Africa Source was a set of events, held in 2004 and 2006 in Namibia and Uganda respectively, to promote the use of Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) among non-profit and non-governmental organisations. Africa Source was part of the wider "Source Camps" organised by Tactical Technology Collective (Tacticaltech.org) and its partners, and was also linked to the Asia Source and other parallel events held elsewhere.
Africa Source's first camp was held from March 15 to 19, 2004 at Okahandja, Namibia. It had around 60 participants from across Africa. This event's focus was on "the practical challenges of realising F/OSS [Free/Libre and Open Source Software] in the African context, the aim was to build cooperation between Africa's most active F/OSS individuals and projects in the longer term." [1]
Through "practical skill-share sessions", a range of issues were discussed, from localising of GNU/Linux distributions (or "distros") to setting up of wireless networks, work on content management systems, and designing or managing large databases.
It was organised by Tactical Tech, AllAfrica and SchoolNet Namibia. It was supported by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA), Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), OSI Budapest, USAID and O'Reilly.
Africa Source 2 was organised in the first fortnight of January 2006 in Kalangala, an island on Lake Victoria, in Uganda. Organisers announced that the Africa Source II agenda was to be developed for the following primary target audiences:
Main themes for the event were:
Many issues came up for debate at the Africa Source 2. Among them were that FLOSS is still too complicated for non-profit organisations and schools to use, and the need for translating FLOSS into African languages.
The event had three tracks: 'migration for NGOs', 'migration for education', and 'information management'
In the information track, participants voiced a range of needs. Some asked for details about online tools for publishing. Others wanted the low-down on building and managing community portals. There also was a request for inputs on multimedia authoring and publishing (in both video and audio). Participants also wanted to know how to build a news website.
The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) is an international network of organizations that was founded in 1990 to provide communication infrastructure, including Internet-based applications, to groups and individuals who work for peace, human rights, protection of the environment, and sustainability. Pioneering the use of ICTs for civil society, especially in developing countries, APC were often the first providers of Internet in their member countries.
Kilinux (klnX), the Open Swahili Localization Project, is a project by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM), and IT+46 for localizing major applications to the Swahili language.
The English adjective free is commonly used in one of two meanings: "for free" (gratis) and "with little or no restriction" (libre). This ambiguity of free can cause issues where the distinction is important, as it often is in dealing with laws concerning the use of information, such as copyright and patents.
The Free and Open Source Software Asia-Pacific Consultation, or FOSSAP, was an event promoting free and open source software held twice in Asia, in 2004 and 2005. The first event was held in March 2004 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, while the second event was held in September 2005 in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
The International Open Source Network has as its slogan "software freedom for all". It is a Centre of Excellence for free software in the Asia-Pacific region.
Alternative terms for free software, such as open source, FOSS, and FLOSS, have been a controversial issue among free and open-source software users from the late 1990s onwards. These terms share almost identical licence criteria and development practices.
The Asia Commons is an attempt to see how ideas of the Commons are specifically applicable to Asian conditions, and may be distinctive from other forms.
Internet Society – Bulgaria is a non-governmental organization (NGO) for public benefit, founded on December 4, 1995, in Sofia by a group of Bulgarian Internet professionals.
BytesForAll is a South Asian initiative to focus on how information technology and the internet can help in taking up social development issues. It is one of the oldest ICT4D networks in South Asia. It was launched at a time when ICT4D was yet to become a buzz-word on the development circuit, and was still largely unnoticed for its potential.
OSS Watch is the United Kingdom's advisory service for issues relating to free software and open source software based at the University of Oxford.
Ungana-Afrika, Swahili for "connect africa", is a non-governmental organisation based in Pretoria, South Africa that provides a wide range of ICT services for civil society within and outside of Africa. It aims to better empower civil society organisations, networks and related stakeholders, in terms of ICT capacity and resources, so they may more efficiently achieve their unique social missions.
Fundación Vía Libre of Córdoba, Argentina, is an NGO working on the social implications of information and communication technologies throughout Latin America, with very strong ties to the region's digital rights and software libre community, to academia, to other civil society organizations, and to the global Free Software movement. It was founded in 2000.
The Open Source Observatory and Repository (OSOR) is an online project launched by the European Commission under the IDABC programme, to support the distribution and re-use of software developed by or for public sector administrations across Europe, connecting EU services and Member States.
Asia Source was an event series that promoted and coordinated the use of free and open-source software (FOSS) in Asia. It took place three times: the first event was hosted in Bangalore, India in 2005, the second in Sukabumi in West Java, Indonesia in January 2007. The third event was held in Silang, Cavite in the Philippines.
The Open Source Maturity Model (OMM) is a methodology for assessing Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) and more specifically the FLOSS development process. This methodology is released under the Creative Commons license.
GNU Health is a free/libre health and hospital information system with strong focus on public health and social medicine. Its functionality includes management of electronic health records and laboratory information management system.
Tactical Tech is an international nongovernmental organization that engages with citizens and civil-society organisations to explore and mitigate the impacts of technology on society. Since 2012, the organisation has been based in Berlin.
The Proxecto Trasno is an open community dedicated to localise open-source software to Galician language. Since it was founded at the end of the 1999, its volunteers have been engaged in the Galician translation of the main FLOSS projects, from desktop environments to Linux distributions and in creating spell-checkers or developing localization tools.
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