

From this initial exercise, it was also found that the content validation process should be an activity within the functions of basic education teachers because it requires both domain knowledge as well as experience in the classroom. Another important point learned was to allow teachers to define the content on which they would work rather decide for them beforehand.

Current Status of Project

The APC system has published over 300 course materials for collaborative learning, all drawn up by teachers in public basic education schools in Paraná. Of the over 22,200 registered users, some 16,000 are public school teachers.

The content in the system can be used by teachers in public and private schools throughout Brazil to prepare their lessons. It is hoped that if the system can be spread to other states in the country, a large collaborative network of knowledge related to basic education can be created. Discussions are under way with the Brazilian Ministry of Education on implementing the APC system as a public education policy.

In 2006, an offline version of the system will be launched. This version will serve users with slow dial-up connections or who do not have Internet access. Content will also be translated into Spanish and English in 2006.

Benefits and Challenges

The general benefits experienced in using FOSS in this project include the opportunity to engage in cooperative development, independence from suppliers, low-cost, security, portability and the good support provided by the FOSS community.

High training cost was cited for this project but it was also noted that this cost would probably be the same or higher if proprietary software was utilized instead of FOSS.

The biggest challenge for this project was to develop the culture of collaboration among the teachers. For this to happen the teachers themselves had to be convinced of the importance of the project i.e. to build a database of curriculum content by collaboratively working together.

Another challenge is the training of teachers within the public basic education system of Paraná. This training involves mastering knowledge of basic computing as well as understanding the pedagogical concept of the system.

The State Secretariat of Education's policy is to distribute the content material without charge to the other states of Brazil. Discussions are under way on how to integrate the different databases so as to enable users to find specific curriculum content.

Making the computers available to teachers at their schools presents a significant challenge too. This was addressed by the Paraná Digital Project, described below.

The Paraná Digital Project

School teachers had their access to the APC system through Paraná Digital (PRD), a project that consisted of the installation of 40,000 working terminals placed in academic laboratories spread all over Paraná State, together with remote management to grant quality services and security. The FOSS that enables this to take place was entirely developed by the Computing Science Department in Universidade Federal do Paraná (UFPR). This ability to make available, manage and maintain the computer laboratory systems is the greatest difference when the PRD project (which makes the access to the APC environment possible) is compared to other similar initiatives. It is important to note that it is the appropriate combination of the two projects (education portal and PRD) that leads to the high quality of the final product (content and infrastructure).

Other Information

The system has been demonstrated to the Ministers of Education and Science and Technology of Venezuela, who have expressed interest in introducing it into their public education system. Free distribution of the source code of the APC system, including the databases and specifications, will be given to all governments who show interest in this project.

Conclusion

The project has shown that with the proper tools, training and environment it is possible to get the teachers and educators to interact and collaborate to produce useful course content. The published materials can be used by teachers in schools throughout Brazil to prepare their lessons and it is important that these materials are available for all to share and make use of. This will further add on to the pool of materials available so that teachers in other states or countries can build on this.

The Paraná Digital project, which provided the necessary infrastructure for the APC initiative, is innovative because it is the first of its kind to attend to such a large number of schools and to maintain the operation of its systems by remote management. This project clearly shows the importance of adopting certain strategies, among which are effective remote laboratory management, good local access infrastructure and use of a multi-terminal model. The Paraná Digital project is strategic because not only has it accomplished its initial goal of providing the teachers access to the education portal, it also demonstrates the feasibility of providing continuous services and the development of products.

The use of FOSS for the software development and the release of the APC system and the PRD tools under a FOSS license is very appropriate as it will facilitate sharing and make it affordable for other groups to implement the solution.

