Robert Shaw: Open Source

Linux to power most Motorola phones

Thu, 13 Feb 2003 15:13:18 GMT

[News.com] Motorola will begin selling its first cell phone based on Linux this year and says most models will follow suit, a major sign of the growing popularity of operating system outside its stronghold on high-end computers.

New Open Source Software Site for Africa

Mon, 03 Feb 2003 09:37:13 GMT

Tectonic: a relaunched news site focusing on the use of open source software (OSS) in Africa. The site is maintained and financed by owner and developer Alastair Otter [via Balancing Act]. Also see "ICT Development Activities".

Cheap Wireless Mesh Networks

Thu, 23 Jan 2003 12:08:36 GMT

Guy Kewney's Mobile Campaign has a fascinating article on Locustworld's affordable wireless mesh network solution, Meshbox. LinuxDevices.com has a primer explaining the MeshBox - a Linux-powered wireless mesh repeater by Jon Anderson, its creator. As Guy Kewney's article notes: "However, there are going to be some controversial areas in the Locustworld experiment. The cheekiest move was the setting up of an IP address numbering authority, WIANA, or The Wireless Internet Assigned Numbers Authority." Also see my earlier articles on wireless mesh/parasitic/symbiotic networks in Watch this airspace and parasitic networks and Seeding Mesh Networks.

Open Source References

Fri, 13 Dec 2002 09:19:19 GMT

Some good references on the benefits of open source (thanks to Michael Tiemann, CTO of Red Hat, for the pointers):

Networks of Innovation by Ilkka Tuomi

Thu, 05 Dec 2002 13:39:42 GMT

From the extract (PDF), looks to be very interesting. The soon-to-be-published Networks of Innovation: Change and Meaning in the Age of the Internet (Oxford University Press; ISBN: 0199256985) by Ilkka Tuomi.

"As many commentators have observed, the process of science itself is very much based on peer-review, incremental development, non-economic motives, and geographically distributed collaboration. Indeed, tradtional models of innovation often assumed that basis research generates ideas and technologies that are appropriated by entrepreneurs who them to products and money."
"The history of Linux allows one to question to what extent existing economic models of innovation and technological development capture phenomena that underlie collective production of new technolgies."

Open Source and Governments

Thu, 05 Dec 2002 12:26:29 GMT

Somebody once said that the open source movement is a modern-day equivalent of communal barn-raising. It's a surprisingly innovative force that policy-makers worldwide need to understand. Why has open source hit the radar scope of governments? The simple answer is that the public policy stakes have become much higher. The development of advanced info-communication networks is now a key policy objective for almost all governments around the world. Not only are these networks seen as an important determinant of national competitiveness in an increasingly globalized knowledge economy, they are also seen as offering new opportunities in areas such as education, health and social advancement. It’s no surprise that almost every government in the world has put a high priority on improving access to advanced info-communications technologies, promoting digital literacy and improved access to government public services (e-government). Not surprisingly, open source is increasingly seen as another tool toward this goal, in both developed and more particularly in developing countries. O'Reilly Network has recently published an interesting timeline from 1995 to the present documenting the use of open source software by governments around the world.

On that note, in October 2002, I participated in Georgetown University's Open Source Summit: Public Interest & Policy Issues, which was spearheaded by Dr. Linda Garcia and her smart group of students at the Communication, Culture & Technology Program at Georgetown. Across town, I see that as a follow-up to their October 2002 conference on Open Source for E-Government, the Cyber Security Policy and Research Institute (CSPRI) of George Washington University is organizing a conference on "Open Source for National and Local eGovernment Programs in the U.S. and EU" to be held in Washington, DC, USA, March 17 - 19, 2003. Here is the call for papers. Slashdot has a related thread.

In preparation for the 2003 World Summit on the Information Society, the ITU Strategy and Policy Unit maintains some ICT Success Stories pages which includes one related to e-government.