LinuxAsia 2007 concludes, identifies 20 challenges for OSS

New Delhi, Feb 4 (UNI) Outlining about 20 challenges for Open Source Software (OSS) community to address, the three-day LinuxAsia 2007 convention was concluded here.

The 20 challenges identified in the Open-Source Convention -- an event held from January 31-February 2 were in areas related to technology, standards and regulation, finance management, infrastructure and usage.

''Overall, we have identified 20 challenge areas for ICT using Open-Source technologies. But what is more important is to challenge the OSS community to produce solutions that can help bridge the gaps in physical infrastructure,'' said Pricewater House Coopers, the knowledge partner to the event, CDR Deepak Uppal (Principal Consultant) at PWC.

He said those regions that have not managed to better their physical infrastructure, such as Ladakh or the North-East, could they be brought on par with the highly urbanised regions suing solutions ICT solutions.

Among the challenges were interoperability of devices and networks, building devices that are robust and designed for rural conditions, managing change and obsolescence of technologies, security issues, aligning government regulations with new technologies.

It also included standards for multilingual storage of content, lack of realistic financial models for project management, low penetration geographically, low penetration demographically, power supply, cost of ICT, high bandwidth and transmission costs, exclusion of segments of the population, lack of education and skills and user acceptance and 'cost for use'.

Commercial or business interests of vendors are not necessarily contrary to the concept of 'societal benefit' as espoused by the OSS proponents. This formed the theme of the overall deliberations at the various sessions at the convention.

Speakers and delegates from the US, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Singapore, UK, Germany, Sweden, China, and many other places attended the event.

The gathering included persons from government, industry and academia.

The 20 critical challenges thrown up by this years' meet would be opened for innovative solutions from the worldwide open source community.

At next years' LinuxAsia, awards totaling five lakh rupees would be given to persons coming up with the most innovative solutions.

UNI