Open Source in the Middle East

[Gareth Bowker]

On Sat, Apr 02, 2005 at 12:28:19PM +0300, Carole Hofmann wrote:

> Does anybody have information on the development of open source 
> initiatives in the middle east? E.g. information on public perception, 
> acceptance of the open source idea and if there are any specific 
> projects around especially in the governmental sector?

I was out in Syria at the FOSS2005 conference[0] at the beginning of
March and spoke to quite a few people from Syria and neighbouring
countries. Here are my, completely unscientific, views on Free Software
in parts of the Middle East:

Syria: There seems to be a growing understanding of the term "Free
Software" out there. NGOs such as NOSSTIA[1], the organisers of the
conference, are also starting to push Free Software out there. Until
last year, they had no copyright laws at all and they still don't
currently apply to software, although that's apparently changing.
Unlicensed copies of proprietary software are apparently easy to get
hold of for around $1USD. NOSSTIA are trying to get Free Software
accepted by governments and users alike. Also, talking to many of the
students from universities in Damascus and Aleppo, they seem to be
enthusiastic about it too. NOSSTIA recently opened a new computer suite
at the University of Damascus and all the computers there run Free
Software. There's also a conference on in July at Aleppo University
focussing on Free and Open Source Software, I'll send you contact
details for the organisers separately.

Iran: I only really spoke to one Iranian at the conference. However it
seems Free Software, at least as a concept, seems very popular in Iran.
The government also seem keen to adopt it - I found a few news stories
on Google about Iran and GNU/Linux - have a read of
http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/printer_3822.shtml for one of
them.

Jordan: There were quite a few Jordanians at the conference and from
what I could tell, they seem to also be doing a lot with Free Software,
at least in the smaller companies. That said, they did comment on the
dominance of Microsoft in the country right now. I have a few business
cards for people in Jordan, if you like I can ask them if they'd like to
respond.

Saudi Arabia: There seemed to be a decent number of Saudis there. Again,
there seem to be a decent number of businesspeople using GNU/Linux, but
I don't know of any gov't schemes pushing it, or what the gov't are
doing, if anything, to push Free Software.

I also met a few people from other countries in the region, such as
Amman, but didn't really get a feel for the situations in their
countries. Again, I can pass your questions along to them if you like.

I'd suggest contacting NOSSTIA for starters - they may have a better
idea of what other countries are doing and can give you an update on the
situation in Syria. I'd also suggest contacting the numerous LUG groups
in the Middle East - many of these will be trying to push Free Software
within their communities and governments, or will know the people who
*are* working on this and can hopefully put you in touch. You can find
LUGs in the Middle East quite easily through Google.

Thanks,

Gareth

[0] http://www.foss2005.org/
[1] http://www.nosstia.net/
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