The F in FOSS: Affording Open Source in Developing Countries
2023-03-13 , Stage 1

What if you can’t afford the “F” in FOSS? In a country that’s struggling economically, can you afford to open source even parts of your product? Will you have the capacity to have an Open Source Program Office (OSPO)?
The “F” in FOSS stands for free; what if the society itself struggles with freedom of speech, creativity, and expression?

In this talk, we will cover the immense challenges that open source faces in developing countries and the struggle that open source developers face in a commercial-product-first environment. We'll also go through approaches and measures that can be taken to build an open source culture starting by adapting an inner-source strategy that is easier to establish in these environments.

Participants will get an overview of these challenges and how we can support those who carry the flag of open source in these regions to help them grow their open source communities.

See also: Slides (845.2 KB)

Ahmed Sobeh is an Open Source Engineering Manager at Aiven's Open Source Program Office. An Egyptian, with different experiences in open source ranging from working on Firefox at Mozilla to working with Rust at SAP, his interest and experience in open source have grown over the past few years.