Proposal Open Source yang dicuri oleh orang lain

Ini sekedar untuk pelurusan opini publik, atas nama demokrasi Indonesia.

Proposal ini dicuri oleh seorang aktivis lingkungan, yang namanya tidak perlu saya sebut, karena terlalu menjijikan manusia tersebut. Memang proposal ini ditujukan untuk mengembangkan open source, tapi bukan berarti proposal ini di-open-source-kan tanpa mengutip secara benar dari penulis.

DRAFT (Not to be quoted unless permitted)

Pilot Project of Platform to Develop National Open-Source Software (OSS) Help Desk
Presented by Protus Tanuhandaru
Airputih Foundation

BACKGROUND

Lacking access to software realistically affordable, Indonesia is confronting software piracy , due to Indonesia’s dependency on proprietary software produced overseas, the sort not affordable by Indonesians whose per capita income is much smaller than the price of software produced with costs associated with living standard in developed countries.

To avert Indonesia’s dependency on such software, the Government of Indonesia (GoI) – having learned from many countries successful in implementing Open-Source Software (OSS) – launched its own program called Indonesia Goes Open Source! (IGOS) – a program initiated in 2001 by five ministers that aims at providing the public with cost-effective OSS, adjusted to how much price the public could really afford for their software needs.

To date, IGOS has resulted in a variety of OSS products customized to local needs such as WaroengIGOS, IGOS laba-laba and DesktopIGOS and IGOS Nusantara. But even though the program has been running for more than a year, it is still facing issues hampering its full implementation. These are:

• Lack of understanding by the public on intellectual property rights – particularly on rights of software belonged to anybody who created them;
• Lack of public’s awareness of IGOS because campaign to encourage the public to turn to OSS has neither been well-coordinated nor systematic;
• Lack of preparation in developing migration guidelines to direct users to switch to OSS
• Lack of preparation in developing OSS guidelines;
• Desk Support to provide technical assistance sustaining the effect of the IGOS is not yet available;

Aiming to resolve these issues, the ministry of research and technology called on OS community members to be involved in the development of IGOS . Responding to such a call, Airputih, an ICT NGO that is also a member of such a community, proposes a project called Pilot Project of Platform to Develop National Open-Source Software (OSS) Help Desk, a one-year program aiming at having the public sector’s computer terminals migrated to OSS, supported by Help Desk – which is an integrated technical assistance facility to address and resolve issues emerging after the migration to OSS.

In implementing such a pilot project, Airputih will be collaborating with many entities supporting the development of OSS – the ministry of research and technology, open-source community represented by Indonesia Linux Foundation (YPLI), and University of Gunadarma – with the following objectives:

1. Performing an assessment of the contemporary condition of IGOS implementation at the public sector in Aceh and Yogyakarta – two cities considered by the ministry of research and technology as a reliable sample representing many other cities across Indonesia with similar economic activities;
2. Developing OSS platform that is accustomed to users’ needs, based on the assessment result.
The final result of this project will determine the viability of Help-Desk development, which is the continuation of this project.

GOAL OF THE PROJECT

The long-term goal of this project is to avert Indonesia’s dependency on expensive, proprietary software through mainstreaming the use of OSS across Indonesia as well as increasing public participation in the development of OSS. Specifically expected from this project is the government sector(s) in the pilot project area turning their use of software from proprietary-typed software to OSS.

OBJECTIVE(s) OF THE PROJECT

The objective of this project is to implement OSS in Aceh and Yogyakarta, two provinces designed as pilot to further the implementation of IGOS – by assessing the contemporary condition of OSS at the public sector in the two provinces and by developing OSS platform accustomed to the users’ needs.

EXPECTED RESULT(s)

• The cost of buying proprietary software is cut down dramatically – resulting in saving of large portions of the state’s budget otherwise spent to procure such software;
• Government’s use of OSS creates market demand of such software, thereby stimulating domestic economy through the burgeoning of local software business engagements and opening employment opportunity;
• Software piracy rate is gradually reduced to a level where a number of government users who used to buy pirated software now turn to OSS.

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATOR(s)

• Number of government users’ computer migrated to OSS;
• Number of government users trained to use OSS solution;
• Open-source operating system and applications built;
• Series of publications through a variety of media, both printed and online, on the project and its progress and result;
• Guidelines to carry out migration and to use OSS and training modules produced and disseminated;
• Network of local business-oriented stakeholders established to sustain project activities.

