Free open source software lowers cost of ICT investment

By Joshua Ndiege

Kenya: Many businesses in Kenya are fast embracing the use of free open source software as opposed to the proprietary kind, to boost efficiency in their operations. But others are oblivious of the benefits of such software for their trade.

This has thus forced many to abandon their Information and Communication Technology (ICT) investments citing unsatisfactory outcomes. Businesses can either chose to adopt a proprietary software or a free open source software.

Proprietary software is the kind developed and owned by individuals or organisations who then control its use by restricting buyers from modifying, copying or re-distributing the same to others. Conversely, free open source software is offered for use free of charge, and users are free to modify, copy or re-distribute. Such software has a free licence that allows users to access the source code and make modifications.

Free open source software offers opportunities for businesses to address legal, technical and financial limitations that are normally attached to proprietary software.Whereas there is an inherent need for adopted software to meet the unique needs of individual businesses, proprietary software are more often not cut out to address the individual needs of each business.

Free open source software comes in handy when it comes to addressing contextualisation of business systems to be in line with the needs of an organisation, by allowing individual businesses and users to modify the source code to suit their unique needs.

On the contrary, although proprietary software can be customised, vendors prefer to maintain the generic source code across their clients. This allows them to offer mass support and upgrades at minimal cost.

Many businesses who have adopted for imported proprietary software normally find themselves at the mercy of foreign vendors.

Businesses can readily adopt free open source software with no purchasing and licencing costs. Such software can help businesses to lower the huge financial requirements normally associated with adopting proprietary software, as long as they have relevant knowledge and skills to customise the software to meet their unique business needs.

Free open source software also gives businesses the chance to address the process incompatibility associated with a majority of proprietary software imported and designed from developed countries.

Because of contextual differences that exist between countries, such software does not easily fit a developing country’s context. This incompatibility, normally referred to as design-actuality gap, shows the disparity between foreign designs and the real context of use in developing economies like Kenya. A pragmatic solution to address the design actuality gap is by tailoring software to meet unique contexts and free open source software offers a promising and ready solution to this challenge. The tailoring of software means that change to the source code must be done, something that is not feasible in the case of proprietary software.

It needs to be noted, however, that without relevant skills to customise the source code, local businesses are unlikely to benefit much from the advantages associated with free open source software against the proprietary type.

Government and local institutions need to develop adequate human resource capacity with the relevant ICT programming skills to customise open source software for local businesses.

The writer is Head of Department and Senior Lecturer, Department of Information Systems and Computing at the University of Eastern Africa, Baraton.