IDLELO 3, Conference on the Digital Commons and
Open Source Software.
Dakar Senegal
17 March 2008
Minister for Public Service and Adminstration
Ms. Geraldine J Fraser-Moleketi
Thank you for affording me the opportunity to say a few words at the
beginning of this, the third, Idlelo African Conference on FOSS and
the Digital Commons.
The Free Software community in Africa faces enormous challenges in
the year ahead, and it is fitting that we have come together here in
Dakar, Senegal, to debate, discuss and strategise the historic mission
of FOSSFA.
Just over twenty years ago, in July 1987, Dakar was the site of an
historic meeting between a group of predominantly white Afrikaner
businessmen and academics and representatives of the then exiled
African National Congress of South Africa. The Dakar Declaration of
12 June 1987 noted that, despite being ideologically different, both
groups held "a shared commitment towards the removal of the
apartheid system and the building of a united, democratic and nonracial
South Africa". A dialog was initiated which was to bear fruit
some years later.
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This past year has been marked by a raising in the tension between
the traditional incumbent monopoly software players and the rising
champions of the Free Software movement in Africa. The flashpoints
of conflict have been particularly marked around the development
and adoption of open standards and growing concerns about
software patents. I will touch briefly on these two areas a little later.
That these tensions are surfacing now is in many ways a good sign.
It is a sign that the Free Software movement, including FOSSFA, is
starting to be successful in its mission of promoting the use of Free
Software in Africa. Nevertheless we must be cautious not to let these
tensions boil over to the point that they poison the prospect of
building a shared commitment to the ongoing development and
wellbeing of the people of our continent. In our deliberations this
week we might do well to emulate that spirit of dialog which was
developed amongst the South Africans who met here twenty years
ago.
With regard to Open Standards …
The adoption of open standards by governments is a critical factor in
building interoperable information systems which are open,
accessible, fair and which reinforce democratic culture and good
governance practices. In South Africa we have a guiding document
produced by my department called the Minimum Interoperability
Standards for Information Systems in Government (MIOS). The
MIOS prescribes the use of open standards for all areas of
information interoperability, including, notably, the use of the Open
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Document Format (ODF) for exchange of office documents. ODF is
an open standard developed by a technical committee within the
OASIS consortium. The committee represents multiple vendors and
Free Software community groups. OASIS submitted the standard to
the International Standards Organisation in 2005 and it was adopted
as an ISO standard in 2006. South Africa is amongst a growing
number of National Governments who have adopted ODF over the
past year.
It is unfortunate that the leading vendor of office software, which
enjoys considerable dominance in the market, chose not to
participate and support ODF in its products, but rather to develop its
own competing document standard which is now also awaiting
judgement in the ISO process. If it is successful, it is difficult to see
how consumers will benefit from these two overlapping ISO
standards. I would like to appeal to vendors to listen to the demands
of consumers as well as Free Software developers. Please work
together to produce interoperable document standards. The
proliferation of multiple standards in this space is confusing and
costly.
Whereas we have watched this process unfold with a growing sense
of discomfort, there may yet be some positive spin-offs. Due perhaps
in part to the lobbying of parties with vested interests, an
unprecedented number of African countries, including Kenya, Ghana,
Cote d'Ivoir, Mauritius, Zimbabwe, Libya and South Africa, have been
encouraged to participate in the ongoing ISO deliberations. Once the
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current drama over document standards is resolved, it is my sincere
hope that these African National Standards Bodies will continue to
participate in the activity of global software standards setting and that
FOSSFA members in particular get involved in their national
committees to ensure that an African voice is developed which can
project our national and regional interests in a principled, informed
and increasingly confident manner.
In the same vein it is worthwhile to point out that the final committee
draft of version 1.2 of the ODF standard is being made available for
public review in May/June this year. I would like to encourage
FOSSFA members to participate in this review process by holding
study sessions and standards review workshops. Just like any other
democratic process, the benefits of open participation can only be
fully enjoyed if we roll up our sleeves and participate.
On Software Patents ….
An issue which poses a significant threat to the growth of an African
software development sector (both Free Software and proprietary) is
the recent pressure by certain multinational companies to file
software patents in our national and regional patent offices. Whereas
open standards and Free Software are intended to be inclusive and
encourage fair competition, patents are exclusive and anticompetitive
in their nature. Whereas there are some industries in
which the temporary monopoly granted by a patent may be justified
on the grounds of encouraging innovation, there is no reason to
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believe that society benefits from such monopolies being granted for
computer program "inventions". The continued growth in the quantity
and quality of Free Software illustrates that such protection is not
required to drive innovation in software. Indeed all of the current socalled
developed countries built up their considerable software
industries in the absence of patent protection for software. For those
same countries to insist on patent protection for software now is
simply to place protectionist barriers in front of new comers. As the
economist, Ha-Joon Chang, observed: having reached the top of the
pile themselves they now wish to kick away the ladder.
African software developers have enough barriers to entry as it is,
without the introduction of artificial restrictions on what programs they
are and aren't allowed to write. When Steven Biko wrote "I write what
I like" he was not referring to computer programs but it would
certainly be an apt motto for today's generation of African Free
Software developers. It will become increasingly important for
FOSSFA to continue to lobby and mobilize to keep this intellectual
space open.
One cannot be in Dakar without being painfully aware of the tragic
history of the slave trade. For three hundred years, the Maison des
Esclaves (Slave House) on Gorée Island, was a hub in the system of
forceful transportation of Africans as slaves to the plantations of the
West Indies and the southern states of America. Over the same
period people were being brought as slaves from the Malay
Archipelago and elsewhere to South Africa. The institution of slavery
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played such a fundamental role in the early development of our
current global economy, that by the end of the 18th century, the slave
trade was a dominant factor in the globalised system of trade of the
day.
As we find ourselves today in this new era of the globalised
Knowledge Economy there are lessons we can and must draw from
that earlier era. That a crime against humanity of such monstrous
proportions was justified by the need to uphold the property rights of
slave owners and traders should certainly make us more than a little
cautious about what should and should not be considered suitable for
protection as property.
In conclusion,
I would like to say that the reason for addressing the two contested
areas of open standards and patents above is not to be deliberately
combative or controversial. As civic organisations such as FOSSFA
continue in their mission to develop and promote Free Software
capacity on the continent it is inevitable that such tensions arise. Like
any other kind of economy, the terrain of the knowledge economy is a
contested one. If we are to address the challenges facing our
continent, we need to embrace and encourage free competition and
co-operation with proprietary vendors as well as free and open
source software developers. We cannot afford the luxury of
anarchism or extremism. We in governments look to organisations
like FOSSFA to provide the balance which is required to maximize
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the creative potential of Africans in this exciting era of Information and
Communication Technologies. I am confident that you will not
disappoint and that you will have a productive and stimulating
conference.