TARGET POPULATION OF THE PROJECT

Government users at Aceh and Yogyakarta

DETAILS OF COMPONENT

• Migration from proprietary-typed to open-source software
The purpose of this component is to make government users switch their use of proprietary software – both application and operating system – to OSS. So the key challenge is to provide these users with a starter kit enabling them to easily switch to OSS. Included in the starter kit are a compilation of software bundled into one with the purpose of easing the process of distributing the software; a variety of OSS applications developed during the project and usable in both open-source and proprietary operating system; the guidelines instructing users how to carry out the migration; guidelines to use the OSS operating system, and other documents found related to OSS.
To get these elements right, there will be a study comparing other countries’ lessons learnt with Indonesia’s in implementing OSS. Following such a study is an assessment inventorying efforts to carry out the migration. The scope of the assessment, however, is limited to preliminarily-selected government personal computers (PC) as well as to users’ capacity in operating both hardware and software installed in the PC.
Important variables to be taken under consideration when conducting the assessment are:
• Whether hardware and software installed in the computer will remain interoperable and compatible after migration. This is essential as some OSSs are presumed to be incompatible to certain kinds of hardware or proprietary-based operating system.
• Whether the format currently used for storing data has a long span of usage, that is, not be changed by any proprietary vendor by the time the project is completed;
• Whether implementation of OS-based operating system will be viable;
• Whether OSS to replace proprietary application can run properly under such proprietary-based operating system as Windows.
• What types of software are actually needed but not yet available;
• Whether OSS already developed by ministry are suitable to these users’ needs and what sort of OSS that will be best developed

The assessment will cast several possibilities determining how the starter kit will be developed. One possibility likely to occur is that given users must have been comfortable with using proprietary-type operating system such as Microsoft Windows, they will keep using it but will be willing to use open-source applications run under Windows. Of these applications, only a few but a variety will be selected by users, and these applications are typically the ones generally used for office needs and emulating features of proprietary-type application. Other possibilities would be that the users are interested in using IGOS as well the applications contained therein, or that the users are interested not in IGOS but in new operating system as well as the applications contained therein.

The methodology for – and the duration of – the assessment will be based upon the scale of government agencies’ structure (how big it is), the number of PCs they have, and their network topology. For now, the number of PCs to be surveyed is set to 20, which is the average number of computers being operated by government agencies as indicated by previous surveys. The questionnaires distributed among users will reveal their needs as well as their literacy in information technology and will determine which operating system and applications turn out to be the most suitable to the needs of these users.

Each assessment team in each province will be led by a field coordinator and a member of steering committee who will be drawn upon local recruitment. Aceh however will have more assessors than Yogyakarta does because of Aceh’s difficult working condition. All teams will be concentrating on preparing the survey, collecting information, creating survey methodology, carrying out the survey, and performing analytical work on the result of the assessment as well as delivering well-informed recommendation. Three additional members of steering committee based in Jakarta will be playing a role similar to the ones in pilot project area.

Initial steps of development phase are to conduct analysis defining functional specification of OSS based on requirement shown by the users and to carry out programming accordingly. OSS already developed, however, will encounter anomalies, thereby requiring effort to contain problems – fixing bugs – until the program could run according to what it is designed for. Once tested and found running properly, the OSS will be installed at computers on which the assessment building such development is conducted.

The team carrying out OSS development will consist of two engineers/ programmers, a graphic designer, two documenter, and two tester – all led by the national coordinator.

Migration and how-to-use-OSS guidelines will be developed by two persons – the two documenters involved in the OSS development phase – led by the national coordinator.
The team carrying out the migration will consist of those who carried out the assessment and trainers to assist users in dealing with migration-related problem.
By the third month, the assessment should have been completed and presented in a comprehensive document, which will be used as the basis of the development phase. By the fifth month, development of OSS should have been completed, along with the development of repository, which definition will be explained below. By the sixth month, starter kit consisting both OSS and guidelines will be completed and all these will be presented in a comprehensive document.


Summary of Activities

• Carrying out comparison study, preliminary data collection, and preliminary analysis to determine sampling methodology (number of computers to be sampled, what to sample, and questionnaires for government users);
• Conducting sampling, analyzing results of assessment, proposing recommendations – all represented in a comprehensive report which becomes the basis of development phase;
• Developing and modifying OSS. Fixing emerging anomalies rendered by OSS.
• Carrying out migration at selected PCs in the pilot project area
• Repository

The migration process will no doubt cast problems that cause confusion among users who turn to OSS. To deal with this issue, this component is to provide users with access to a repository – a website developed as an interactive archive whereby users will be able to post questions and seek appropriate solution regarding problem encountered during and after migration process. In addition to resolving problems, users will also be able to acquire information on updates related to OSS development.
The content entailed in the repository, however, will not be limited to the above and instead will incorporate anything the report of the assessment suggests.
Development of repository will commence as soon as development of starter kit begins. The repository team will consist of a coordinator, two persons responsible for archiving and for responding to questions addressed by users, and a web programmer and a web designer.