Contact Information

Project: “Day-to-Day Education” Portal
Organization: Secretaria de Estado da Educação do Paraná (CETEPAR – Education Secretariat of the State of Paraná)
Contact Person: Glauco Gomes de Menezes
Street / Postal Address: Rua Salvador Ferrante, 1651, CEP 81670-390, Curitiba – Paraná, Brazil
Email: glaucogm@seed.pr.gov.br
Phone: +55 41 3376 3323 Ext. 234 / 3377 5068
Fax: +55 41 3278 7108

Project: Paraná Digital
Organization: Departamento de Informática – Universidade Federal do Paraná
Contact Person: Marcos A. Castilho
Street / Postal Address: Francisco H. dos Santos 100, Centro Politécnico, Jardim das Américas, Cx Postal: 19081, CEP: 81531-980, Curitiba – Paraná, Brazil
Email: castilho@ufpr.br
Phone: +55 41 3361 3567
Fax: +55 41 3361 3205

Websites

“Day-to-Day Education” Portal
http://www.diaadiaeducacao.pr.gov.br

Paraná Digital
http://www.c3sl.ufpr.br

The Open Source Simple Computer for Agriculture in Rural Areas (OSCAR) project from the French Institute of Pondicherry (IFP), involves the prototyping of an application software for weed identification and control of the rice and wheat crop systems of the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP). It is targeted at being deployed on low-cost computing devices running GNU/Linux that can be shared among farmers of a local community.

OSCAR has been developed for both desktop computers and Simputers using Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) tools, and is released as FOSS. FOSS is chosen as it is important to make the software freely available to the farmers and to encourage contributions to OSCAR from various groups and organizations in the IGP. These groups help enhance the system by cataloguing the weed species in their region and their respective control measures. It is also important to be able to perform customizations to suit local languages and cultural practices as the content of the application, particularly, the control measures of weeds may vary with the practices in different regions.

OSCAR is unique in that it is the first of its kind within the domain of information and communications technology (ICT) applications for agriculture. By being available as FOSS, it promotes the aggregation of information from academic/research institutions as well as from traditional knowledge systems.

The project has tested the application with various target groups in the four countries of the IGP – Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan, with encouraging results. A key lesson learned from the project is that any implementation of ICT applications for a rural agrarian population has to take into account the prevalent basic issues in agricultural practices and infrastructural constraints. It is essential that methods to integrate participation from the local communities are considered.

The current project is concerned with delivering and testing the prototype OSCAR application. While this has been largely successful, the ability to move from this to the actual working environment at the field level remains uncertain, as is the ability to continue to consolidate and sustain the enthusiasm and efforts of the different agencies in the different countries to participate, contribute, build and enhance on the existing set-up.

The actual deployment of OSCAR will probably not be done on Simputers as several issues with implementing and using it on a Simputer were experienced during the course of the development of OSCAR and its subsequent trial runs. To overcome this and to enable it to reach a wider audience, OSCAR has been successfully converted into a web-based application.

Background of Organization

The French Institute of Pondicherry, a multidisciplinary research centre located in Pondicherry, India carries out research and training activities in South and South-East Asia in the fields of Indology, Social Sciences and Ecology. The IFP is highly regarded for its work in the study of Sanskrit and Tamil languages, literature and grammatical traditions (in collaboration with the Ecole Française d’ Extrême Orient) as well as for its vegetation mapping of South Indian Forests and bioclimates in South-East Asia.

The Laboratory of Geomatics and Applied Informatics in the Institute specializes in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and in ICT. It is responsible for all the ICT infrastructural needs of IFP as well as the development of databases and multimedia products for the departments at the Institute. The Laboratory is also in charge of original applications development, aimed at improving access to new technologies.

Objectives of Project

The OSCAR project aims to address the issue of declining agricultural productivity in South Asia by producing a tool for decision-making in weed identification and control. The specific objective of the project is to demonstrate a prototype of this tool implemented in software and running on desktop computers and low-cost computing devices.

This decision-making tool targets farmers of the IGP at the village level and it will be available in different local languages so as to address the cultural diversity of the project area. An existing software for species identification - IDentification Assiste pour Ordinnateur (IDAO) is ported to a FOSS platform and deployed on low-cost computing devices running GNU/Linux, that can be shared among farmers of a local community. A model database for identification and control of a set of the most important weeds of the IGP is developed for integration with the species identification software. The usage, appropriateness and acceptance of the tool at the farmer community level are also assessed.

