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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."
I have a friend in Zimbabwe who does web development, but has to pay for internet access by the minute, partly because he has to pay for phone service by the minute.
no big sig
Some of the issues the article raises (little money to purchase home equipment for software development) hit FOSS developers harder, but the majority of the article seems really applicable to all of the African software industry, especially small-scale software developers using any software license.
Slightly misleading spin, but very interesting information.
RD
Here is a copy of the summary from http://www.bridges.org/africasource/summary.html
.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.
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
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
Let's go Hurricanes!!! 2006 Stanley Cup Champions!!!
- They buy computers in pieces over a 3-4 month timespan.
- Internet access is hard to find, though one happy guys states he got Debian, "after a two day download".
I will never complain about my computer or net access ever again.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
"They don't ask if you can program. They ask, 'do you know (Microsoft) Visual Basic?'"
Good to see they differentiate between the two there as well.
Methinks there are a lot of people in the mainstream developer community that don't want to hear from the likes of these people. The mainstream FOSS developer community is blazing, full-steam ahead, writing resource-intensive software that requires relatively rich hardware to run decently. They don't want to hear about the exigencies of people that don't have the advantage of being able to afford nice hardware. Such people just get in the way, with their talk of writing code that doesn't require inordinate resources to function well.
By investing heavily in things like broadband infrastructure etc. Large parts of Africa doesn't even have electricity or running water, much like India used to. Now India has a thriving, if not overly large IT sector(and they actually do produce stuff to help out the poor etc, though most of the /.ers focus on outsourcing).
It's not exactly an identical situation though. The problems facing Africa are different from those facing India. Decades of civil wars, the devastation of AIDS, and inability to gather wealth from their vast raw materials, and a poor education system in large parts of the continent(people cannot even read their own language, let alone English) have left Africa the poorest area on earth.
Hopefully with a bit of investment in broadband, electr and some donations of usable hardware, the Africans can use FOSS to help mitigate some of the problems facing their continent.
We've all heard about Rwanda, the civil war in Congo/Zaire, and the like. Is there any way that wireless networking + FOSS programs (e.g. weblogging tools) could be used to transmit live reports of need for aid, etc.? Throwing GPS into the mix couldn't hurt either. I wonder if wireless is cheap enough for this purpose yet, though.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Man 1: What do you do?
Man 2: I'm a FOSS developer
Man 1: Yeh... that, um, well... great.
I've been swashdotted -- Elmer Fudd
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.
That is also true for Uganda, but in its case, the ISP over there dedicated a special number to use in connecting to the Internet at a special low rate. When I was there, I setup a wireless Internet service for some government organization with a Red Hat box acting as a gateway/mail server. To my surprise, the service provider charged US$275 (yes, two hundred seventy-five US dollars) for a dedicated 4K bandwidth! His reasoning was that he has to sign an agreement with a provider from whom he buys the bandwidth, that he has to purchase a certain amount no matter what conditions the market dictates. Here in Canada, I pay US$32 for a 1Mb which sometimes could shoot up to 3Mb/s. Africans are being screwed. I must admit though, that most of the leaders I met did not even understand what the Internet can do for them. One official who had been attacked by a virus told me "Officer, my computer now does not have Microsoft!". It took me long to understand what he meant. Do not get me wrong....the technology is there but it's very expensive for most individuals. As an example, a tea girl at that organization was being paid a salary of US$80 per month and the System Admin's salary was US$420.
Cb..
Man 1: What do you do?
Man 2: I'm a FOSS developer
Man 1: Yeh... that, um, well... great.
Man 2: Got any spare change?
I feel African already.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
What makes India today as a large IT outsourcing destination is their secondary official language which is English, and their inherent strength in math. For salary-wise Africa is superior, but considering other difficulties you can't expect growth of Africa in the IT sector so soon.
It is far too late to stop the perceived problems spreading to Europe, in fact many of the problems of Africa came from Europe in the first place. And don't use the word "nigger", you can face prosecution for doing so, certainly in the UK.
And before you ask, I am white, not that it should matter, any decent person would feel the same about your vile attitude.
Someone please moderate this imbecile into oblivion.
If we need a new category it should be "Vile Scumbags" and you should be sent there at once.
A standard configuration of Linux with OpenOffice, Mozilla, and other useful things could be put together quite easily, volunteers could copy a few CDs to help the effort.....
Give them network cards and they can learn about networking, even if they don't have a decent link to the outside world, the local community can still have its own web server. It would have educational use, particularly health education. I don't think that there are all that many developers yet in Africa, but give them the tools and in a few years the next generation will be. But first, or in parallel with this, they need to be rid of murderous scumbags like Mugabe, they need reliable supplies of water and food, etc.
It would not actually cost the western world very much to set the ball rolling in these areas. The African continent is fully capable of being self-sufficient if it was allowed to be, with a bit of guidance along the way. They have the potential for producing food, energy and vital raw materials.
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.
I would think the best thing about FOSS is that each project doesn't have to start from zero.
It sounds like most of their projects are marginal as far a revenue. Having something close from to start from would be big plus.
Second point. Do the developers realy need a go between to connect them with users? Maybe they need tech fairs for getting the geeks and the non-geeks togeather.
Third point. If there is little money for anything in thier market, all the more reason for promoting respect for IP. The way to stay alive may not be fat contracts but decent residuals.
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.
> From the article: "Documentation is mostly done by geeks and testers, yet... it's useless... [The task of] documentation must be given to professionals."
One question... Where are all of these paid Open Source documentation jobs?
The road to better Open Source documentation begins with respect for the volunteers. Just replace "documentation" with "software" in the quoted text and see how you like it!
I had posted a comment on another site as a contribution as to why I think Microsofts products will be the leading choice in Africa for at least another 5-10 years if not longer. Here are some points why I think this will be so. To create Open Source products some things have to be in place.
1.Broadband internet connection. Anything else is too cumbersome and time consuming if not expensive. In Africa broadband still has a long way to go. If its there its terribly expensive. The use of wireless connections could help bridge this gap but it is still not as fast as DSL. Although of late 100MB wireless cards have been introduced to the market and have to be adapted in Africa.
2. Knowledge. With this I mean that there are very few people in Africa who have a true inner working knowledge of Open Source products like Linux. There are quite a number of Linux users (mostly ISPs and maybe a few Universities) but few real hackers who mess with the source code. In short Africa needs guys with good knowledge in C and Cplusplus.
3.Education. If you check most computer colleges and schools in Africa, they all offer lessons on Microsoft products but none in Open Source products. There are hardly any computer books to be bought in Africa and when you get them they are terriblly shallow, outdated and expensive. There are some efforts to donate books where corruption and government policy comes in creating difficulties so that in the end there is no real solution, the price has to be paid! Open Source development depends on many people who educate themselves, which means they pick up books and learn the tricks themselves and through mentors over the internet.
4. Brands. Most Africans are brand conscious! This will surprise alot of people but that is the fact when it comes to IT issues. People go for known names like IBM, DELL, HP and such and naturally Microsoft for most software solutions. Its not easy to get people to migrate to Open Office even though its free for example.
This are the real hurdles that I think Africa is facing in the adaptation of Open Source products.