Free- and Open Source Software in Africa 1 Free and Open Source Software in Africa 25 October 2002 NS Coetzee nico@itfirms .co.za

Free- and Open Source Software in Africa 2 Table of Contents Introduction.........................................................................................3 Overview of the overall ICT usage.....................................................4 FS/OSS Usage in Africa......................................................................7 FS/OSS Projects in Africa..................................................................10 Projects that can benefit Africa..........................................................13 The use of FS/OSS in lowering TCO.................................................20 Conclusions........................................................................................21

Free- and Open Source Software in Africa 3 1.Introduction Africa is largely considered to be a developing continent. A thousand odd years ago, the greater part of Africa was unaware of the developments in Europe and Asia. By the time the Western civilisations explored deep into Africa, they also colonised1 the better part of Africa. The major colonialist were the British, Dutch, French and Portuguese. The colonisation did not take into account the natural borders between different ethnic groups. Colonialism has a broad research base, most of which is available via the Internet. It is not the aim of this document to go into the depths. All that is important is that the reader understand that colonialism was responsible to a very large extend for the current situation the African continent finds itself in, namely a poor, developing continent, plagued by war, famine, AIDS and dept. With this background, it should be obvious even with the first thought how FS/OSS can benefit struggling economies in Africa2. Unfortunately large commercial software companies are trying to expand into Africa and there are fierce competition often hidden from the casual observer. The reader will see early on in this paper what the issues are surrounding commercial software in Africa and how FS/OSS can have a positive influence. Having world class software is one thing. Having the computers and infrastructure to run it, is a totally different thing. The reader will discover the status of Information and Communication Technology ( ICT ) in Africa and will also see what possible benefits FS/OSS brings along in this area as well. To get an even better view of the current FS/OSS situation in Africa, it is also necessary to understand what the penetration into the market place is of FS/OSS, and how various Governments react to the use of FS/OSS. We will also look into the use of FS/OSS per sector, including Government, NGO, Private Sector and Education. Probably the most difficult subject matter in this paper is the exploration of FS/OSS projects that has being launched in Africa. We have used various techniques and sources to try and get a picture of what was going on. The most challenging aspect of FS/OSS is that there really are no geographical boundaries in the Internet age, and it is very difficult to choose criteria when defining a Project as an ���African��� project. Finally we look at the conclusions of how FS/OSS can benefit Africa in various areas, including help enhance democratization, provide access to knowledge, help alleviate poverty, contribute to sustainable development. 1 Definition of colonialism: http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=colonialism&r=67 2 http://allafrica.com/stories/200210250200.html