Summary of activities

• Inventory of relevant information on problems encountered and resolutions found regarding OSS migration;
• Recruitment of web developer(s) and persons responsible for documentation
• Development of selected content/services prototypes, including “local” content such as list of OSS providers, etc.
• Developmental testing of repository
• Full scale implementation of services developed

CAPACITY BUILDING

Users participating in the program are assumed to have rudimentary knowledge of OSS and will therefore require to build their capacity to carry out the migration process as well as to use the operating system and applications built on it. Likewise, open source community members at the local level are expected to maintain the result of the project as well as to assist users who encounter technical difficulty.
For such purposes, there will be guidelines accompanied by organized trainings provided for both users and local open-source community members. The materials for the guidelines are readily available in Indonesian and English and abundantly provided in the bookstores and the internet, but need to be compiled and integrated into guidelines possibly contained in web-based, video-based, paper-based media and/or CD ROMs. The incorporation of English content into the guidelines will require translation, and the guidelines may be self-explanatory or taught by an instructor, which will be provided by Guna Darma University.

Summary of activities

• Development of curriculum and learning material including identification, adaptation and translation of relevant training material and toolkits for migration and OSS guidelines;
• Identification of locally available training facilities and resources and locally-based human resources who are ready to assist in training users (on a commercial or volunteer basis).
• Training of local open source community members to carry out maintenance and trouble shooting of OSS.
• Migration and OSS training courses, using developed guidelines and facilitated by trainers will be organized.

Awareness raising, policy dialogues, and establishment of partnership

The purpose of this component, among others, is to funnel sporadic initiatives on OSS development into one effort making this project a success and sustaining its impact. This could be done by disseminating information on lessons learnt related to this project. The component is also to coordinate stakeholders involved in this project to periodically convene to check on progress of each development stage of the project – post-assessment, starter kit preparation, repository and capacity building.

Besides coordination and awareness raising, the component is to specifically address ambiguous policies deemed unworkable to the condition of OSS development. Of these, the one really concerned are policies favoring vendors that procure hardware incompatible to OSS implementation, particularly in tender carried out by the government, and depriving ICT players to engage in business-oriented OSS services.

Drawing upon results of assessment and pilot project, stakeholders playing the role of policy maker should be able to work on these policies to effectively stimulate OSS development and sustain its impact.

For all these to happen, the project requires a feedback mechanism through regular meetings as well as assurance that resources developed are shared by as many stakeholders as possible. Resources required for all these sub-components include funds given by donors and in-kind contribution provided by stakeholders.

Summary of Activities

• Identification of additional partners at local and national level;
• Preparation of material (printed material, video clips, power point programs, multimedia programs, news paper articles, etc.) describing the functions and potential benefits of the migration;
• Development of a portal (This will also become a website used as repository) for the project with all relevant information and links to the participating projects web sites;
• Building awareness among users and mobilization of partners through visits and discussions and by means of demonstration of OSS in action;
• Organization of workshops/discussion forum at local and national level to disseminate information and evaluation reports about the pilot projects.
• Sustainability/ continuation of the project
Sustainability of the project will first of all depend upon how capable the users are in using the OSS and guidelines developed in this project and how useful the repository is. Secondly, the users must have developed an interest in both using the OSS and furthering its potential. Also of important to sustainability is the willingness of local partners to engage in income-generating OSS services to bear all cost associated with the trainings and further OSS development resulted from this project. To get these factors working, there ought to be crystal-clear policies promoting the use of OSS. Some of these to be worked on are policies regarding provision of hardware incompatible to OSS and incentive to keep these users as well as local partners using and developing OSS.

By the end of project activities, the project – should the migration is proven successful – will be scalable to parts of the national level and replicable to other provinces and will become the basis of national help desk.

IMPLEMENTATION ARRANGEMENT

Leading the implementation of the project, Airputih will be working closely with the ministry of research and technology, other governmental agencies involved in IGOS and OSS development, Linux community and Gunadarma University. The role of the ministry is to provide Airputih with access to sampling governmental computer terminals and to work on policies regarding the development of OSS and its migration. Airputih, Linux community (YPLI of the pilot project area) and Gunadarma University will carry out the analysis, design and implementation of OSS.

Because Aceh’s and Yogyakarta’s KPLI have a profound role in sustaining the activity of the project, they will be highly involved in developing the program, in training. To date, all stakeholders have demonstrated their commitment in a Memorandum of Understanding to be endorsed soon. The draft of the MoU defines what the stakeholders listed in the MoU will do, the duration of their activities, and the expected results.