Free and Open Source Software (FOSS): It’s Significance
or Otherwise to the E-Governance Process in Ghana
Charles Amega-Selorm and Johanna Awotwi
Centre for e-Governance
P.O Box MP 270
Mamprobi, Accra
+233243787694, +233243408047
{c.amega-selorm, jeawotwi}@ghanaceg.org
ABSTRACT
Software plays a very important role in our aspiration as a country
to use Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) as
enablers for development. Licensing cost for Proprietary Software
(PS) is however expensive and does not offer the freedom to
manipulate the source code. Free and Open Source Software
(FOSS) emerged as an alternative to Proprietary Software and has
since its introduction made inroads onto desktops and servers
alike. With FOSS emerged the freedom to run the programs for
any purpose, freedom to study and modify the software, freedom
to copy the software and share with neighbors and freedom to
improve the program and release your improvements to the
public, so that the whole community benefits. This paper makes a
case for these freedoms. The paper first compares PS and FOSS
use in Ghana and proposes a way for government to adopt FOSS.
Findings of this case study are a result of field research conducted
by the authors, personal interviews and through desk research.
Categories and Subject descriptors
K.6.3 [Software management]: Software Development, Software
Maintenance, Software Process, Software Selection
General Terms
Management, Economics, Experimentation, Reliability, Security
Keywords
E-Governance, Free and Open Source Software, Procurement
Policy
1. INTRODUCTION
With the advent of Information and Communications Technology
(ICT), it is becoming increasingly apparent that we cannot do
without software. Our lives are becoming more and more
complicated and/or simpler each day with the introduction of one
software or the other or one technology or the other. For many
developing countries, software is simply a deterrent to achieving
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the levels of development through ICTs because they are
expensive. The fact however remains that software and for that
matter ICTs are becoming increasingly crucial to socio-economic
development [2].
The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) (Geneva,
2003 and Tunis 2005) recognized the importance of the issue of
the use of software, mostly in relation to the crucial role that
software plays in access to information and knowledge. The WSIS
adopted the following positions on the issue, focusing on the need
to ensure diversity of choice.
a) The Declaration of Principles adopted in Geneva, in 2003,
stresses the possibilities offered by different software
models, including proprietary and free and open software, in
order to increase competition, access by users, diversity of
choice, and to enable all users to develop solutions which
best meet their requirements.
b) The Plan of Action also adopted in Geneva, in 2003, calls for
action to ensure an optimal choice of appropriate software
that will best contribute to achieving development goals.
c) The Tunis Agenda for the Information Society also adopted
in Tunis, in 2005, reiterates the support to the “development
of software that renders itself easily to localization, and
enables users to choose appropriate solutions from different
software models including open-source, free and proprietary
software [14].”
These positions are not really what pertain on the ground in
Ghana. There is widespread use of proprietary software in
government departments and institutions, private firms and by
individuals. These are mostly pirated. This paper makes a case for
FOSS because of its low total cost of ownership and suggests
possible ways in which government can adopt and use FOSS for
better e-Governance.
2. BACKGROUND
2.1 Ghana
Ghana is currently, a multi-party constitutional democracy
founded on elections by open and free universal adult suffrage. All
Ghanaians above 18 years of age are eligible to vote into office an
Executive President for a maximum of two four-year terms. A
230-member Parliament is also elected for four-year terms. The
main arms of Government are the Executive, Legislature and
Judiciary each of which is independent of the other. Ghana is a
nation governed by the rule of law.
Well endowed with natural resources, Ghana has roughly twice
the per capita output of the poorest countries in West Africa. Even
so, Ghana remains heavily dependent on international financial
and technical assistance. Gold and cocoa production and
individual remittances are major sources of foreign exchange. Oil
production is expected to expand in late 2010 or early 2011. The
domestic economy continues to revolve around agriculture, which
accounts for about 37.3% of GDP and employs about 55% of the
work force, mainly small landholders. Ghana signed a Millennium
Challenge Corporation (MCC) Compact in 2006, which aims to
assist in transforming Ghana's agricultural sector. Ghana opted for
debt relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC)
program in 2002, and is also benefiting from the Multilateral Debt
Relief Initiative that took effect in 2006. Thematic priorities under
its current Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy, which also
provides the framework for development partner assistance, are:
macroeconomic stability; private sector competitiveness; human
resource development; and good governance and civic
responsibility. Sound macro-economic management along with
high prices for gold and cocoa helped sustain GDP growth in 2008
and 2009 [3].
