By : Betti Alisjahbana
At the closing of IGOS Summit 2, on May
28 2008, a team of four was tasked to form the Indonesia Open Source
Association. The team consist of : Harry Sufehmi, Teddy Sukardi,
Rusmanto and Sumitro Rustam.
At the same event, I was appointed as
an Ambassador for Open Source Indonesia. Despite my busy schedule as
a new entrepreneur plus several social activities, I accepted the
role without further thinking. I am convinced, open source will be
very strategic for Indonesia. Open Source is a hope for IT progress
in Indonesia.
Open Source, An Opportunity to
Catch Up
Open Source has a principle that every
software and courseware is permitted to be copied, used and improved
by anyone, to accelerate the development process and for the benefit
of all. For developing country like Indonesia, this is truly a
chance to catch up with developed countries, which lately have been
trying to extend their terms of intellectual property right in order
to maintain their economic supremacy.
With open source, we’re not merely
users, we receive the source code hence we can develop it further,
build our independency and ability to be a producer.
Re-allocate Licensing Expenses to
Education and Innovation
One of many benefits that we can
immediately receive by using open source software is lower IT cost.
For most people it means more affordable IT hence it will reduce
digital divide.
Not every application has its open
source version. Therefore it’s understandable for us to pay the
proprietary product license. But for a standard software with its
open source version existed, it would be more appropriate for us to
choose that version. Operating System and office applications such
as word processing, spreadsheet and power point are available in open
source version, and so are the other standard applications. In this
case, why would we pay more for proprietary software license? It’s
better to invest the money in educating and developing new types of
innovation that will motivate businesses, industries, government and
every part of society into economic success and a bigger progress.
Open Standard
Open Source software adopts
internationally recognized open standard. This open standard supports
continuous online and connected internet environment. Open standard
enables faster information exchange, bridges information depots, and
eases adding new functions, aside from increasing the value of
current IT system. All can be done regardless of the technology and
operating system we use. We don’t need to depend on any vendor. As
a result, companies will be more agile and responsive toward their
customers, and government will be more flexible in providing services
for their citizen.
Several Obstacles
Open source adoption has experience
progress around the world, including Indonesia, then again we haven’t
optimally use the potential of open source. Some of the obstacles are
:
IT Progress in Indonesia
By having the Association of Open
Source Indonesia we hope to build a better synergy among open source
communities to tackle existing obstacles together, also to encourage
the adoption and development of open source application along with
its various supporting services. We hope Indonesia can optimize the
benefit of open source for its IT and economic progress.
Warm and spirited regards. | 