The primary target groups are the farmers and village communities of selected villages from the four countries of the IGP – Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan. The indirect target group is the farming community of the region in general. The ultimate end users of the OSCAR application will be the farmers, village communities and also all the actors involved in the support of agricultural activities, such as development workers, NGOs, training and extension officers of semi-government and government agencies, and students of botany and agronomy at the colleges and universities.

For this project, IFP is working with three partners from Asia and Europe:

• The Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement of France specializing in development-oriented agricultural research for hot regions.
• The Rice and Wheat Consortium of Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan has weed science experts and a strong background in agriculture in the IGP.
• The Centre of Innovation Studies, Wageningen University from the Netherlands, is concerned with the way communication can be strategically brought in to reinforce development, pro-social behaviour, organizational efficiency, and collective decision-making. Its interests cover the broad and interconnected areas of agriculture, food and health, environment and nature, in western as well as in non-western countries.

FOSS Application

Description

The prototype application, OSCAR, is the primary outcome of the project. With a weed identification system at its core, it has information on 50 of the most common weed species for the rice and wheat crop systems of the IGP. OSCAR helps the farmer to properly identify a weed species and provides information on the botanical aspects and appropriate control measures.

Choice of FOSS

FOSS is chosen as it allows easy customization of the software and the data formats used are known and open. These considerations are important so as to encourage contributions to OSCAR from agronomists, researchers, student community and concerned development organizations in the IGP. These organizations can help to enhance the system by cataloguing the weed species in their region and their respective control measures. If the application is based on proprietary formats and software then the whole purpose of OSCAR will be defeated since for any future enhancements and customization, the current agencies involved will be required to implement them. Also, taking into consideration the cultural diversity of the target region that covers four countries with different languages and cultural practices, it will not be practical to have a common application for the whole region. Though efforts are being made to port OSCAR into respective local languages, the content of the application, particularly the control measures of weeds vary with context. So, by using FOSS, the community can customize the application to suit its own local needs. For example, the number of weed species for lowland rice crop systems in Bangladesh can be increased in the database compared to the numbers of weeds for wheat, so that the application contains more tangible and relevant information.

Development and Implementation

OSCAR is designed to work on GNU/Linux platforms. The Gtk graphics library package is used for developing the Graphical User Interface (GUI) for the application while the libgda library (a library for writing database programs) is used for database access. MySQL is utilized as the database backend with the gda-mysql package being deployed to interface between libgda and MySQL. OSCAR is being developed for both desktop computers and Simputers.

The core component in the OSCAR application is the species identification kit (identikit). The identikit contains a model plant species with different user selectable characters such as root, habit, leaves and flowers. Each character has a number of character states which are in turn selected by the user. Based on the user's selection, the identikit displays the most appropriate match compared to the species available on the database. The base code is written in the C programming language and the characters and character states are stored in the database. The database is independent of the base code so as to facilitate future enhancements to the database.

Deployment

The application is targeted towards the farmers, extension workers and students of the IGP. The project focuses mainly on making the software available on FOSS to the target groups. The application has been widely tested with farmers, extension workers, students and researchers and has received enthusiastic responses. The application is made freely available on the website and interested parties are encouraged to download and use the application. Any agency such as a government or NGO involved in rural development can make use of the application.

The project has tested the application with the various target groups in the four countries of Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan. It was found that the local communities were very open and ready to adopt and own the application. From the researchers and teaching community at the universities and research institutions to the development workers at grass-roots level, everyone was readily convinced about the advantages of the FOSS model and was very eager to actively contribute in one way or another.

The deployment of OSCAR is unique in that it is the first of its kind within the domain of ICT applications for agriculture. The nature of the application addresses one of the pressing needs of the target groups, namely, to identify correctly the weed species and control them effectively. By virtue of OSCAR being released as a FOSS application, participating parties can freely contribute towards building up its knowledge base. The aggregation of information is provided not only from academic/research institutions but also from traditional knowledge systems, for example, cultural practices in weed control like hand weeding.

