Many people wonder why we need to carry out advocacy activities targeted at Government policy when it comes to promoting FOSS. Those whose interests are put on the line by the rapid march of FOSS argue that we should let the government decide for itself what kind of software it will use in its departments. They say that if government should develop and adopt FOSS policy, then it will be going against the principles of having a level playing field. This is to be expected coming from agents of proprietary software houses, since it is a case of an employee defending their company and product.

But when such sentiments come from top ranking government officials who are well aware of the benefits and value of open source in a country, then eye brows must be raised. This is the scenario that many FOSS practitioners find themselves in in Africa.

Firstly, Government is the biggest spender anywhere in the world. So if you want to do business, you cannot go wrong with the Government. If you are selling software, then you want your software in government computers.

Secondly, government is a sort of a trend setter. Everyone will have faith in anything that the government is using. In a situation where the government is running OpenOffice for instance, the general public will most likely follow suit for many reasons, chief among which will be interoperability and the open standards. So if you lock in the government into your software, then the rest of the population is your captive market by default.

Thirdly, for those of us who believe that there is great value for money in FOSS, we do not see why the government should go spending our tax money procuring inferior products that give less value per dollar. This is the one thing that I made very clear when I met a representative of a major proprietary vendor during the first Middle East and Africa Open Source Conference held in Cairo in June. It is my money that the government is spending and I must have a say in how it is being spent.

Finally, we all believe that African governments would do well to develop the capacity of their citizens to be creators and innovators in the new technology age, rather than mere consumers. This can only be achieved with FOSS.

In this regard, the Linux Professional Association of Kenya has been engaging the government to implement more FOSS solutions. This has taken various forms like holding events in which we invite government officials, developing good media relations and gaining publicity, and directly engaging with the government agencies that deal with procurement. One such engagement has been with the Public Procurement Oversight Authority (PPOA), a body that is mandated to oversee the implementation of procurement law in Kenya, which seeks to create a level playing field and also weed out corruption in government procurement.

In this engagement, the LPA conducted some research and found that government procurement agents were flouting the law by wrongly specifying the brands and makers of software that they wanted to buy in tenders, thus locking out FOSS suppliers from participating in the procurement process. We then engaged the PPOA and educated them on the law that they needed to enforce, as well as what it meant for the country if they did.

This way, we made some progress in laying a firm foundation for FOSS in the country, as the government is now more aware of the fact that our members exist and they should also be given a fair chance in the procurement process. Through the events and media appearances, we are able to demonstrate that there are many credible companies and individuals with world class solutions and expertise to deliver FOSS solutions in the country.