Welcome

IDLELO 3 Conference: Click Here To Register and Submit Papers for the Conference

The Open Source Centre (OSC), has been established to amplify the beneficial impact of FLOSS across all sectors of society (public, private, civil). Indications are that FLOSS, among other things, offers benefits in terms of higher ROI¹ - making it more accessible in developing countries², giving freedom to use the software for any purpose, to study how it works and adapt it to one's needs, to improve and redistribute the software and broaden its benefits [see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html]. FLOSS brings a philiosophy of collaboration for the common good – essential for addressing the challenges in the developing world. The Centre was proposed as a substantial enabling initiative to dramatically accelerate the successful adoption of FLOSS, and proactively initiate actions essential for realising the benefits and making the envisaged impact.

The Centre's modus operandum is to Stimulate, Coordinate, Integrate, Facilitate, Optimise and promote Models to explore and realise opportunities via a world-class, shared, ‘public good’ mechanism, in the form of a compact, semi-autonomous centre supported by the CSIR’s excellent infrastructure, processes, and reputation.

A longer term and broader goal is to facilitate and catalyse the process of changing the dominant culture from one of passive consumer of proprietary solutions, developed in the first world, to one of proactive producer of appropriate innovative solutions, tailored to the local needs. This will result in a Southern Africa based digital commons (Meraka) - an enabler for localised FLOSS, open content and related resources.