Table 1: Some Economic Indicators
Indicators
Population growth 23million (2007 estimates)
GDP per capita US $1,500 (2008 estimates)
GDP real growth rate 6.3% (2008 estimates)
GDP composition by sector
Agriculture 37.3%,
Industry 25.3%
Services 37.5% (2006 estimates)
2.2 Overview of the ICT Industry
The existing ICT infrastructure services in Ghana include
international connectivity via SAT-3 Submarine Optical Fiber
Cable, 800 km National Fiber Optic Backbone which is being
extended to 4000km and connecting 23 sites nationwide. There
are 4 International Gateways via satellite, 35 operational Internet
Service Providers, 130 installed VSAT nationwide, 128 FM
Broadcasting stations, 12 Television stations (6 are free on air), 2
fixed line telecoms operators and 6 cellular telecoms operators
[9].
Statistics from the National Communication Authority (NCA)
indicates an impressive 11,962,224 active mobile phone
subscriptions in Ghana as at January 2009, representing 98 per
cent market penetration of the telecom industry, compared with
fixed line subscriptions which stood at 140,676 representing 0.6%
penetration. The percentage of land area covered by mobile
cellular signal is about 33% with 77% mobile cellular signal
coverage of the population. The telecom sector employs about
6,916 people of which 14% are females [9].
Internet services have improved significantly with 35 operational
ISPs. Estimates from the NCA indicate that Internet users are
about 1,000,000 (2008 estimates). The average installation fee for
internet service is about $93USD and a monthly average access
charge is $80USD. A number of companies have also been
authorized to establish data networks using VSAT and/or
frequencies to provide fixed and wireless broadband services to
their clients some of which are the banks and mining companies.
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This has assisted in the networking of offices and institutions and
their branches across the country and beyond. Private Internet
Cafes are now prevalent in most suburbs and towns. The average
Internet access fee for an hour at a Café is 60Gp or $0.4USD [6].
2.3 Investment
The National Communications Authority in its first quarter report
for 2009 approximated the value of investment into the country as
GHC 44,546,001,710.07. Table below gives more details;
Table 2: Value of telecommunications equipment in Ghana
S/No. Value of Telecom GHC Equivalent
Equipment (1Q09)
1 $2,297,837,401.99 3,171,015,614.75
2 £37,023.21 73,305.96
3 €22,486,066,460.83 41,374,362,287.83
4 R ZAR3,235,426.64 465,901.44
5 Y 6,000,000 84,600.00
Total in Ghana Cedis 44546001710.07
2.4 Free and Open Source Software
The concept of “free” software is not new. In the 1960s and
1970s, mainframe computers in university computer science
departments and in corporate facilities were principally tools for
research. However, the idea of free access to the source code for
the installed software was seen as natural and was often taken for
granted. As a result, many companies began to ship new
mainframes with operating systems that did not distribute source
code. In reaction to these developments, Massachusetts Institute
of Technology researcher Richard Stallman founded a project to
revive FOSS activities by creating a complete set of FOSS utilities
and programming tools in 1984. This initiative led to the
establishment of the Free Software Foundation (FSF). The FSF
exclusively uses the term “free software” to denote software that
allows the user to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve
it through access to the source code. The FSF sees copyright as a
means of imprisoning information and creating unequal access,
usually along the lines of wealth and poverty. To replace
traditional copyright, the FSF has developed a standard copyright
agreement, the GNU General Public License (GPL), that is often
called “copyleft”. GPL is designed to deter programmers from
“closing” the source code of an FOSS computer programme and
stop anyone from bringing it into a proprietary commercial
development environment [13]. Stallman and his Foundation then
built a free operating system called the GNU.
In 1991, a Finnish university student called Linus Tovalds wanted
to learn more about his computer and started writing a free
operating system kernel. This kernel called Linux later served as
the final piece in the GNU operating system, which at the time
was only lacking the kernel. What distinguished Linus Torvalds’
approach from that of the GNU project was the development
model? Linus Torvalds allowed anyone to see the code and send
contributions back to him. The need for a new term which
appealed to businesses was necessary as large enterprises had
started noticing this software development method. In 1998, the
term open source software was coined for software developed
using Linus’ method. Free software refers to software which gives
the user freedom from ownership of software without mentioning
the development method. One can even sell free software but the
user must have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change
and improve. Open source software refers to software developed
by publicly giving away the source code and being open for
contributions from everyone. This development method has
proved itself useful regarding the quality of the software but still
many software companies are afraid of turning to this
methodology as it means a new business model for them since
they won’t be able to sell the software like before and must turn to
selling support or other services. Free software is an idealistic
approach while open source software is a pragmatic one. Free
software developed using open source software development
methods is simply called free and open source software and has
become known under its abbreviation, FOSS [5].
