Software drives the information society.  Software enables us to connect and communicate in ways that drastically changes how we work and play.  It facilitates productivity, at the same time, delivers the digital lifestyle.

For developing countries, the adoption of software solutions, and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in general, as an enabler for social and economic development is severely limited by financial constraints.

Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) represents an opportunity for developing countries, an alternative choice to prohibitive license fees and piracy. However, in reality, that choice is not so clear cut - neither are the issues, which go beyond the financial dimension.

What are the clear benefits specific to the adoption of FOSS for developing countries?  How does the choice of software (FOSS or proprietary) impact the outcomes of ICT-enabled, sustainable development?  What are the proven business models of FOSS development and related services? Should governments play a role in promoting software preferences outside the public sector? Should it be an either or decision - either FOSS or proprietary software - when public resources are involved?

To discuss these questions and more, and to introduce the complexity of these issues at the opportunity presented at the World Summit on the Information Society (Tunis phase), UNDP's Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme (UNDP-APDIP) held a discussion led by a distinguished panel.

Panelists

Robert Kramer Vice President of Public Policy at CompTIA
Robert Kramer is the Vice President of Public Policy at CompTIA, the Computing Technology Industry Association. The Public Policy staff supports the IT industry through its offices in Washington D.C., Brussels, Hong Kong SAR and Sao Paulo. CompTIA members include more than 20,000 IT and communications companies, in more than 102 countries. Prior to joining CompTIA, Kramer was Vice President and Manager of International Government Relations at the Bank of America. Kramer holds graduate degrees in international relations and economics, and European history from Georgetown University and the Catholic University of America.

Louis-Dominique Ouedraogo, Inspector, UN Joint Inspection Unit
Louis-Dominique Ouédraogo is currently serving his tenth year as the Inspector of the UN Joint Inspection Unit and has recently completed a two-part review of the policies of the UN system organizations towards the use of FOSS in their administrations and for development. He had a long diplomatic career with his country – Burkina Faso. He was the Ambassador to Canada from 1973 to1981.

Bruce Perens, Vice President, Sourcelabs, Inc.
Bruce Perens is creator of the Open Source Definition, the manifesto of the Open Source movement in Software. He is founder or co-founder of the Open Source Initiative, Linux Standard Base, Software in the Public Interest, and No-Code International. He is series editor of the Bruce Perens' Open Source Series line of books with Prentice Hall PTR publishers, with 15 titles published so far. He is also Senior Research Scientist for Open Source with George Washington University's Cyber Security Policy Research Institute.

Mark Shuttleworth, President, Ubuntu Foundation
Mark studied finance and information technology at the University of Cape Town, and went on to found Thawte (eventually sold to VeriSign), a company specializing in digital certificates and Internet privacy. He is also the founder of HBD Venture Capital and the Shuttleworth Foundation. He participated as a Debian developer since the early 1990s, and in 2004, he returned to the GNU/Linux world by funding the development of Ubuntu, a user-friendly version of Linux, through Canonical Limited. In 2005, he founded the Ubuntu Foundation. In April 2002, Mark flew in space for the first time, as a cosmonaut member of the crew of Soyuz mission TM34 to the International Space Station.

Richard Stallman, Founder, Free Software Foundation

Richard Stallman is the founder of the free software movement, the GNU project, and the Free Software Foundation. He is the author of the GNU General Public License, the most widely-used free software license. He has received numerous awards including the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Pioneer Award, the Grace Hopper Award, the Takeda Award for Social/Economic Betterment and the Yuri Rubinski Award. Since the mid-1990s, he has spent most of his time as a political campaigner, advocating FOSS.

Shane Wall, Vice President of Channel Platforms Group and General Manager of Channel Software Operation, Intel Corporation

Shane Wall is responsible for developing and managing software solutions in support of Intel's channel customers. Previously, he was director of the Systems Technology Lab in the Corporate Technology Group, responsible for researching and developing system and platform technologies for current and emerging computer architectures. He has also served as director of the Emerging Technologies Lab in the Corporate Technology Group, director of Applications and Services Lab in the Intel Architecture Lab, and director of New Business Development within the New Business Group. He joined Intel in 1998.

Moderated by:

Kenneth Cukier, Technology Correspondent, The Economist

Kenneth Cukier covers technology and public policy for The Economist in London. Previously, he was the technology editor of The Asian Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong, the European Editor of Red Herring, and worked at The International Herald Tribune in Paris. From 2002 to 2004 he was a research fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, working on a book about the Internet and international relations. Additionally, Kenneth is on the board of advisors to the Daniel Pearl Foundation.

WSIS Panel Discussion Video

Introduction ( theora | mp4 )

Speeches

• Richard Stallman, Founder, Free Software Foundation ( theora | mp4 )
• Bruce Perens, Vice President, Sourcelabs, Inc. ( theora | mp4 )
• Robert Kramer Vice President of Public Policy at CompTIA ( theora | mp4 )
• Shane Wall, Vice President of Channel Platforms Group and General Manager of Channel Software Operation, Intel Corporation ( theora | mp4 )
• Louis-Dominique Ouedraogo, Inspector, UN Joint Inspection Unit ( theora | mp4 )
• Mark Shuttleworth, President, Ubuntu Foundation ( theora | mp4 )

Q&A ( theora | mp4 )

Credits ( theora |  mp4 )

Full video - Video of WSIS Discussion in single file. ( theora | mp4 )

Video Notes

Theora video and Vorbis audio are completely open source, royalty-free multimedia formats.

Linux/FOSS operating system
Theora encoded videos are supported with the default media players.

Windows
Ogg Direcshow Codecs are required to play ogg theora videos; or ffdshow to play mp4 videos files.

Videos are released under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license.
For full details of the license, please refer to the following: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/legalcode