Indonesia's Open Source Initiative

Open Source or as I prefer to call it Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is not a new thing out there. Free Software initiative is dating back for more than two decades started by Richard Stallman in 1983 with the birth of Gnu's Not Unix (GNU) Project and the General Public License (GPL). A movement later followed by many others. Including that of a Linus Torvalds who developed the Linux kernel in 1991, the kernel that became essential part of GNU project due to original GNU kernel the GNU Hurd coming out not as expected.

I'm not sure how but later the term Linux become more popular than the GNU itself, despite the fact that Linux in fact only a kernel. The correct term a Stallman always puts it is "GNU/Linux". Anyway Linux become sort of an icon for Open Source for over a decade now. Perhaps not many outside the IT community know that beside GNU/Linux there are also other operating systems like the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), FreeBSD, etc.

Linux although being around for many years and quite popular among some IT communities became more appealing to general public after the presence of desktop manager or in other words Graphical User Interface (GUI). Many hardcore users until today prefer to use Linux in its console mode or command prompt, however for a common user GUI is a must. GNU/Linux is of course not only an operating system but nowadays there are many applications for it, from office, design, programming and so much more. One of Linux strong points is its reliability and security besides the fact that it's in most cases distributed under GPL so it's free to use. Free here being freedom, not free beer.

So how come that only now Indonesia is catching up with the Open Source tide? Well simple for years the widespread usage of pirated software remained unchecked by the government and only few years back has the law against piracy been issued and enforced. Despite that the government still has a challenging task to change the attitude towards using the legal software, even within the government itself.

Last year Indonesian government signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Microsoft, agreeing to purchase license for software and operating system used within the government institutions. A move that came as great disappointment to every Open Source community in Indonesia. However not many knew that government didn't have much options in doing so because otherwise it would face sanctions within international trading organizations.

With the widespread use of pirated software in government, private sector and also households not many of the users know that whenever they are online they actually let know Microsoft in particular, how many of them still are out there. These numbers are used to pressure the government, which in turn can not deny the fact the majority of software used in the country is not original and had to sign MoU or otherwise.

However even though signing the MoU, the government also realized that there is an alternative solution which is of course the Open Source. Based on that it started the Open Source Initiative with the goal to widespread the usage of FOSS, starting with the government, education sector, private sector and so forth. The policy is there and as it seems the government is really putting an effort to make it happen with the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology being at helm.

At the 8th Asian Open Source Software Symposium held in Nusa Dua, Bali, the government also announced a plan to give incentives to the start up small and medium enterprises (SME) who agree to use Open Source in their business. This way Indonesian government also hopes to encourage the growth of Information Technology industry, for example the software and application development, technical support, training, help desk, etc.

The similar initiative has actually been started in past with the "Indonesia, Go Open Source" (IGOS) which is now back to life. Recently IGOS has developed their own version of live CD, derived from Fedora Core distribution. This CD similar to other live CDs like Knoppix, Ubuntu or Slax is a bootable, fully functional and includes the most common used software like the OpenOffice, Firefox and Gaim.

So with the current government focus and attention the open source movement in Indonesia will undergo an interesting change more over for the Linux enthusiasts who have been trying to introduce GNU/Linux to general population for years. In my opinion it's the right way to go and besides saving the already very limited government funds it should also spark growth and self sufficiency.

Let's go FOSS, let's Go Indonesia!