1. David Cheung, CECID/HKU 1 Open Source Software and It’s Impact to Technology Development Dr. David Wai-lok Cheung ( 張偉犖博士 ) Director Center for E-Commerce Infrastructure Development (www.cecid.hku.hk) The University of Hong Kong Joint UNCTAD - UNESCAP Asia-Pacific Regional Conference. E-commerce Strategies for Development Bangkok, 20-22 November, 2002

2. David Cheung, CECID/HKU 2 What is Open Source Software (OSS) OSS are software that users have unrestricted access to the source code OSS software may be used, copied, and distributed with or without modification, and may be offered with or without a fee OSS developers and distributors can create profit on the sales of support and services

3. David Cheung, CECID/HKU 3 OSS Market Share - Web Web Server Market (web infrastructure) Apache – 65% Microsoft – 25% Source: Netcraft Survey

4. David Cheung, CECID/HKU 4 OSS Market Share - OS Operating System for Server Linux – 27% Microsoft – 49% Unix – 12% Netware – 12% Source: IDC Market Research Sept 2002

5. David Cheung, CECID/HKU 5 OSS Market Share - DBMS DBMS OSS : MySQL Approx. 4 million active installations worldwide (~ 20% market share) up to 27,000 copies of MySQL downloaded per day! Corporate users include:Yahoo!, Cisco, NASA, Lucent Technologies, Motorola, Google, etc. Many OSS in other areas - email, office desktop, word processor, e-commerce, etc. Source: MySQL Website (http://www.mysql.com/company/factsheet.html)

6. David Cheung, CECID/HKU 6 Linux in China 65% Chinese developers expect to write applications for Linux in 2003 Currently 44% are doing so Intention to use Linux as a primary host operating system next year increases by 175% Source: The Evans Data 2002 Chinese Developer Survey, Vol. 2

7. David Cheung, CECID/HKU 7 Benefit of Using OSS OSS products have access to extensive technical expertise - involve thousands of motivated voluntary programmers Rapid release of OSS distributes bug fixes and patches faster than many commercial products Lower direct cost Can tailor the source code to meet specific needs

8. David Cheung, CECID/HKU 8 Risk of Using OSS OSS products from a larger community with a well defined process would be more stable; otherwise the quality could be a concern OSS tends to have weak GUI and be less practical -- much stronger in infrastructure software Without a good leadership group, code base could be fragmented

9. David Cheung, CECID/HKU 9 The Trend in Openness Open & Standardized Data Format anti proprietary-data-format movement appearing from alliance of governments and users (many close software will be compatible to open-data format) Open messaging standards will become dominant software from different companies can talk to each other freely as long as they follow the standards different standards will be compatible

10. David Cheung, CECID/HKU 10 The Trend in Openness Open source software will become production grade Open standards and open source go hand-in- hand In 10 years, 80% of software will be OSS Vendor will compete on how “open” their software are export/import standardized data competition will drive down software cost major expenses will be on services

11. David Cheung, CECID/HKU 11 Our Experience in OSS Awarded a grant of US$ 1.2M by the Hong Kong government to build an e-commerce infrastructure software based on the ebXML standard ebXML is an open standard that provides EDI type services on Internet - give SME services that only big corporations can afford Use OSS license to distribute products via www.freebxml.org; in two months, attracted users from more than 22 countries

12. David Cheung, CECID/HKU 12 A Solution for Developing Countries An XML-based email-like software that can transmit structured information from anywhere in the world A pilot for the UN World Meteorological Organization via the Hong Kong Observatory to collect world weather information

13. David Cheung, CECID/HKU 13 The Economic Impact “An open-source document is much like a physics experiment to which hundreds of researchers contribute.” (Kogut and Metiu, 2001) “Science has often been described as a conspiracy constructed to provide incentives to researchers to invest their time in the production and public dissemination of their knowledge.” (Dasgupta and David, 1994).

14. David Cheung, CECID/HKU 14 The Economic Impact OSS is a sustainable model for the creation and realization of innovative software for the society OSS and open standards will drive down the cost of using information technology - key factor for growth Developing countries, in aggregation, have a major share of the world’s brain power -- OSS could lower the threshold for entering the world of innovation and wealth creation

15. David Cheung, CECID/HKU 15 “Developing countries and their donor partners should review policies for procurement of computer software, with a view to ensuring that options for using low- cost and/or open-source software products are properly considered and their costs and benefits carefully evaluated.” -- Integrating Intellectual Property Rights and Development Policy (Report of the Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, UK, Sept 2002)