Benefits of Open Source Software for Developing Countries sample essay

Open source software, or OSS, is a type of computer software that is typically free; its source code is easily available for change and revisions. Unlike proprietary software that is usually sold and source code of which is hidden, open source software gives an opportunity for developers to customize programs for their own individual or corporate needs. In addition, with open source software developers would not have to re-invent the wheel, which is the case with commercial soft.

Open source software is generally distributed under the Open Source License (which has many versions). What differentiates open source software form free software is the set of strict rules, with which each open source package must comply. Open Source Initiative has defined this set, and included ten clauses, which deal with free (re)distribution, actual source code, derived works, integrity of the authors’ source code, no discrimination against groups or fields of endeavors, distribution of license, license being static/constant, not restricting other software, and being technology-neutral. Without compliance with these ten clauses, software is not considered open source software.

The most prominent advantage of open source software is its evolution. One application first written and distributed in 2003 can “travel” around the world several times and turn from a mite to a giant; and all this is free. This way the software literally naturally evolves, develops, and upgrades with enormous speed, plus it is debugged on every step of the way.

Another benefit of open source software is that it discourages computer piracy, and therefore diminishes illegal activities within the region or country.

The third prominent advantage of open source software is its free distribution. Although there are few open source applications that are not distributed for free, and there exist free applications that hide source code, typically open source software is free. I am going to base my paper on benefits of OSS. I will also investigate why open source software is economically beneficial, taking Brazilian and Indian conversions to OSS as examples.

The use of free/libre/open source software (FLOSS) is beneficial from an economic point of view. Not only it is beneficial for businesses and software development firms, but for the governments and the public as well.

For general businesses, one that do not modify source codes, the economic benefits of FLOSS is based on cost savings. In order to install a computing project, the following costs will incur: (1) hardware purchase of equipment E, (2) the actual price of the software P, (3) internal system administration costs A, (4) external support S, and (5) downtime costs D in times when the system is unavailable, or is waiting for repair. All these five component make up the total cost C. Therefore the cost of launching a computing project for a software consumer is C=E+P+A+S+D. The question is, is C greater or lower when the software purchased for a computer is open source software. In order to accurately answer the question, let us investigate each component of the expenses.

While there exist unsupported claims that open source software typically requires less computing resource than commercial software, there is no sufficient evidence that proves these claims. Thus, E is generally the same for both options, and C=P+A+S+D. The cost P is higher for proprietary software, and is generally zero for FLOSS. Although there is a difference from a mathematical point of view, for a business this difference is insufficient, since it is typically less that one employee’s monthly salary. It does make difference for individual entrepreneurs and public, though. Therefore the three cost components that differentiate open source software from proprietary software are internal administration A, technical support S, and downtime D. Both types of systems require approximately the same amount of administration, plus these internal administrative costs are very low as compared to the total cost C, therefore A is also dispensable.

The difference in external technical support is a questionable issue, because no sufficient facts have appeared to prove one or the other option to require less support. However, the advantage of using open source software in terms of outside technical support is that many different organizations offer support services for open source applications, - from Microsoft to very small firms and even individual developers, while only producers provide support for commercial applications. Hence, the key determinant in the difference of costs is the downtime of software D. This time, in turn, is dependent on the reliability of the program, and here is where the benefits of OSS’s natural evolution disclose.

According to the Fuzz study, commercial operating systems have much higher failure rates than OSS. “The seven commercial systems in 1995 study have an average failure rate of 23%, while … the GNU utilities have a failure rate of only 6%.” (Wheller, 2005). Interestingly, Microsoft Windows 95 has the highest failure rate. Thus, since downtime is dependent on program reliability, it is much more costly to have a proprietary software installed, rather than open source software for a business from an economic point of view.