This distinction between free software and open source software
is important when considering their use in governmental agencies.
When governments buy custom-made software, they should not
be able to force software companies to use a special development
method, but they should be able to require that the software be
free. However, when considering commercial software,
governments should be able to consider open source software
solutions as well as proprietary ones. This task is a difficult one as
it must assess whether the commercial open source software
solutions are mature enough to be usable by a governmental body
[5].
3. FOSS’s SIGNIFICANCE TO THE E-
GOVERNANCE PROCESS IN GHANA
The use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)
are fast becoming widespread in Ghana and software is at the
centre of this increasing growth of ICTs. Both Proprietary and
Free and Open Source Software are being used in Ghana but
Proprietary Software products are much more widespread. Free
and Open Source Software are increasingly being used as servers
but Proprietary alternatives still have more of the server market.
Most of these Proprietary Software products come bundled into
the computers whiles those specialized software like accounting
and payroll, anti-virus and cyber café software are purchased for
use. A rather worrying trend is that many users are using pirated
software, especially the Microsoft Windows software unaware of
its illegality. In actual fact some users think that all software can
be downloaded and shared.
The e-Governance process in Ghana is hampered by limited
access; and coordination of the nation’s information flow, and
limited capacity in information searching, reporting and
presentation at public institutions required to provide information.
Other factors include limited exchange of information among
institutions; no cross linkages between information systems;
awareness of the existence of electronic information is either low
or inadequate; bottleneck to effective, transparent policy
formulation and implementation; these hamper access and
exchange of information required by government, private
business, NGOs and the general public [4].
The Ghana ICT for Accelerated Development policy was
formulated in 2003 to deal with some of these bottlenecks but
implementation has not been forthcoming. Even though there is an
e-Ghana project, it has not taken off yet. If government ever starts
implementing the e-Ghana project, would the government
recommend the use of FOSS in the process? As it is now, there
will be little or no use of FOSS because there is no policy on
FOSS.
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3.1 PS versus FOSS use in Ghana: Desktops
The Internet Research FOSS versus PS expenditure analysis
shows that the Windows Operating System dominates in desktop
environments showing an 84.7% of organizations using Windows
OS as against 11.9% for Linux. Unix OS accounts for only 3.4%.
This shows clearly that more organizations still prepare to buy
proprietary OS than its free equivalents.
There are several reasons for the choices (of OS type)
organizations and individuals make for their desktops. For
instance, the most dominant reasons for the choice of Windows is
that the software came pre-installed on the computers, ease of use,
availability of applications and availability of technical support. A
very interesting finding has dispelled the misconception about
FOSS being difficult to use. All 59 respondents to the reason for
Linux use attributed it to ease of use. Therefore, we can safely say
that FOSS are easy to use on desktop computers. Availability of
applications for desktop linux is also attributed to reasons for use.
Table 3: PS versus FOSS desktops
Responses
N Percent
Desktop_OS Windows 50 84.7%
Linux 7 11.9%
Unix 2 3.4%
Total 59 100.0%
3.2 PS versus FOSS use in Ghana: Servers
The same situation applies to server environments, except that in
this case the use of Linux for servers is increasingly impressive,
accounting for about 25.4% of responses against 66.7% for
Windows, 3.2% for Unix and 4.8% for Solaris. Out of 25.4% that
use Linux OS for their servers, about 96% of these organizations
however deploy some Windows servers as well in their setup.
Table 4: PS versus FOSS servers
Responses
N Percent
Server_OS Windows 42 66.7%
Linux 16 25.4%
Unix 2 3.2%
Solaris 3 4.8%
Total 63 100.0%
3.3 Total Cost of Ownership
The "Total Cost of Ownership" (TCO) framework is used to
combine the many factors of cost that apply to the operation of
computer equipment including; hardware, training, and support
and measure them over the equipment's expected lifetime. Studies
have shown that the initial capital investment in projects
constitute a fraction of the products’ lifetime cost as the costs of
support and maintenance often outweigh set-up costs for hardware
and software. In Ghana, the harsh environment many
organizations operate in causes hardware to fail more frequently;
e.g. frequent power outages that do not leave time to properly turn
the computers off increase the number of hard disk failures [1].
