Jordan stand for open technology standards??
Yesterday I got a Google Alert about a report presented to the World Bank by 13 nations, including Jordan. The news said that officials from those 13 nations met in February in Silicon Valley to discuss technology standards and economic development, and come up with the 33 pages report.
2 things strike me in this piece of news:
First, The piece of news which was in New York Times (and republished in Herald Tribune and Media Channel) said that
government officials from China, India, Thailand, Denmark, Jordan, Brazil and elsewhere gathered to discuss technology standards and economic development.
For some reason, Jordan was mentioned with countries like China and India, and was not dropped in the “Elsewhere” category. I am not sure if this really have any significance.
Second, is that those Jordanian officials seems to be detached from the on-ground IT infrastructure of the Jordanian Government and Education. The government has a strategic partnership with Microsoft, which is obviously one of the major forces against Open Standards and Technologies. Students in the schools and universities of Jordan are being taught to use Microsoft Products (Windows, Office, Visual Basic, etc..) as part of their curriculum. Teachers are required to take a Microsoft-Centric ICDL exam in order to get promoted, and more than 13 ministries are connected to a centralized Microsoft Exchange Server for email and groupware.. all this tells me that there is something wrong in the picture. Is it that we want to be everywhere in the same time ? ahead with Microsoft adoption, and ahead with Open technology standards embracement ? well this doesn’t work I am afraid.
Jordan didn’t have an Official stand for or against Open Source and Open Technology Standards, and it was thanks to “foreign power” that Jordan had it’s Open Source Workshops in 2002 and 2005 organized by INTAJ. As I was attendant in both events, it seemed to me that Open Source and Open Standards is being used for bargaining by the government and it’s agencies, rather than a real understanding of the benefits of it. This could be clear by having a look in the daily computer/IT related bids announcements in the newspaper, where it is specifically required to use certain closed source applications or systems, although there are alternative open source ones which could have a great advantage when it comes to security and cost (hint. Apache vs. IIS)
Although it aches me to see how things are going when it comes to IT in Jordan, I have high hopes that eyes will open soon to the benefits of Open Source and Open Standards embracement in a developing country like Jordan.
1. “elsewhere” may be relative in this case; with all due respect to othre countries, it can mean “Bhutan, Burma and Madagascar” in which case “Jordan becomes as important as China and India. Ba3dein la tkoon mish m3abyeh 3einak il balad?
2. Excuse my ignornce, but does having a strategic partnership with MS preclude the use of open source? Sure it does in certain areas and for certain applications but I think there may still be space for open source. Was it here that I read about the system designed for remote monitoring of water wells?
ya zalameh balash il mawadee3 illy betkhally il wa7ad nefso y3ayyet :’(
China, India, Thailand, Denmark, Jordan, Brazil and elsewhere gathered to discuss technology standards and economic development.
if you excluded Denmark for this list ( as far as i know) the rest of those countries are considred to have high software piracy records, so maybe their role was how to make standards for software piracy preventing! ;)
and believe me jameed, Jordan has as many IT companies as it has only becuase of the relativley cheap wages and a good english accent
Good post Isam..