Open Software & Open Standards in South Africa A Critical Issue for Addressing the Digital Divide - 2002 V1

The dramatic weakening of the Rand in recent weeks highlights the importance of
producing South African goods and services to substitute increasingly expensive
imports and to generate exports at relatively low cost. While this applies to practically everything, the goal of this document is to focus on software use and development.

A sustained Rand slide will make licenses on imported software (not to mention other imports) prohibitively expensive. Whether or not the Rand enjoys an upswing in future, it makes sense to minimise risk through avoidance, where possible, of dollar-based software license fees and through vigorous encouragement and support of local software development efforts.

Needless to say, lowering software costs by violating proprietary license conditions is not an option. Happily, there are often legal alternatives to proprietary software: nonproprietary “open software” attracting no license fees at all. Furthermore, open
software may be freely probed, customised and modified. This is the cheapest way of generating software suited to the country’s needs. It is also an ideal jumpstart for
entering the software development arena.

South Africa and other developing countries are extremely well placed to compete in the global software development market. Creating software is best done with a relatively inexpensive but well trained labour force. Software development is, and will continue to be, a knowledge and people intensive activity.