Open Source in Africa: An Opportunity Wasted? -Why and How FLOSS Should Make Sense for Africa-

Hadja Ouattara/sanon (1) , Jonathan Ouoba (2) , Tegawendé F. Bissyandé (2)

1 Institut Supérieur de Technologie, Burkina Faso
2 LaBRI - Laboratoire Bordelais de Recherche en Informatique

We discuss the topic of a Master's thesis which aims at providing resources for an effective exploration of FLOSS opportunities in Africa. Indeed, in view of the potential of FLOSS, we believe that Africa's developing nations have much to gain from an increased involvement in free software. However, because vulgarization of FLOSS requires a new model of need assessment, we propose a road-map for making open-source a new strategic growth platform for Africa. To this end, we introduce in this paper the FLAIR pilot project.

Mots clés: FLOSS; ICT4D; open source; Africa; development; FLAIR

Domaines: Bibliothèque électronique [cs.DL]

Hadja Ouattara/sanon, Jonathan Ouoba, Tegawendé F. Bissyandé. Open Source in Africa: An Opportunity Wasted? -Why and How FLOSS Should Make Sense for Africa-. Fourth International IEEE EAI Conference on e‐infrastructure and e‐Services for Developing Countries (AFRICOMM 2012), Nov 2012, Yaoundé, Cameroon. pp.11-14. ⟨hal-00737385⟩