UN think tank urges legislators to support 'open source' information technologies, software

Participation in, not just access to, the 'information society' essential to developing countries, competition

United Nations University-MERIT experts yesterday in Geneva urged parliamentarians to support open source software and information technologies as a way to let citizens participate meaningfully in the information society.

“Open source” refers to a public domain method of software development. UNU-MERIT is a joint research and training centre of UNU and Maastricht University in the Netherlands.

UNU-MERIT researcher Rishab Aiyer Ghosh urged policymakers to consider information and communications technologies from a social rather than technical viewpoint. He said access to the information society must be provided to all citizens, without requiring them to first become customers of particular proprietary companies.

"Participation in, not just access to, the information society is important" Ghosh told the UN event, attended by members of parliament from over 40 countries. "Open source software gives people fishing rods, not just fish."

“The main issue here is a plea for open standards as they guarantee competition,” says Prof. Luc Soete, Director of Maastricht-based UNU-MERIT, underlining the importance of this topic to the Institute’s work. Recently published UNU-MERIT studies demonstrate the strong role of open source software in skills development.

Other panelists at the session on "Ensuring equitable access" included Nikhil Kumar, Member of the Indian Parliament; Hannes Astok, Member of the Estonian Parliament, and Hanne Agersnap, Member of the Danish Parliament.