[First of Seven commentaries in a sub series on Free/open source software (FOSS) policy in Africa]

There is increasing debate on the role and potential benefits of free/open-source software (FOSS), particularly in supporting developing countries in their attempts to increase the use of information and communication technology (ICT). And as a result, governments around the world are investigating whether and how they can integrate FOSS into their strategies for social and economic development. This document provides information to governments that are considering designing and implementing FOSS policies to support national development goals.

Brief definition of free/open-source software
Free/open-source software is distributed together with its underlying source code, under a certain kind of copyright. FOSS copyright licenses allow everyone to read, modify, and redistribute the source code, so programmers can improve and adapt the software, and fix bugs. And the software can be shared with others, so users can give it to their neighbours, colleagues and friends. The difference between "free" and "open" lies mainly in the fundamental beliefs and aims of the respective proponents. Open source software supporters tend to focus on pragmatic aspects of software development and use, whereas the free software community places the aspect of "freedom" at the centre of their activities. Free-software licenses require software developers to distribute their modifications and additions under a similar free-software license, whereas some opensource- software licenses allow the inclusion of open source software in proprietary software.

Relevance of FOSS to government policy
FOSS advocates from many sectors -- including civil society, academia, development aid organisations, and increasingly local and international companies -- are encouraging governments to take clear positions in support of FOSS. They argue that free/open source software:

• Provides an opportunity to lower the cost of ICT and thereby increases ICT  access for larger parts of society;
• Provides an ideal training environment for the development of computer   skills; and
• Will help turn African countries from consumers of technology to producers  of technology.

There are many reasons why FOSS advocates in Africa target their efforts at governments. Governments play a crucial role with regard to ICT in general and FOSS in particular. The public sector usually constitutes the largest ICT customer in African countries (e.g. the South African Government is the largest ICT user on the continent) and governments are in a position to drive strategic change throughout society. Governments also set the economic and regulatory boundaries that allow businesses to develop.

FOSS supporters argue that because of FOSS' relevance for national development, and given the strong market position of proprietary software companies, government action is required and appropriate to at least "level the playing field" and increase competition in the software market. Others, including the proprietary software vendors, argue that it is not government's role to intervene in market forces and that intervention would hurt competition and innovation overall. Partly in response to the growing popularity of FOSS (which is usually available at little or no cost), many proprietary software vendors have donated software to the education sector and offered reduced prices to some governments in Africa. Countries where wide-scale donations are on offer now find themselves in the position of having to choose between accepting these attractive offers, or shouldering the often higher initial cost of migrating to FOSS.

The pros and cons of government intervention aside, many governments in Africa have stated an intention to increase the uptake of ICT in their countries as a step toward economic development, and they are looking to define the role of FOSS in their strategies.
In addition, African nations are gearing up their efforts towards meeting the targets set as part of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Set out in 2000 as part of the Millennium Declaration and adopted by 189 nations and signed by 147 heads of state and governments, the MDGs set clear targets for reducing poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation, and discrimination against women by 2015.

Promoting an approach to FOSS policy-making linked to national development goals
Governments have many different reasons for developing FOSS policies and the list of their goals spans technical aspects (such as increasing reliability of ICT in environments with little or no technical support), human resource aspects (such as increasing e-literacy) and economic aspects (such as reducing cost). Some of these goals are overarching development goals (such as reducing poverty), but others are lower level objectives more related to the proposed strategies that are needed to reach the high-level goals. This difference is crucial, because a FOSS policy targeted at narrow goals might be successful in its own right, yet fail to demonstrate the social or economic impacts that FOSS advocates are promoting. It is recommended that FOSS policy-makers clearly define how their strategies inform the broader development goals for their countries.
Development goals aim for an improvement of the social and economic conditions of a country and its citizens. The Millennium Development Goals are an example of broad and universal goals that fall in this category. In countries that have existing ICT policies (including ICT in education or e-government policies) these documents often outline specific goals that a FOSS policy could support. Examples for policy goals include: reducing public spending on ICT; increasing access to ICT to narrow the digital divide; and fostering economic development.

• Do you think it is fair, unfair or even makes any difference whether African governments develop FOSS – leaning ICT policies?
• Does government-driven FOSS (instead of Market-driven FOSS) sound artificial? Will it truly elevate the African technology community from “mere consumers” to “equal participants"?
• What can initiatives like CIPESA do to help?