Malaysia moves to OSS - Will it help the economy?

With the OSCC MAMPU success of the MyGOSSCON 2007, lots of government OSS projects have started to be highlighted. This year's MyGOSSCON 08, will be held on 5-6 Nov 2008 at the PICC, Putrajaya.

Economy and jobs for OSS

Will all this move to OSS help the economy? Malaysia is a country surrounded by Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand and depends a lot of its revenue from trades. Malaysia have a modest broadband availability and quality of service with a largely open Internet policy.

In regards to any ICT procurements, the cost can be reduced by;

1. Preference of alternative/cheaper software
2. Preference of software that reduces maintenance and security
   

Currently Malaysia buys too much of software. This leads to:

1. Lost opportunity of exposure to building enterprise/advanced applications
2. Preference of foreign systems to local ICT solutions when making procurement decisions
   

If more OSS is introduced;

1. Malaysia can be a net exporter of ICT solutions (increase in jobs, more revenue)
   
2. Increase in skilled ICT workforce (increase in local and foreign jobs)
3. Collaborative work on a global level (increase job opportunities)
4. Nature of OSS is productivity (a wider number of solutions will be available, more busines/jobs)
   
5. Increase in home based workers. Freelance, home makers, students, retiree and those with lots of free time can take part in many more business as the barrier entry is lowered. Cheaper software on any platform can be easily accessible for Internet based business.

OSS Seminar 08 - Miri

The OSS Seminar on 9th Jun 08 really was an opener for most of the participants from Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan Public Sector.

See OSCC MAMPU website for the details.
Apart from presenting a paper on Building OSS Competency, I am mainly taking care of the AV. I'd like to point out an instance where the overhead projector could only flicker the Linux screen intermittent. The video projector model was Sanyo XtraX and was mounted on the ceiling as shown below.

After changing over 2 different VGA cables and checking the connections, nothing improved. Some put it to the Linux being the problem, as other functions were said to have ran smoothly. The AV man finally came and brought a VGA switch with built-in booster, this managed to put the display on the large screen. When another two more projectors were used with a splitter, there were lines scrolling vertically. This was for the projector screens at the sides. This showed that there is not enough power supplied to the projectors.