Impact

Enthusiastic responses to OSCAR have been received, from the research community in particular, in all the target countries. The fact that they can customize the application to fit their own environment has invoked much interest in OSCAR.

OSCAR will encourage and result in the participation of local bodies and organizations, like panchayats (councils at the village level), cooperatives, farmers' associations, women's self-help groups, etc. to build their capacities with resources accessible within their village. This will also enable these micro-organizations to manage their resources at village level with the combined knowledge base at local and institutional levels. This effect can contribute enormously towards improving the decision-making capacity of the farmers, not only on issues related to farming, but also on other issues related to development as a spill-over effect.

Another impact is the enablement of partner organizations to garner expertise on various issues including different local needs, the approach and appropriateness of ICT aids in farming, technical presentation of the application, and the integration of technical information in local farming practices and traditional knowledge systems. These factors contribute to the design of better management techniques for the future.

Lessons Learned

The project has contributed much to the understanding of how to design and implement an ICT application for agriculture. One key lesson learned during the implementation of the project was that any ICT application targeted towards a rural agrarian population has to take into consideration the prevalent basic issues in agricultural practices and infrastructural constraints. Acceptance by the target group and methods to integrate participation from local communities is essential for any ICT intervention at the grass-roots level to be successful. Merely dishing out information without considering social issues and differences at the village level and existing channels for information will only make the initiative redundant.

Current Status of Project

The project has completed its final stage and final releases of OSCAR for GNU/Linux and the Simputer. A set of recommendations for ICT initiatives for agriculture has also been published.

During the course of the development of OSCAR and subsequent trial runs, the project found several issues with implementing and using OSCAR on a Simputer. These include the lack of a standard development platform, limited availability of storage space, high local pricing (prices are comparable to a desktop PC) and the poor hardware support locally. Given all these restrictions, it is unlikely that further development and deployment of OSCAR on the Simputer will take place. Instead it has been decided to port OSCAR to a web-based FOSS application as this will make it more visible and will enable it to reach a much wider population and area. This has been done successfully.

Benefits and Challenges

OSCAR provides farmers in the IGP with the information and ability to identify and control weeds in their paddy and wheat fields. Prior to this, it was very difficult for non-botanists to identify weeds properly and correctly. The OSCAR application, based on a GUI and uses drawings instead of technical jargon, is simple and easy to use.

The use of FOSS tools and applications to develop and build OSCAR as well as a FOSS database to store the data provides an open and adept environment to develop and standardize applications such as OSCAR. The scientific products of academic and research institutions can be deployed on FOSS thereby encouraging wider participation and dissemination.

Positive and spirited responses experienced during the testing of OSCAR shows that there is a real need for such applications and FOSS is the only way such initiatives can be sustained and replicated for a wider region. If OSCAR is not a FOSS application it may have been yet another centrally-managed decision-support system that would cease to exist once the project ends. There is now active participation from different agencies to contribute further towards enhancement and deployment.

However, in spite of the encouraging signs and activities witnessed as described above on participation in the OSCAR project, the biggest challenge still remains the ability to consolidate and sustain the enthusiasm and efforts of the different agencies in different countries to participate, contribute, build and enhance on the existing setup of the project. As the current project owners and drivers are research organizations and working within the framework of a project with a very specific objective of demonstrating a prototype, it can be difficult to fulfil the expectations raised at the field level.

Conclusion

The OSCAR prototype of an application software for weed identification and control of the rice and wheat crop systems of the IGP has been successfully developed as FOSS and tested in various target groups in the four countries of Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan. The usage of FOSS to develop and implement OSCAR makes it possible to encourage contributions to it from agronomists, researchers, student community and concerned development organizations in the region. With the deployment of OSCAR, farmers in the IGP will be able to better identify and control weeds in their paddy and wheat fields. An indirect impact of the project is the encouragement of local bodies and organizations to help themselves by building their capacities with resources from within their village leading to better resource management and contributing towards the decision-making capacity of the farmers on farming and other issues related to development.

