Essay: Perspectives of African FOSS developers

philipp_at_bridges_dot_org writes "Bridges.org has just released an essay about FOSS issues in Africa, Straight from the Source: Perspectives from the African Free and Open Source Software Movement. It highlights a perspective that is often overlooked in the discussion of how FOSS can benefit developing countries: that of software developers themselves. The essay describes the conditions African FOSS developers work in and the difficulties they face, mostly letting quotes and personal impressions speak for themselves. The issues are very different from what I am reading in the typical slashdot discussions. It maybe an interesting perspective for your audience to see what others, who share the believe in freedom of source code are struggling with - hopefully to encourage thinking around solutions for these problems."

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Summary

[CodeMonkey4Hire]

Here is a copy of the summary from http://www.bridges.org/africasource/summary.html


Straight from the Source: Perspectives from the African Free and Open Source Software Movement
A bridges.org article in collaboration with the Tactical Technology Collective.

For a software developer working in Africa, Philip Mbogo's problem is as basic as it gets: "I don't have a computer," he said. "I have to go for unpaid work in order just to get on a computer." Internet access is also an expensive rarity, so he counts himself fortunate to work as an intern at an Internet service provider where he takes as much advantage of the bandwidth as he can. "Anything I can get I download. I even got [a Linux distribution called] Debian, which takes two days [to download]."

African software developers face many obstacles as they struggle to work in this field. But these "coders", as a group, form a community marked less by their frustration and isolation than by their perseverance and resolve. This theme dominated AfricaSource, a workshop held in Namibia in March 2004 and organised by the Tactical Technology Collective, AllAfrica Foundation and SchoolNet Namibia. The meeting in the small town of Okahandja of 40 software developers from 25 countries was for many the first chance to collaborate and compare notes.

Lack of access to the means and tools of production is the issue African programmers most commonly identify as the greatest barrier to success in their work. But at this event, coders got a chance to share the innovative ways they work around the problem. "We buy computer parts bit by bit. In the space of three or four months we have a computer," says Ayeni Samuel Olaoluwa, a web developer from Nigeria, who saves up to 50% this way. Another method he has devised is keeping his freelance clients' work on computers he uses as part of his day job. "I am able to hide stuff on the server, but when I leave the company I'm in trouble."

The prohibitive costs of bandwidth and hardware are an obstruction most programmers face, but it affects coders most seriously at the time they are preparing to enter the job market. Without the opportunity to earn salaries that would help them afford equipment of their own, ambitious market entrants eager for work face the prospect of successive, often unpaid, internships just to prove their skills.

This predicament is widespread across Africa, says Ghanaian Guido Sohne, "There are not enough projects available to work on to employ the available talent.... In most African countries IT is not part of the economic production process. It's actually more expensive to computerise your accounting system than to hire more people to do it manually." So when programmers do find jobs, a large percentage tend to find themselves ushered into system administration and technical roles, where they are overworked and their skills are underutilised.

This situation might be a consequence of the fact that a coder's skill is not accorded the value it deserves. Isaiah Makwakwa finds himself in this bind. When the computer science graduate first joined SDNP Malawi, the UN's sustainable development program, his work stimulated him. He automated a billing system for the administration of the .mw domain and maintained the webserver and mail systems. However, over time and as budgets became tighter, managers added client support to his job description. "User support grew to be the biggest part of my job," he says.

The flood of work helping people solve problems on their desktops gradually overshadowed his programming duties, but Makwakwa's manager failed to implement a plan that would have protected and leveraged the value of Makwakwa's skills, which are rarer and far less transferable than the troubleshooting talent he was being called upon to use.

Makwakwa's case is not unique, and it certainly is not exclusive to Africa. As the number of computerised workpl

Relevant Wired Article

[MisterLawyer]

It's interesting to see another, more skeptical, perspective on Africa and open source:

Though it may take years for any software platform in a Third World continent -- whether open source or proprietary -- to become commercially viable on the same scale as in the United States and European markets, some of the factors that have impeded the fast adoption of Linux will make Africa an interesting battleground for the open-source movement.

Re:Morocco

[Khalid]

There is a growing open source community in Morocco, there is even a Moroccan Linux distribution, we have also have a local Lug and we organize install fests and some compagnies are begining to specialize in open source support and installation, specific Moroccan programs are begining to appear, although they are still few and far between.

Oh and by the way I am surfing on a DSL connection, we have DSL since the begining of 2004. 128 kbs/s costs 30$ without any in volume limitation

Alas Microsoft is very very strong here, and 99% of the people still believe that Bill Gates invented the Internet. MS is very strong in goverenement too and they have recently offered bargain prices to install Linux in schools.

But overall things are not that bad, and I see a very bright future for Linux and open source here, as MS Office price nearly equals a middle wage here.

Internet access is the key

[Rico_za]

The lack of cheap internet access is holding back Africa in a big way. Take South Africa as example (because I'm from SA and can speak from experience). Only recently (about a year ago) did the telephone company Telkom (a monopoly, without any competition, because the government is taking YEARS just to award a second network operator license) start rolling out ADSL. They charge a ridiculous amount of money for it. Currently they charge the equivalent of about $130 per month for it, and remember, it's even higher than it sounds compared to average wages. On top of that they put a 3 gig monthly cap on international traffic! Phone calls are expensive, and you pay per minute even for local calls. Basically the government needs to realize that if we can get proper, cheap internet access, it WILL do the economy good. South Africa has many engineers and programmers educated at world class universities (also talking from experience, I'm currently working at a U.K. university that's regarded as pretty good, and the education I got in SA was of a very high standard compared to this), but to compete in the global market as an entrepreneur, you need to be able to communicate cheaply. If it wasn't for the law protecting Telkom, it would be sooooo easy to start a decent phone company and run them out of business. I get so frustrated thinking and talking about this, I could blow a fuse!

If someone in the Department of Communication reads this: Stop over regulating communications. Set it free and let it thrive, PLEASE.