Tux Watch

Thanks to our friends from the UNDP-APDIP-IOSN International Open Source Network’s ASEAN+3 Node in the Philippines [here] who only recently organized the Asia Source 2 FOSS Camp in Indonesia [here] have produced a CD Package, filled with useful FOSS based free business applications titled SME-in-a-Box. I was lucky enough to be there and recieve a copy of the CD the content of which I will now be sharing through TuxWatch.org exclusively for our readers.

“SME-in-a-Box� is a toolkit designed to meet the specialized needs of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) based on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). The aim is to provide a selection of peer-reviewed software and material, which help businesses to grow. SME-in-a-Box leverages the power of FOSS for social and economic development. The collection comprises of software and manuals for general use of SMEs in their daily operations and management. Online links for each application will be conveniently included on this website directing the end-user to relevant websites and thus, gaining quick access to both downloades and advanced technical documentations and case studies.

(more…)

How can you make money off of FOSS?
The easiest is selling FOSS. Be sure to explain to customers that it’s a matter of freedom, not price. Distributing this book with the software might be a good idea. Remember that if the software’s under the GGPL and you distribute binaries, you must include the source with the binaries and/or offer the source separate. You could also write free documentation and sell that. The same things in the above paragraph apply here.

(more…)

Part- 3. India Plays “IT” Open

India has been very prominent on the FOSS world news bulletins due to the fact that with one of the largest populations in the world, the country has been on preference list for Information Technology and Software Business Process Outsourcing for the western or developed world. Adding to this, almost every major FOSS development corporation has either Research and Development center in India as well as country operations including giant brand names like Red Hat, Novell, IBM etc. In India, the Center for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) [here ] has been leading FOSS initiatives in the country.

(more…)

Part- 2. Pakistan Brings Nation Closer To Realization

To take FOSS efforts to the next level in Pakistan, the Government initiated a project worth Rs29 million titled “Open Source Resource Center” (OSRC) [here] was established at the through the Ministry of IT’s [here] implementation arm the Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) [here] in January 2004 in Islamabad to facilitates stake holders and investors in the software industry, should they decide to shift their businesses from vendor-dependent proprietary software to open source software technology. It aims to create a culture of open source software use in Pakistan through media awareness and training workshops, and act as a virtual community for experts in this field.

(more…)

Part- I. Realizing True Potential

Readers on this side of the world may not be aware of some very interesting ICT and FOSS developments taking place in the various regions of Asia. First of all, there are many FOSS initiatives that are very active within the overall region adding value to the global FOSS movement. These regional or country level initiatives include organizations and groups like:

(more…)

I have found Ohloh to be a very interesting tool for supporting my FOSS research activities. Ohloh [here] is an online service that accumulates an enormous database of Free and Open Source Software development facts indexing a well over 3,000 projects and 220 million lines of source code and most amazingly, Ohloh has followed the history of these lines of code, to identify when and by whom all of this code was written. Recently an

(more…)