During the field research, respondents were asked to rate several
key set-up cost factors (software licenses, hardware, technical
support, and training for staff) in terms of how much they
contribute to the total cost of set-up, on a scale from 1 (least) to 5
(most). Hardware constitutes a significant setup cost overall: the
labs ranked hardware costs at average values of 2.9 (FOSS), 3.7
(PS) and 3.5 (multi-platform), even though training and support
costs both outweigh hardware in FOSS. The PS labs ranked
software licenses just as hardware cost (average value of 3.7).
Software licenses were the least significant set-up cost for multi-
platform labs (2.4) and FOSS labs (3.2). Technical support
perhaps constitutes the most significant set-up cost. In FOSS and
multi-platform labs technical support was ranked first (3.1 for
FOSS labs and 3.8 for multi-platform labs). Training contribution
to total cost is substantial in all three instances of software (3.0 for
FOSS, 3.0 for PS and 3.4 for Multi-platforms).
3.3.1 Hardware Cost
Hardware cost is among the highest costs in deploying systems
when compared with software license, training and technical
support costs. This can be explained by the high cost associated
with computer hardware in Ghana. Also, hardware cost associated
with procuring FOSS solutions as compared with PS and Multi-
platforms is least as can be seen from the analysis above.
3.3.2 Software Licenses
Software license is understandably the minimal contributor of
total cost when it is compared with hardware, training and
technical support when you deploy FOSS systems. It is however
not the case for PS but it is important to also make the point that
organizations considered hardware and technical support as
contributing equally to total cost as software license.
In spite of the fact that the questionnaire did not include a
question on piracy, our research team (especially the field
researchers) gathered that software piracy is rampant especially
among individual users. There were cases in which some
computer labs technicians indicated the use of pirated software.
In the area of e-governance, the government spending on software
development can be made more efficient if it adopts the open
source model that promotes the sharing of source code.
Government departments across different regions have the same
requirements and instead of each of government department
developing separate programmes for the same task, they could
share the same source code base and make minor changes to suit
the needs of each region or local administration.
3.3.3 Training
It is evident from the total cost of ownership analysis that training
is considered a very important component of total cost of
ownership of software. Training cost compares with hardware
costs as highest contributions to total cost. With adequate training,
engineers can localize software for use. Localization plays a major
role in adoption, as governments can use technology to
communicate to citizens in their own language. Opportunities
abound in local content development.
3.3.4 Migration Costs
The Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT has
migrated all its systems to Free and Open Source Software but
never incurred adverse costs. Indeed, Frederick Yeboah of the
94
Centre said that for any Microsoft upgrade, it is important to
upgrade hardware. In the case of Ghana, the research team is of
the view that migration will not present any adverse costs to the
potential adopters of FOSS. Most firms and especially the
government institutions have not deployed ICT systems yet. The
low adoption rates of ICT present Ghana a unique opportunity to
procure ICT systems with FOSS already installed on them.
3.3.5 Opportunity Costs
Choosing any software solution may foreclose on other software.
This so-called opportunity cost may not be apparent for years,
when the need for the other software emerges. In many cases,
open source is still the minority solution. The number of Linux
desktops is meager compared to Microsoft Windows from our
analysis. By choosing a Linux desktop, a user forecloses on some
software because it may never be created for or ported to Linux.
It has been found that opportunity cost is unique for each user or
organization, based on their needs and goals [1]. For instance, a
school does not have to migrate exclusively to open source and
may find incremental advantages by phasing out proprietary
software. Opportunity cost is highest when a specific, critical
program is unavailable or incompatible and that was cited by
many to our research as the reason for not adopting FOSS.
Organizations may want specific, mission-critical software that is
unavailable or incompatible with open source solutions.
Incompatibility was mentioned as one of the challenges of using
FOSS solutions. Clearly, such high opportunity costs should be
balanced against any advantages of open source. If more schools
adopt open source solutions, the marketplace and community will
shift, and new or existing solutions will become available. Finally,
as more applications become Web services the need for specific
operating systems or applications will be less important, since
access will be browser-based.