With those businesses that can edit the source code, the economic situation is different. Since they can modify and redistribute their version of the program, they are called open source software producers, although the business’ main activity may be other than software development. Downtime costs and external support costs in such cases drops to zero, which reduces the total costs for the program. In addition, the firm can earn additional revenue by providing support for other entities. Although the business will not charge a separate fee for distribution of the upgraded version of the software under the GPL viral license (GNU General Public License), it may however earn revenue from sales of hardware with this version of the program installed. Although the economic analysis of open source producers requires more detailed investigation, it will not be presented in this paper.

With the development and growing popularity of the OSS movement, additional issues and limitations have also been forming. If an entity enjoys the usage of open source software, it should also pay particular attention to the legal issues pertinent to it. Since open source software is completely distinct from proprietary software, the system of distribution of OSS products is also different, which means that users must abide to certain unusual rules. As mentioned earlier in the paper, these rules are enclosed in a special license, which legally protects software from abuse. There are over forty different licenses, but all licenses require the user, developer, or editor to keep the license with the program if the source code is edited, they permit anyone to edit, modify, or change the code provided he or she includes the name, and most importantly, licenses prohibit commercial reselling. This last part has been most confusing in many parts of the world, because of the typical misinterpretation of open source computer software. The special features of OSS mentioned earlier in the paragraph refer to the responsibility before the state legislature for failure to comply with the rules attached to the software. In other words, by changing the code of the program that is protected by a GNU license and selling it with the purpose of generating revenue (other purposes exist, such as to cover the expense of recording the software on a medium and packaging it), the entity or the individual breaks the law.

It is not a surprise that many developing countries turn to open source software as their information technologies sectors develop. In East European countries, Africa, and Asia, where the economic development has not reached the state of proper funding in this sector, open source software is a lifesaver. Since GNU/FLOSS applications are not based on capitalistic worldview of multi-billion revenues, the price for a copy of a single copy is very small, and only includes transportation and packaging costs. In third world countries, not only open source software discourages computer software piracy, but it also saves billions of dollars for governments millions of dollars when implementing education renewal plans or reforming different systems. When in a developing country like Pakistan authorities decide to set up computers in all schools in urban areas, cost of commercial software would climb much higher than the cost of low-speed computers, that is why FLOSS is the best alternative.

Brazil is a great example of how the education sector can be computerized without mentioning such omnipresent titles as Microsoft or Windows. Brazilian Government has approved the wide-spread usage of open-source software, and now in schools and state organizations computers have such programs installed like Linux (as opposed to Windows), Open Office (not Microsoft Office), and Mozilla Firefox (and not Internet Explorer). President of Brazil Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva stated, “that can count for a lot for a country like Brazil, which still has a long way to develop in the IT sector” (Kingstone, 2005). Truly, using open source software saves around $120 million of state budget per year.

India can also be an example to the third world countries. In the beginning of year (2005) Indian government has launched a special program that encourages use of computers by simply distributing compact discs with a certain package of open source software applications. The three prominent programs enclosed in the disc are Mozilla Firefox, Open Office, and Columbia email client. Government plans to distribute over 3 million of these CD’s across the country, and the public is exhibiting strong demand for these free packages. However, this is only one of the examples of the wide usage of OSS in India. According to RKVS Roman, a research associate at the Indian Center of Development of Advanced Computing, open source software provides two main benefits for the country. The first benefit is price; for a big country like India price does matter, because purchasing proprietary operation systems and software for every computer in the country would affect the state budget. The second advantage is the availability of the course code, and the opportunity to change it. This is very important to the Indians, because, “we are sometimes not comfortable with Western user interfaces – they don’t make sense in our culture, particularly for rural people who haven’t had much success in technology. If we want to modify the software we have to have the access to the code,” states Roman (Marson 2005), and we know that Microsoft applications do not offer this feature.

Ultimately, open source movement is gaining more and more popularity not only amongst developers, but also among the public, and governments. State authorities in third world countries realize that open source software is a perfect solution to the problem of development of information technologies sectors. Just like brazil and India, other developing countries should opt of open source software because it has many economic, technical, and practical, advantages.

Failure rates as measured by Fuzz tests

(http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html#reliability)

Bibliography

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