Why is open-source software important to Malaysia?
OSS is especially important to a developing country like Malaysia which is striving to transform its economy into a technologu-driven and knowledge-based one. The availability of source code is very important. It allows the local software people the oppportunity to “look under the hood” and learn. Typically in a less-developed country, what is lacking are people with skills in developing system software and these are crucial to implement any technology. It is no accident that many of the open source projects are of this nature since these are more challenging and interesting and tend to attract the interest of the software hacker. Open source promotes an environment conducive for technical and system development. Most of the proprietary off-the-shelf software that the country use are from foreign vendors and it is totally dependent on these companies for its ICT implementations and projects. This dependence on software and technologies where we have little control or say can be overcom