3.3.6 Technical Support
One of the most important issues to consider when deploying a
network/system is how sustainable it will be and what costs are
associated with it. Support for software deployed in such a
system/network is paramount to its sustainability. The research
grouped support into internal, external, online support, support
cluster and lab users helping each other. Support cluster is defined
as support provided by similar labs that share information with
your lab. The research also shows that in all except online support,
proprietary software requires more support. This may not be a
scientific way of telling whether one software requires more
support or not but may be an indication. It is important to state
however that FOSS requires more internal capacity since not
many IT professionals are trained in it here in Ghana. It makes
more sense however that, organizations intending on deploying
any such software are careful the professionals in the
establishment are comfortable working on FOSS systems.
4. CHALLENGES TO FOSS ADOPTION
The most important challenge to FOSS adoption in Ghana is the
absence of any FOSS policy or procurement policy which must
clearly stipulates terms of procuring software. From the user point
of view, it is perceived that FOSS solutions are complex to use.
FOSS solutions also require support just like other software
solutions but expensive support for systems or lack of support was
cited as another dominant challenge using FOSS solutions.
5. CONCLUSIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS
Windows Operating System dominates in the desktop
environments showing an 84.7% of organizations using it as
against 11.9% for Linux. Unix OS accounts for only 3.4%. This
shows clearly that more organizations still buy proprietary OS
than its free and open source equivalents. The same trend goes for
server operating systems except in this case, Linux is more
prominent in server environments than on desktops.
Hardware is one of the most important cost components of the
overall cost of software deployment. Training cost is another
important factor that is also highly rated. Of course, if an
organization has highly trained staff then it relies on them to
support their systems when there are technical issues. The Ghana-
India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT is one of such
institutions with highly trained staff in both proprietary and FOSS
and therefore has internal technical support anytime their systems
go down. This means that their spending on technical support
especially from external experts is almost zero.
Software licensing fee for FOSS contributes less to total cost of
ownership of software. In a rank of 1 (least) to 5 (most), software
license fee contributed 2 in the case of FOSS. Proprietary
software license fees contributed highly, 4. However, there are no
software specific procurement policies in Ghana except some
companies have committed to using one software solution or the
other or both. There is a general procurement law however. The
Public Procurement Act, 2003 (Act 663) was enacted in 2003 as
an Act of Parliament to provide for public procurement; establish
the Public Procurement Board; make administrative and
institutional arrangements for procurement; stipulate tendering
procedures and to provide for the purposes connected with these
functions. The Act harmonizes the application of procurement
related rules with international conventions and treaties. It is
expected to foster competition, efficiency, transparency and
accountability in the public procurement process.
FOSS Policy: It is imperative however for the country to have
some FOSS policy or at least a software policy that looks at the
issue of software procurement in a holistic manner. Since
migration and opportunity costs would be real issues here, it is
recommended government must as a matter of urgency, constitute
a FOSS council to further probe FOSS use in Ghana and make
recommendations promoting FOSS applications when proprietary
ones offered no advantage just like South Africa did prior to
enacting their FOSS policy. “South African Government will
implement FOSS unless proprietary software is demonstrated to
be significantly superior” [14]. Whenever FOSS is not
implemented, then reasons must be provided to justify the
implementation of proprietary software [8].
Procurement Policy: Evidently, Ghana needs a FOSS policy but
we also a procurement policy to clearly state that FOSS be used,
otherwise the policy will have no effect. “The best open source
solutions result from a two-phase procurement process where the
first phase buys prototyping and iterating using software on a
white-list of approved elements that can be supported in phase
two, and the second phase buys production deployment and
scaling” [10]. If a procurement process basically defines software
as "something you buy a license for", adoption-led benefits of
open source will not accure. The public procurement policy must
therefore be modified to clearly define software procurement.
Demand the freedom to leave: Often, the cost of migration is
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used as a barrier to the use of open source. But the cost of
migration is often caused by being locked in by an existing
vendor. If migration costs are cited, so must exit costs [11].
Don't focus on cost savings alone: Any vendor with a decent
sales function can cut one-time costs to get you locked in. If you
have freedom to use/study/modify/distribute the software you use,
you can drive down the costs - freedom can lead to cost savings
but cost savings rarely lead to freedom. Making this the rule is a
policy decision that governments legislature needs to make [8].
6. REFERENCES
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[10] Northwest Educational Technology Consortium. (2005,
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