Escaping the TRIPs’ Trap: The Political Economy of Free and Open Source Software in Africa
| Author | Christopher May |
| Date | 01 March 2006 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2006.00569.x |
| Published date | 01 March 2006 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Escaping the TRIPs’ Trap: The Political
Economy of Free and Open Source
Software in Africa
Christopher May
Lancaster University
Across sub-Saharan Africa, the promise of ‘informational development’ is proclaimed.The global gover-
nance of intellectual property rights (IPRs), however, currently structured through the Trade-Related
Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) agreement and overseen by the World Trade Organisa-
tion (WTO), makes much software expensive to deploy.There is an alternative: open-source and/or free
software ameliorates many of the cost problems countries in Africa have anticipated as they have changed
their laws to protect IPRs; using non-proprietary software will enable them to deploy extensive com-
puterisation without making large payments to suppliers from the developed countries. By escaping
the TRIPs’ trap, many Africans will be better able to enjoy the potential benefits of ‘informational
development’.
Across the developing world, the promise of ‘informational development’ is pro-
claimed. Multilateral aid agencies fund programmes to ensure that developing
countries are connected to the (globalising) information society. Computer soft-
ware is expensive, however, because much of it is subject to intellectual property
rights (IPRs). Fortunately, there is a cheaper alternative: the open-source soft-
ware and/or free software movement is already growing fast in sub-Saharan
Africa. This may allow ‘transitional’ members of the World Trade Organisation
(WTO) to deploy powerful computing and to remain compliant with their
international legal obligations as regards the protection of IPRs, by avoiding
propietary software. This paper examines this strategy for ‘informational
development’.
The most obvious reason for Africans to consider the option of open-source
software is cost: countries in sub-Saharan Africa currently pay around US$24
billion each year to (mainly US-based) software companies to secure the use of
proprietary products (Free and Open Source Software for Africa [FOSSFA],
2004, p. 7). If dependence on these software products continues, and IPRs are
increasingly protected and enforced through the Trade-Related Aspects of Intel-
lectual Property Rights (TRIPs) agreement as part of the WTO’s rules, then
these transfers will likely rise rather than fall.This is not a technical problem, nor
a question merely of adopting the ‘right’ laws; rather, the choice between pro-
prietary software and free or open source software is a policy problem that
requires urgent attention. In the next section, I set out the idea of informational
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development and relate this to ‘development’ as more usually understood. I then
briefly discuss the global governance structures relating to IPRs to establish the
international context for policy choices in this issue area before I examine the
development and deployment of free and open source software (FOSS) in
sub-Saharan Africa. I conclude that this strategy is an important political response
to the problems encountered by many African countries as regards the protection
of IPRs in software; it is not merely a technical problem for computing
specialists.
Informational Development and the ‘Problem’ of
Costly Computers
Part of the common sense of internationalism is that enhanced global commu-
nications serve some wider (developmental) purpose. In 1980, the MacBride
report, Many Voices One World, noted that
communication functions are linked to all people’s needs, both material and non-
material. Man does not live by bread alone; the need for communication is evi-
dence of an inner urge toward a life enriched by co-operation with others. People
want to add aspirations towards human growth to the satisfaction of material needs.
Self-reliance, cultural identity, freedom, independence, respect for human dignity,
mutual aid, participation in the reshaping of the environment – these are some of
the non-material aspirations which all seek through communication. But higher
productivity, better crops, enhanced efficiency and competition, improved health,
appropriate marketing conditions, proper use of irrigation facilities are also objec-
tives – among many others – which cannot be achieved without adequate com-
munication and the provisions of needed data (MacBride et al., 1980, p. 15).
This summation of the benefits of communication for development has hardly
been bettered since. Although the MacBride report was hardly uninterested in
new technologies, in the subsequent 25 years the role of new information and
communication technologies (ICTs) has moved centre stage.
Many multilateral institutions now stress that improved communications (using
new ICTs and, specifically, the Internet) are a key aspect of development. The
World Bank’s 1998/99 Development Report, Knowledge for Development, laid
great emphasis on the role of the Internet and linked digital technologies (World
Bank, 1999), as did the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
(UNCTAD) report, Knowledge Societies (Mansell and Wehn, 1998), and the Group
of 8 (G8)’s Digital Opportunities Task Force report (DOT Force, 2001). In one
sense, we might say that all development is informationalised development: devel-
opment is the application of (new) knowledge (and information) to existing or
historical social, political and economic problems.
‘Development’ is usually understood as the move from a subsistence, traditional
agriculturally based society, to a society where human endeavour is organised
through scientific knowledge, and technology is deployed to enhance produc-
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Journal compilation © 2006 Political Studies Association
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tivity, where the use of markets for economic organisation is expanded, and
political organisation approaches a form of participatory democracy, supporting
social welfare.1 For each element, information flows are vital: the deployment of
science builds on widened availability of knowledge resources, while the deploy-
ment of technology in production requires knowledge of, and information about,
available techniques or new technologies; expanding market organisation
depends on information about demand and supply of products and services (espe-
cially where markets are distant); moves towards democratic organisation are
underpinned by communication between political groupings and governments,
while welfare advances often stem from the state’s deployment of science (in
health systems, for instance).Thus, flows of information arguably support devel-
opment, especially where ‘development’ includes not only economic growth or
industrialisation, but also expanded human welfare. Heightened information
flows may not be sufficient, but they are certainly a necessary element of any
developmental strategy.
The link between development and the deployment of ICTs finds its roots in
modernisation theory.While focused on economic effects (and often lapsing into
a teleological assumption about the fruits of technical advances) (Pieterse, 2001,
pp. 22–5), modernisation theory, nevertheless, remains a strong influence on the
policy discourse around ICTs and their use in developing countries. Further-
more, while other technological advances have been often directly related to pro-
duction and to trade in goods, using ICTs has at least the potential to support
a more people-centred development practice based on empowerment and eman-
cipation.2 Although the move to non-proprietary software is to some extent a
practice borrowed from already developed countries, groups like the FOSSFA
have been working to establish a specifically African perspective on its use.
Indeed, while many development agencies seem unaware of the advantages of
FOSS, and in some cases are privileging the products of western software com-
panies, the developmental advantages are being stressed by sub-Saharan African
user groups rather than merely being externally imposed (in direct contrast to
some previous developmental strategies). In this sense, open source may partly
reflect a post-development perspective that suggests economic and social change
must flow from the communities themselves, not from some external source.This
is not to say, however, that external agencies have played no role in the promo-
tion of ‘informational development’ and in the exploration of alternatives to pro-
prietary software products.
The Knowledge for Development report argues that new ICTs ‘hold great poten-
tial for broadly disseminating knowledge at low cost, and for reducing knowl-
edge gaps both within countries and between industrial and developing
countries’ (World Bank, 1999, p. 57). This has led the Internet to be identified
as a crucial contemporary global public good that supports the dissemination of
valuable knowledge and information for development (Adamson, 2002; Lessig,
2001; Spar, 1999). For Jerome Reichman,
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C H R I S TO P H E R M AY
electronic publication via the Internet already allows even the latest-comers to
access the most advanced thinking and methods in certain fields. These informa-
tion networks thus become critical tools for breaking through the neo-mercan-
tilistic fences that increasingly...
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