Contact Information

Project: Open Source Simple Computer for Agriculture in Rural Areas (OSCAR)
Organization: French Institute of Pondicherry (IFP)
Contact Person: Balasubramanian D
Street / Postal Address: 11, St. Louis Street, Pondicherry, India 605001
Email: balu.d@ifpindia.org
Phone: +91 413 222 5820
Fax: +91 413 233 9534

Website

The OSCAR project website
http://www.oscarasia.org

This is a project by the Internet Society of Bulgaria (ISOC Bulgaria) in conjunction with other partners to improve the local authorities-people interaction in the south-eastern part of Europe (the Balkans) by the deployment of e-government services. It is hoped that with better and easier access to the authorities in the local municipalities, there will be more transparency and the people are encouraged to participate more in local affairs, thereby strengthening the democratic process in the region.

Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is chosen as the vehicle to implement the project as the local municipalities in the region can ill-afford to pay for commercial proprietary software. Also with FOSS, an environment can be created whereby local resources are utilized to develop and support the applications benefiting the local economy. Popular FOSS software such as GNU/Linux operating system, OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Firefox and GIMP that have been localized are used for the users' desktops while the e-government web portal makes use of customized web applications running under the Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP (LAMP) environment.

The initiative may be considered as a pilot project to lay down the groundwork for further and wider implementation of FOSS at other levels, both in public administration (including the central and regional administrations) and in businesses. The project is also unique in the sense that it uses the public-private partnership model to benefit the local economies and preserve/create local skills and capacities as the project will provide business and employment opportunities in the participating municipalities. The direct impact of the project will be better partnerships and cooperation between local administrations and the local private sector and better interaction between local administrations with their citizens. Indirect benefits will be better information and communications technology (ICT) and Internet awareness among the local people as well as the forging of FOSS skills and capacity building for the skilled workers.

The biggest challenge in the project was that many of the municipal employees had little or no computer literacy and so they had to be trained starting with the very basic elements of operating a computer and using an application.

 
Background of Organization

The Internet Society of Bulgaria (ISOC Bulgaria) is the Bulgarian chapter of the Internet Society . ISOC Bulgaria is an independent, non-profit organization that directs its efforts to develop the information society in Bulgaria and promote the rapid adoption of the Internet. It is a primary source of reliable information on the development of information technology in Bulgaria and it is actively represented in government and national efforts pertaining to ICT and the Internet. ISOC Bulgaria is also active in FOSS projects.

Objectives of Project

The primary objective of the project is to utilize FOSS for e-government applications at the municipal level in the south-eastern region of Europe (municipalities from Bulgaria, Macedonia, Kosovo, and Turkey participated in this initiative). It is hoped that with this initiative the people in this region can, through ICT and the Internet, participate more in local affairs, thereby strengthening the democratic process, as well as have more employment opportunities in the ICT sector resulting in the political, social and economical empowerment of the local communities. Through this project, awareness of the benefits of FOSS will also be highlighted.

The primary target group comprises the authorities in the municipalities of south-eastern Europe, in particular, the Balkans region, that have limited budgets to purchase commercial software. A second target group is the citizens of the region who will be able to communicate more effectively and economically with the municipal authorities through the use of these e-government services and applications.

The key partners to ISOC Bulgaria for the project are:

• The Government of the Republic of Bulgaria (as represented by the local authorities in the Municipalities of Kardjali, Vratza, Mezdra, Peshtera, Belovo, Dryanovo, Kostenetz).
• 'Interspace' Media and Art Centre, the main consultant under the FOSS Project.
• UNDP Bulgaria, which provided overall support during the implementation of the project, including management issues.
• UNDP New York, which funded the project under the “Capacity development through knowledge sharing and development: Free/open source software for developing countries” initiative.
• United Nations Office for Project Services, an implementing partner.

Other partners include United Nations Development Programme in Macedonia and Kosovo, the Bulgarian Linux community and the Internet Societies in the participating European countries. These organizations provided support for various activities under the project.

