KARACHI, April 20: Speakers at a symposium have termed open source software (OSS) as one of the key pillars in rapid propagation of knowledge and cost-effective advancement of technologies in today’s time. They also stressed the need for encouraging OSS research and development activities in local universities with international collaboration.
The first annual universities symposium on ‘open source technologies’ was organized by the Computer Science Department of the University of Karachi in collaboration with the Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) on Wednesday.
Speaking as the chief guest at the inaugural ceremony of the symposium, the Dean of KU Science Faculty, Dr Mohammad Qaiser, said Pakistani students and faculty members should be subjected to a continuous research cycle so they could keep pace with the rapidly developing world outside.
He said the objective of equipping the nation and achieving high targets of scientific and technological developments was not an obstacle or a hindrance-free course, but it was only determination and sheer hard work, which could bring success. He also called for ensuring a channel of communication and collaboration between the academia and the industry.
Introducing the symposium topic, the chairman of the Computer Science Department, Dr Nasir Touheed, said open source had made great advancements in the past two decades while more and more people were turning towards the new trend.
“The philosophy that ‘what we have done through tiresome and cumbersome efforts should profit only us and the results of those efforts remain clandestine’, does not support the rapid propagation of knowledge, advancements in technology,” he added, saying that ‘achievements’ by a person or group of people should be open to all so that everyone is benefited from it and that new thoughts can be provoked.
He said students of his department were turning towards open source, which would not only increase their level of knowledge, but would also help them in their professional careers, higher studies and research. He added the Pakistani market too could be seen to involve open source as one of their vital components.
The Project Manager of Open Source Resource Centre of PSEB, Osman Haq, said the government wanted to raise open source core software development awareness among the masses and decrease dependency on proprietary software.
Highlighting the PSEB’s open source resource centre, he said different programmes had been initiated for industrial automation and training of people for the OSS. He said training would be provided to 4,000 end users and 200 system administrators on open source software.
An IT executive, Humayun Bashir, said like PCs and the internet the OSS were also meant for major transformation and should be adopted in Pakistan as well.
He said the OSS, a high-performance software, was a community developer, which put on some common platforms for use and contribution by others to improve that further.
He said people were going in for the open software, which expedited researches and development and worldwide collaboration. Government organizations, universities and industries were also now using the OS, as it ensured reliability, security and ownership.
An IT specialist, Salman Qayam, counted the advantages of the OSS, saying it reduced cost, gave freedom of choice, fostered innovation and promoted a culture of open standards.
“Open source gives more people access to the building blocks of innovation, enabling diverse perspective and influences,” he added, saying that OSS has been getting steam and is now a technology that should be taken into account in IT planning.
The Vice-Chancellor of the Sarhad University of Information Technology, Dr Lutfullah Kakakhel, gave the details of open source software incorporation within the Higher Education Commission and the Pakistan Educational Research Networks infrastructure.