Paper:Challenges for Free and Open Source Software in Africa

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Central to understanding the state of free and open source software develoment in Africa is awareness about the challenges and issues facing open source practitioners on the continent.

Lack of FOSS awareness and propagation of myths: A fundamental challenge in driving FOSS adoption in Africa lies in addressing the gap between perception and reality. Confusion and mis-information persist, even as mature projects deliver value in a number of contexts. FOSS is unknown in large parts of the continent.

As FOSS advocates work to improve the perception and adoption, they spend substantial time countering biases. Two in particular stand out:

• Attitude toward local products in general: There is often a presumption of inferiority for products developed in Africa, and FOSS is no exception. The idea that Africans can develop top-tier offerings is foreign to many on the continent.

• Attitudes towards FOSS in particular: The notion that technology created in a developing country can be as stable or as powerful as those from corporations like Microsoft, developed in western countries, is something many Africans refuse to entertain. FOSS is often presumed to be second rate, and as such not worth of consideration.

Slow institutional adoption: In parallel with these biases come institutional barriers. Government and education, the two entities most able to shape perception and awareness regarding FOSS, remain largely resistant to FOSS offerings. Simply put, there is limited future upside for FOSS until it is taught in schools and utilized at regional and national levels. Factors limiting this uptake include:

• Governmental factors: There are host of political issues extant in convincing governments to adopt and support FOSS initiatives. Risk-averse politicians and bureaucrats juggling priorities don't want to take on the perceived unknowns of FOSS offerings. Governments seeking foreign investment and courting technology corporations to strengthen their presence in the region don't want to offend. And proprietary vendors have substantial resources with which to engage and shape governmental perceptions and priorities.

• Educational Factors: The education system as a rule does not adopt or acknowledge FOSS. In part this is dues to lack of awareness and understanding on the part of instructors. Where computers skills are able to be taught, proprietary tools are considered to offer more marketable and appropriate job skills.

Shortage in human capacity: The human talent required to power FOSS projects is in short supply. In particular the following gaps are the greatest limiting factors for increasing the viability of FOSS:

• Lack of technical and developer expertise: Fundamental math and logical thinking skills are often not well taught to the majority of learners, let alone strong grounding in software development and skills specific to software development tools and technologies. This represents a catch-22 of sorts; unable to grow and establish themselves with existing talent, FOSS projects are unable to create a community ethos in which new members could learn and gain the requisite skills.

• Lack of African FOSS Evangelists: Just as important as technical skills in the growth of African FOSS is the lack of passionate advocates to educate and advocate about the benefits and promise of FOSS. Those who do advocate on behalf of individual projects or the movement as a whole often find it hard to make a sustainable living.

• Lack of FOSS Communities: Shortages in human talent, connectivity and awareness add up to a lack of FOSS communities. It is hard for FOSS projects to find participants, and equally hard for individuals to learn about and join FOSS projects. The lack of FOSS communities also means a lack of models for others to draw from, adapt and otherwise draw inspiration.

• Retention of developers: The shortage of software developers in Africa contributes to another challenge: retaining developers who have gained marketable skills while working on FOSS projects. Financial exigencies often compel FOSS developers to jump to proprietary corporate projects where compensation and job security are substantially better.

Cultural barriers: In conjunction with other challenges enumerated are a number of issues faced on cultural levels. Some stem from institutional dynamics mentioned above, while others reflect norms in some or all parts of of African society. These include:

• Lack of exposure at younger ages: Due in large part to the lack of educational adoption, youngsters are not usually exposed to FOSS at early ages. Initial technology experiences are often shaped by use of proprietary tools.

• Lack of reading culture: Reading skills vary widely across Africa, and the lack of strong reading skills is a fundamental barrier to the self-education and DIY (Do It Yourself) ethic that often powers FOSS learning and uptake in other contexts. In addition, most existing FOSS documentation and resources are available in a small number of developed-world languages, meaning reading skills must be in those languages if FOSS knowledge is to be accessed.