FOSS Application

Description

The primary FOSS applications used in the project are divided in two major groups:

• existing available FOSS applications
• new applications for the e-government portal

The main applications in the first group are: GNU/Linux operating system, OpenOffice.org suite of office applications, Mozilla Firefox web browser and the GIMP graphics software. The GNU/Linux system used is a Bulgarian distribution (based on the Debian distribution), named Interspace Linux Distribution (ISLD). The ISLD system is a localized system that has been successfully used in another project in which it was installed and supported in more than 60 Bulgarian NGOs. It is designed especially for end users who are migrating over from other operating systems (MS-Windows mainly) and who need to be able to quickly start working effectively with a new system. The GNOME desktop of this distribution has been fully localized for the Bulgarian language and almost fully localized for the Albanian, Macedonian and Turkish languages. It is thus very suitable for use in the region where the project is implemented.

The second group of applications come under the e-government web portal services and applications. These are developed to provide the interactive communication between the government and the citizens. The web services applications are developed to operate on the LAMP stack of GNU/Linux operating system, Apache web server, MySQL database and the PHP scripting language.

Choice of FOSS

In the Balkans region, the e-government solutions developed by the central administration are not applicable in most of the cases at the municipal level. In addition, the municipalities in the Balkans region do not have the funds to buy the latest computer hardware or pay for commercial proprietary software, hence FOSS is a natural choice for the project as it can be deployed on older computers and is available without licensing fees. The use of FOSS provides an opportunity to demonstrate that local e-government initiatives can be more efficient and cost less if FOSS is used instead of proprietary software. Furthermore, the FOSS environment encourages the training and usage of local experts to support the project, thereby contributing towards enhancing the skills of the people.

For the commonly used desktop applications, FOSS is chosen as localized versions for the various states in the region exist. Another advantage of using FOSS is that it is very easy to have several localized versions of the desktop co-existing in the same installation.

And last, but not least, the Balkan countries have a high incidence of unlicensed software usage and using FOSS will help reduce this problem.

Development and Implementation

All of the applications used, both existing and newly developed ones, had to be localized. This is a requirement as most of the countries participating in the project require localized products for use in their Public Administrations. The design of the e-government portal and applications follow the general guiding principle that they are meant to be deployed in many types of different municipalities and so they should be open and flexible enough for easy customization to suit the needs of an individual municipality. To achieve this, the development of the web services portal complies with certain specifications that include:

• platform independence
• multilingual support
• modular in structure and easily extensible
• easy installation and easy to transfer to another site
• use of FOSS only
• database used should be either MySQL or PostgreSQL
• forms used for the web applications have to be identical to the paper versions

The web services applications were developed using PHP and they were made available on the Internet by Apache web servers running on GNU/Linux operating systems. Data was stored in MySQL databases.

The ISLD Linux distribution implemented for the users contains only the necessary packages for simple usage; in particular there were no multimedia and games packages installed as these were considered irrelevant to the needs of the municipality. This also resulted in less demanding hardware requirements making it possible to use older computers. This ISLD distribution is suitable for the needs of the project as it has already been tested for use in over 60 NGOs, including ISOC Bulgaria. Local experts are available to support it and package repositories are available too.

Specific hardware was not bought or installed during the project, because the main goal was to use already existing infrastructure and build over it to demonstrate the advantages and flexibility of FOSS solutions.

Deployment

The deployment at most of the participating municipalities followed the main steps below:

• Linux was installed for desktop usage, as dual boot, on users' computers that were not running any specific applications that needed to work in an MS-Windows environment; the set-up for these Linux computers was such that they were able to connect to an MS-Windows network on the local area network (LAN).
• OpenOffice.org was installed on every workstation. Mozilla Firefox was installed on every workstation with connection to the LAN and/or Internet. GIMP was installed on every workstation that had the minimum hardware requirements.
• The web services portal was installed on a web server, this can be either one that belonged to the municipality or the server belonging to ISOC Bulgaria.

