Six months ago I gave this presentation to a group of non-techies. It is pitched as a general briefing on Open Source in Brunei.

My materials are published under a Creative Commons license, so please feel free to make use of these materials. I’ve published my slides and my speaker’s notes below.

Slide 1: Title

I’ve been allocated 15 minutes, so I’ll try keep it short & sweet. We’ll allow for questions at the end of the talk, but if you want to interrupt me as I present, please feel free to do so.

Slide 2: Agenda

For this presentation, I’m going to talk a little bit about how we started out in Brunei’s OSS Communities.
OSS Adoption rates – and a short hypothesis I have on the trend of adoption.
Then we talk about how it fits into Wawasan 2035.

Slide 3: A little History …

First came across Linux in 1995
IRC was the “social network” de jure
Went to do my Accounting degree in the UK
Wiped Windows from my laptop, installed Red Hat 5.0
Learned Linux the old way – man pages
Motivation – stop using pirated software
And find something more secure

Slide 4: A little History …

w/ help of Cikgu Azaman & others
Formed BLUG
Distribution of Red Hat CDs
At the time – it was difficult to download the packages and create a bootable CD-ROM. Of course today, it’s so much easier with BitTorrent and almost everyone has a CD Burner.

Slide 5: A little History …

(Linux) After I graduated from Uni, moved
(FreeBSD) Learned FreeBSD,
After coming back from UK I learned
(Mac) Mac OS X and now
(OpenSolaris) Teaching myself OpenSolaris sysadmin
Last year in 2008 when I was working for AITI, I ran a workshop on Google’s open source mobile application platform, Google Android.

Slide 6: OSS Adoption Rates

I am the Linux Counter country manager for Brunei.
Lots of admin – nothing special
If Linux Counter = good proxy
1995 – just started out.
Approx. BruNet started out
1999 – big jump 2 to 8 ppl.
e-Gov Interim Committee formed
2002,2003 – Plateaued, 10 to 16
I have a hypothesis: 3 phases
We are in Phase 1 – Under the Radar
Phase 2 – We are just entering
Phase 3 – May not get there (depends on Phase 2)

Slide 7: Phase 1, Under the Radar

Over the last 10 years OSS has been silently chugging away
Maybe part of the reason it was so successful was that it was “invisible”. i.e. it never broke, so you never knew it was there. This is = Under the Radar
There’s a list on the internet maintained by NetCraft –> Systems with the highest “uptimes”.

Slide 8: Phase 1, Under the Radar

One of today’s biggest champions of OSS is Sun Microsystems. Some key tech: Java, Solaris

I looked at the website of 1 of their well known resellers here in Brunei, eSuria.

Slide 9: Phase 1, Under the Radar

If you ever had the experience … of telnet to brunei.gov.bn before, it would say powered by OSS.
So for quite a number of years Brunei’s .gov.bn email server ran on OSS.
There are also many web servers and services in Brunei that are running on OSS.
Infofoto.com.bn is His Majesty’s gallery, running in the Information Department.

Slide 10: Phase 1, Under the Radar

Some big high traffic sites are using OSS CMS.
Info Dep’t using Joomla!

Slide 11: Phase 1, Under the Radar

And the award-winning MinDef site is also powered by Joomla.

Slide 12: Phase 1, Under the Radar

You will hear the phrase “LAMP” a lot
UBD is also one of the big places for OSS
Most of Brunei’s more well known bloggers (Ranoadidas.com, Anakbrunei.org) make use of the LAMP platform. Cikgu Kamrizan also mentioned that President Barrack Obama’s administration uses it.

Slide 13: Phase 2, Catalyst

Like Pg Suffian mentioned earlier –> Brunei is on the IPR watch list.
Right now – one of the biggest barrier to wider adoption of OSS is widespread piracy.
This may slowly change, and I hypothesise that the first Catalyst is stricter enforcement by BSA in Brunei.
BSA is an organisation that helps enforces it’s members IPR abroad. They’re responsible for the raids in other countries.

Slide 14: Phase 2, Catalyst

The second catalyst that I foresee is changes in policy.

Recent IDC report on Piracy in Brunei, tells us that for every $1 in software licenses spent, another $1.25 is spent on value added services.
Given a choice between “Kedai Komunis” and wholesome “Halal” software, many would take the route of “Kedai Komunis”.

Slide 15: Phase 2, Catalyst

Policy changes have already been made that will encourage the use of “locally made” IPR and discourages Brunei businesses from buying overseas expertise / IPR.
From here, you can see that of a $10 expenditure on software + services, $4.44 would normally go straight out of Brunei, and only an “agency fee” for our local Brunei ICT businesses.

Slide 16: Phase 2, Catalyst

The third catalyst is the rise of the “Netbook”
These are small sized PCs designed for simple computing.
Linux is a perfect match for netbooks – size, easy to customize, low cost.
For a $800 laptop, you don’t want to buy $500 worth of software.

Slide 17: Phase 3, Investment

The combination of these three catalysts should spur OSS to the top of the agenda for budget holders, families and companies.
But where do we go after that?
Countries like Vietnam mandate the use of OSS. This is to avoid piracy. From dekstop to server.
In the UK – OSS is mandated to prevent vendor lock-in etc.
For Brunei, our case would be different.
For Brunei, this 3rd phase of OSS adoption would be through making a strategic investment in a niche which our natural strengths give us an advantage, or in areas where economies of scale can be leveraged.
For example, OSS syariah-compliant financial software would be one niche.
Another niche is RDBMS software and similar infrastructure, which all e-Government and Web 2.0 businesses would need to use.
One common misunderstanding re: OSS is that you can’t make money from it.
Currently market-leading Red Hat Inc. generates its revenues from selling support and services for software that is freely downloadable from the internet.
There are also hybrid OSS business models that combine the best of OSS and proprietary business models through dual-licensing deals. e.g. MySQL and Jboss.
Another key misunderstanding is –> “if Open Source, I must give away all my code”. Not strictly the case.
e.g. vendor can supply OSS customised to clients, but client doesn’t want their “proprietary business methods” disclosed.

Slide 18: Wawasan 2035

We envisage ourselves as a KBE.
OSS can help us achieve that vision.
The key is –> OSS is about adding value through sharing
Businessmen know … “Balik Modal” –> best when your startup costs are low. OSS is that way people can leverage low cost best-of-breed tools.
Universal access to software tools (bridging the Digital Divide)
Using OSS as classroom resources.
Self-sufficiency re: IPR

Slide 19: Thank you!

Slide 20: Credits

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