Open Source Computer Software/Hardware

This summary is part of a research project carried out between March and October 2006 in support of the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD), one of The Communication Initiative (The CI)'s partners.

Due to the high cost of information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure (including proprietary software and hardware) on social and economic development, free and open source software (FOSS) and the International Open Source Network (IOSN) serve as examples of potential routes to reducing the financial burden and the consequent disparity in ICT development within less-developed nations. This study illustrates the development of IOSN and the successes therein, in order to provide examples for other development programmes wishing to better manage and distribute their information.

The intent of FOSS is to provide viable and alternative avenues to financing functional non-proprietary digital ICT applications. To address the inherent social development inequities between societies, FOSS strives to create opportunities to address adoption of affordable access solutions.

IOSN is an initiative of the Asia-Pacific Information Development Programme (APDIP) and is supported by the International Development Research Center (IDRC) of Cananda. IOSN strives to be a centre of excellence for FOSS, open standards and open content; it supports strategic and effective ICT usage for social and economic development in Asia-Pacific. The IOSN functions primarily through its web portal (click here) and via a network of government, NGO, individual and various FOSS-related advocacy groups. Other than strengthening FOSS capacity, IOSN also produces toolkits and related resource material for FOSS information sharing, programmes and initiatives.

Postnuke

Postnuke was initially chosen as the software application for IOSN. Although Postnuke, a web-based content management system (CMS) running on the LAMP platform (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP), is a product of FOSS, its installation and operation required additional knowledge of web servers and database installation and management. Unfortunately, Postnuke failed to meet expectations due to its ungainly management controls and limited accessibility for end-users. Other than management issues, information retrieval also became a significant barrier. Database search capabilities resulted in inconsistencies and failures across all website and database content. As a result, IOSN considered Postnuke insufficient for website creation or the migration of data from location to location and consequently switched to the PLONE CMS.

PLONE

PLONE is a self-contained platform that also uses the LAMP platform (like Postnuke). Despite the success of the PLONE platform, it also has several issues:

1. PLONE is generally unfamiliar for the majority of CMS users. The difference between Postnuke’s central news submission process and PLONE’s folder/workflow layout will take time and additional documentation.

2. Not all features for a web community are available. An example of this is the lack of ability for users to create and coordinate meetings with the associated tasks of information sharing and invitations, etc.

3. With the lack of experienced people in PLONE application, the availability of support services is also severely lacking. The author notes that this is slowly changing.

PLONE

PLONE is considered an ideal candidate for IOSN as it has (unlike Postnuke) a clear division between content, presentation, workflow, templates, task and content delegation, security, information search and retrieval and content review. Furthermore, PLONE is a General Public License (GPL) application which allows alteration to its code to suit the end-users’ needs. The base code of PLONE (XHTML) also allows for the localisation of software applications into other languages regardless of their logographic or Latin-based text. Presently, over 20 languages are compatible with the PLONE application. PLONE also proved itself easy to install and to migrate data via File Transfer Protocol (FTP) onto IOSN’s website and database structures.

Although PLONE has some operative issues, IOSN believes that it has had a fair amount of success with functionality and participation. The PLONE folders, mailing lists, forums, mailing lists and chat room utilities enabled users a readily accessible forum for community participants.

Country-based sections helped organise data for general reference. This allowed FOSS users to build a base of advocacy for support, research and development in their respective countries. Likewise, IOSN's regional portals encouraged local community groups to organise via FOSS.

The shift to PLONE from Postnuke has been considered highly successful for the IOSN community:

• At least 4,000 new resources from web documents, links, and images have been added.
• Furthering the success, participation has increased to 1,500.
• Visitors increased from 400/day to a peak of 20,000/day.
• Since the beginning, over 1.2 million pages have been served by approximately 150,000 visitors.
• Presently, the most active contributors are in Bangladesh, Iran, Malaysia, Myanmar and Sri Lanka.
• Due to improvements to the IOSN website, most opinions of participants are positive.
• The use of PLONE for IOSN allowed for greater communal information sharing, due to its openness.
• Capacity building for users takes time for them to properly understand the CMS workflow. A guideline for the various content types is recommended.
• Regional FOSS highlights, specifically in the Asia-Pacific region, could be better illustrated. Website layout and functionality (human interface) could be improved for better site navigation.
• Better support serves are needed, especially for new users. Guidelines for use and online support services would be considered helpful for users. Over-crowding of the website is leading to confusion.

• IOSN planned to upgrade the website with the newest PLONE platform throughout the second half of 2005. This aimed to address the interface issue noted above. This upgrade should take advantage of the FOSS platform and thus should not require additional licensing fees.
• Despite the variety of content types on IOSN, more may be added depending on user needs.
• IOSN will continue to advocate, facilitate and coordinate FOSS activities and networking in Asia-Pacific.

Update Dec 2006: IOSN is now in the process of improving their project site to accommodate the inclusion of three regional nodes for South Asia, ASEAN-3 and Pacific Island nations. This work involves additional management roles, cross-practice sections using tags, as well as in-place multi-language support for all the languages of the Asia-Pacific countries they represent. Further collaboration is being supported through the use of wiki's.