In order to ensure the usage of the Linux-based PCs, special training was provided to the users in which the benefits of using FOSS and Linux were highlighted.

The project was deployed in nine municipalities from the Balkans region – Kardjali, Vratza, Mezdra, Peshtera, Belovo, Dryanovo and Kostenetc (in Bulgaria); Gevgelija (in Macedonia); and Klina (in Kosovo). OpenOffice.org and Mozilla Firefox were installed on 200 workstations and these represented between 50 to 100 percent of the workstations in each of the municipality that took part in the project. Linux was installed on 45 client workstations, representing between 16 to 25 percent of the workstations in each municipality (depending on its size).

The web services portal was installed in four municipalities - Kardjali, Vratza, Mezdra and Peshtera. The portal for Kardjali was hosted on the ISOC Bulgaria server while the rest used their own municipal servers.

Impact

The project offers fully functional e-government services that can be implemented at a low cost because they are developed using FOSS. Before this project there were no freely available e-government applications that could be replicated at little or at no cost in other administrations. The web services portal developed allows easy and cheap distribution in all municipalities that are interested in using it. In addition, it is easily customizable, both in terms of web interface and functionality, and is multilingual.

The project provides a platform for cooperation between the local administrations and the business sectors (in particular the local ICT businesses) as well as NGOs. This is because these organizations and companies are called upon to support the FOSS software used by providing services such as migration and training, as well as to customize the applications or develop new ones. This results in enhanced local cooperation at the business level, as well as raising the level of local IT skills.

Another important impact is increased transparency in the work of the municipal authorities as the availability of the e-government services facilitates people-government interaction. This should result in less corruption at the municipal level.

Although the project involved only nine municipalities, over 20 municipalities expressed interest in taking part in the project but the project budget did not allow for their inclusion. This indicates that if it was possible to extend the project and more funds were available, the impact will be much greater.

Lessons Learned

Several important lessons were learned from this project. They are summarized and discussed below.

• For the success of FOSS initiatives and projects it is important that adequate policy and legislation be developed for them, as without political support the processes will be hindered and adoption rate decreased.
• The low level of computer literacy among the older municipal employees can be a serious problem, due to the lack of understanding of the benefits from the migration. It has been recommended that meetings are held with this group of people at the initial stage followed by relevant training. After that, if it is possible they should undergo testing and certification.
• In general, after the training, certification should be carried out. People will be much more motivated to use software, for which they have an official certificate.
• Public awareness is very important for the implementation of the project; media coverage of the activities and the work done is also important.
• Collaborative work with the local FOSS supporting organizations and international ones should be carried out.
• The development and implementation of the FOSS project should not be limited strictly to the initially planned outputs. If there is an opportunity to widen the impact of the project, or there are important functionalities that can be embedded in the developed tools and applications, this should be supported without hesitation.
• A mechanism for fund raising should be developed for the project.

Current Status of Project

The project is in its last phase and work is ongoing in the neighbouring countries on promoting the project. The initiative has also been extended to the Municipality of Bahchelievler in Istanbul, Turkey, upon request by the municipality authorities there.

Statistics on the usage of the web services portal in Kardjali and Vratza showed much higher interest from the citizens there in comparison to other similar websites running in other municipalities in Bulgaria. This is a sign that the e-government project has been successful among the targeted citizens.

Another important task that had been accomplished is the development of additional e-government services that support digital signatures for the portal of the Kardjali Municipality.

Benefits and Challenges

The usage of FOSS addresses a key problem faced by the municipalities from the south-east European region regarding ICT - that is the lack of funds to buy hardware and legal software. On the one hand, the municipalities are obliged to use licensed and localized software, but on the other hand they have no suitable hardware to use it on. FOSS helps to deal with the above-noted problems in a very elegant and efficient manner. First, it deals with the localization problem because there exist in the region big teams and communities to translate the end-user software, and to keep the latest versions of it available under the country's official language. FOSS also allows the end users, and the administrations to possess legal products that can run on slower hardware configurations.

The e-government soluti