• Rote culture: Educational and vocational models in Africa tend to focus on the acquisition of rote skills, as opposed to critical thinking skills. The latter are essential to participation in FOSS communities where self-determination and innovation are the lifeblood of successful projects.

• Lack of a culture of volunteering: The vast majority of FOSS communities obtain their labor resources from volunteers who are inspired and want to move projects forward. Volunteering is not the norm in many parts of Africa, and thus the notion of volunteering in FOSS efforts is a foreign notion to many. FOSS projects in Africa have a hard time recruiting free labor and sustaining the corresponding community energy engendered by such contributions.

Resources and infrastructure: Central to the challenges faced by the FOSS movement in Africa are the resource and infrastructure bottlenecks that inhibit otherwise motivated and available community participants. These bottlenecks include:

• Limited access to internet and learning resources: The FOSS movement has blossomed in the internet era because human and information resources distributed across the goal have been able to connect seamless and serendipitously in the TCP/IP grid. Limited or expensive internet access in many parts of Africa has inhibited FOSS from permeating the continent and enjoying the ubiquity of access enjoyed in developed countries.

• Shortage of computers and other hardware: In parallel with connectivity barriers are fundamental hardware shortages. PCs are hard to come by in many parts of Africa, and what is available to those who might work on FOSS projects is often older and obsolete. Many PCs are available only in institutional contexts such as schools and offices, and are not available on a 24/7 basis. And even where personal computers are available, unstable electrical grids and other rugged conditions accelerate wear and tear on those devices and peripherals.

• Difficulty organizing and communicating within FOSS communities: The resource constraints listed above contribute to a fundamental gating factor in the growth of FOSS in Africa: members of geographically distributed projects are hard-pressed to stay in ongoing communication with one another, and thus have great difficulty planning, organizing and managing FOSS projects.

Market and competition dynamics: Even when open source products come to market, it is within a challenging landscape of competing offerings. In particular, the following factors make uptake of FOSS more difficult:

• Proprietary software is easier to install and more accessible: While FOSS continues to mature and diversify, both the perception and often the reality is that proprietary tools are easier to obtain and install.

• Monopolistic give aways: Proprietary vendors, seeing the threat that FOSS is posing in other markets, undertake aggressive give-aways to schools and government institutions at little or no cost to the recipients. This drives a ubiquity and pervasive presence of proprietary software in technology contexts, and makes it more difficult for FOSS offerings to get a fair look or equal consideration.

• Software Piracy: Even when vendor give-aways are not the problem, cultural norms that accept and encourage the piracy and mass reproduction of proprietary software blur the distinction between “free as in speech” and “free as in beer”. When all software is effectively the latter, the benefits of FOSS are harder to convey, and the momentum towards continued use of proprietary tools is hard to offset.

Financial Sustainability: Based on all the foregoing factors and more, FOSS in Africa has rarely reached a point where it promises to be a financially sustaining enterprise.

• Bootstrapping challenges: Cost of FOSS development in the current context can tend be more expensive than commercial, off-the-shelf (COTS) software.

• Access to capital: Few practitioners or projects in the African context can afford to self-fund development of FOSS projects. Investors and venture capital are rarely available, so finding capital to underwrite startup, development and other projects costs is vexing. Risk aversion is high, and the perception is that FOSS projects come with inherently more risk than proprietary counterparts.

• Difficult to calculate return on investment: Those who might otherwise be inclined to invest in and underwrite FOSS efforts find it difficult to calculate return on their investment (ROI). Whereas proprietary software models involve well-defined revenue streams, FOSS ROI exists in the more intangible social contexts. And while FOSS tools can be superior to proprietary offerings, measuring the nature of that advantage is a challenge that remains vexing not just in Africa, but across the globe.

• Lack of market for software: As detailed in many contexts above, there is not yet strong market demand for FOSS offerings.

While all of these challenges remain extant, there is much exciting work being done in FOSS communities across Africa. The following sections detail the working of successful projects who participated at Good to Great FOSS.