Using open source for digital Bangladesh
Open source software is slowly gaining acceptance in the corporate world. More and more corporates are beginning to see the efficiency of open source and have started embracing it
Dr. Usharani Boruah and Prodip Kumar Aich
When reports of a surprising bank hack that sucked $81 million from accounts at Bangladesh Bank in just hours spread out, Bangladesh instantly become headline all over the worlds. Bangladesh is going for digitalization and automation at the large scale as citizen service centre and government offices becoming increasingly dependent on technology and ICT. Digitalization and automation is definitely improving the services at different level but the questions may arise whether the country have adequate measures and capacity to ensure security and privacy of information.
Use of pirated and cracked software is a common practice in Bangladesh as the BSA piracy report 2008 says that Bangladesh is ranked second among the countries where Pirated Software is widely used. Pirated software is vulnerable to hacking and data theft but still people use those as they cannot afford to buy original software.
Open Source Software (OSS) can be an alternative to Proprietary software as such software can be used without paying any money. OSS refers to the software which are publicly available and which can be modified and redistributed as per the need of user. Source code is a collection of instructions written in programming language; and computer programmers can easily manipulate a program or application by coding in open source software. Programmers, who have access to programs source code, can improve that program by adding various features.
Open source software is slowly gaining acceptance in the corporate world. More and more corporates are beginning to see the efficiency of open source and have started embracing it. But it has been a long journey and all this changes didnt happened overnight. These changes were largely influenced by a string of open source software success stories that happened over the years.
The significant difference between open source and other type of software is that the access to source code of non open source software is limited to only the authors; hence public cannot copy, modify and manipulate code as the code is strongly copyrighted and license protected. On the other hand open source softwares authors make the source code available to others so that anyone can view that code and modify and customize as per their convenience. For example Koha, DSpace, Apache, Sendmail, MySQL etc. are some example of open source software while Microsoft, Adobe Photoshop etc. are example of proprietary or non open source software.
According to the Business Software Alliance (BSA) report on Global software piracy in 2001, Business software applications accounted for global revenues of US $21.6 billion in 2000. BSA estimated global revenue losses for the business software application market of US $11.75 billion due to piracy during same year. The software industry lost more than US $5.3 billion due to piracy in 2008 (Report BSA 2008).
The piracy rate is rising around the world. Georgia had the highest in the globe 95 per cent followed by 92 per cent (Bangladesh, Armenia, Zimbabwe) followed by 90 per cent (Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan, Moldova), 89 per cent( Yemen) USA had 20 per cent (BSA piracy report 2008).
Rate of unlicensed software installation in Bangladesh was 86 per cent in 2015 which commercial value $236. (Source BSA may, 2016)
Studies by Microsoft and Adobe show that 83 per cent of unlicensed users in mature markets are legally-inclined victims of piracy who will pay for software. (Source BSA, 2016)
A number of governments have saved millions of dollars by adopting open source software (OSS), for example, South Africa has saved apparently millions of US dollars not only by saving software licensing frees but also by keeping old computer hardware since Linux doesnt require up gradation of software.
In case of non open software, hardware is required to meet the requirements of latest proprietary technologies for example Windows10. To avoid unnecessary expenses in software procurement use of pirated software is becoming more and more popular which is very much harmful for our local software industry in Bangladesh.
More than 95 per cent software used in Bangladesh, are not developed by Bangladeshi companies but these are pirated software. In case of open source software, the service fee goes to Bangladeshi companies or Bangladeshi subsides of foreign companies.
If the government uses open source software in different IT sector then a large amount of money can be saved. All educational institution from school to university level government is providing computers and a huge amount of money is spent on buying various software.
Another point is that government paying large amount to the different vendors for buying various software to implement e-government project. To minimise the cost of such projects, government can use open source software instead. Use of OSS technologies can reduce costs for e-government and digital citizen services in Bangladesh. It can also reduce risks and ensure stability, auditability, flexibility and privacy.
In developing countries, open source software can create business opportunities for private firms, reduce cost of IT investment in public and private sectors. OSS can boost the local software industry and thus encourage people in knowledge development and make use of huge potential of ICT. Using OSS, educational institutions can improve the way of teaching and learning.
Developing countries like Bangladesh can benefit from OSS in great extent. To achieve our goal we need to upgrade the ICT infrastructure and IT skills. We have to create awareness on Open Source Software among the citizens, professionals and the decision makers. A shift from proprietary to Open Source Software both in public and private sector can revitalize our dream for a digital Bangladesh.
Dr. Usharani Boruah is Librarian of Centre on Integrated Rural Development for Asia and the Pacific (CIRDAP) and Prodip Kumer Aich is Library Assistant at CIRDAP
