Published on May 13, 2005

Collaboration between the government and the private sector is required to promote the development of open-source software in Thailand, said Suphajee Suthumpun, the country manager of IBM Thailand.

IBM is one of several IT companies which have announced a policy of making hardware and software platforms to support the Linux operating system. The company has also encouraged its customers to adopt the so-called open standard for its IT system.

Suphajee said if the country wanted to boost the use of open-source software, the private sector, including technology hardware and software vendors, as well as the government, should work together to encourage its development.

“As the IT industry is moving towards open-source software, the establishment of an open-source community will promote open-source software development,” she said. “The government should work with the private sector to set up a centre where local software developers could access IT infrastructure, development tools and knowledge related to open-source software development.”

Hemant Shah, IBM’s executive for strategic growth and Linux in Asean, said the government should be a facilitator to promote open-source software development by setting up an incubation centre to allow software developers to use facilities to develop new open-source-based software products for commercial application. At the centre, individual software developers or small software companies could use hardware, software development tools and middleware in their work. Meanwhile, they could also consult experts when problems arise.

Suphajee said support from various technology hardware and software vendors was also required for the centre’s establishment as the development of open-source software needed open standards from different technology platforms. However, the government would have to be the host to create collaboration in the private sector.

Manoo Ordeedolchest, the president of the Software Industry Promotion Agency (Sipa), said the establishment of such a centre would be possible and the agency planned further collaboration with the private sector to promote open-source software development. “The promotion of open-source software is in the agency’s plan and we are also working to develop a policy on the matter,” Manoo said.

The agency has already started to promote the use of open-source software on the client side by encouraging the use of Open Office, a group of open-source-based office applications, as an alternative. As it’s open-source, users can benefit from it being free of licensing requirements.

“We start on the client side because with this application, users will clearly see the cost savings with open-source software,” Manoo said. The agency also promotes the use of open-source-based browser, firewall and mail-server software to save costs on licence fees.

In addition, to encourage local software developers to work on open-source software, Suphajee said that the government should offer tax incentives to those who conduct related businesses. “This is another way to promote the software industry as it will encourage software vendors to give more attention to open-source software as a business,” she said.

Pongpen Sutharoj

The Nation

pongpen@nationgroup.com

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