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Advantages of Open Source

Open Source has many advantages, from different perspectives.

User

As an user, it's possible to study and understand how a solution works. It provides greater flexibility and trust in the system. Nobody can tell you what and how to use the software. As learning happens in the public, you have connection to a wider ecosystem beyond a closed source work.

and if you are a company adopting a solution, or building a solution - open source proves more secure and robust in long run. Open Source methodoloies also help you get faster feedback.

because open source solutions are often built on open, common standards, it improves interoperability and can avoid vendor lock-in. and when the dependencey or solution goes on a path that's not envisioned/shared with you - it's easier to fork and continue on, if needed. Open solutions are also easier to audit because of their nature of access.

Often quick to fix problems due to more eyes: read about xz Utils backdoor attack that took the attacker years of planning - but discovered in a few weeks, before it made to any stable operating systems likes of debian and RHEL operating systems.

UNICEF

Benefits of open source has been proven for a long time. It's only now in last 5-8 years that we are seeing this (late) adoption in IGOs and national governments with a great speed. There are planty of benefits when considering UNICEF's position - that's working to advance and achieve the SDGs. ​

  • Adoptability: Open Source solutions can be freely adopted by governments or agencies. ​

  • Adaptability: Open Source licenses allow solutions to be adapted to fit local needs which can also help build long-term ownership and agency of implementing countries​

2 benefits mentioned above allow us to scale a solution to different country with similar challenges if it works! Even if a country office is not equiped with resources to scale, it can be discovered and scaled up by other organizations.

  • Avoid Vendor Lock-in: Open Source solutions, having source available in public allow reading and learning from the source code to everyone. Any vendor, engineer, community member can go read! change! adopt! and reuse the solution. Because knowledge of development is not privatized, and open source promotes best practices of developing software, it helps avoid lock into one technology vendor to ensure compatibility.
    Low- and middle-income countries have less capacity and fewer resources to negotiate contracts around the implementation of proprietary technologies, making the challenge of digital sovereignty particularly acute. Furthermore, digitalisation initiatives are often driven by international development donors and donor-funded organisations. This approach results in silos, fragmentation and duplication as support is sector-specific, with relatively short-term funding, and underemphasises interoperability between technologies. For example, ID systems that are not interoperable deprive countries of the benefits from verification and data sharing between sectors (OECD, 2019[9]). Collectively, these shortcomings hamper the ability of governments to build out holistic Digial Public Infrastructures that can evolve to meet future needs. They also hinder building out local vendor ecosystems around and on top of these platforms. Many municipalities in Brazil switched to open-source software in the early 2000s because “estimates at the time concluded that across the country, nearly USD 200 million per year was spent on licensing fees to Microsoft alone and, by switching, USD 120 million could be saved.”​

  • Collaboration: Open Source solutions allow and promote culture of collaboration and sharing best practices, as is the case in most communities of practice.​

  • Scalability: Adopting Open Source that have been successfully implemented at scale elsewhere can save countries and institutions resources and enable lower risk experimentation, piloting, and roll-out.​

  • Country ownership and capacity: Open Source can enable deep involvement of local expertise in country-specific implementations and can be deployed together with dedicated efforts to build long-term local capacity to maintain and iterate these implementations for future needs. increased digital sovereignty also increases oversight as digital tools host and exchange increasingly sensitive and private information. US-owned servers store an estimated 92% of the West’s data, making it difficult for citizens of other countries to exercise individual recourse or achieve digital sovereignty​

  • Project sustainability: When provided resources into market outreach, developer relations, a community can be built around a solution. This can help technological and financial sustainability for the product. Adaptations and iterations in countries can be supported by open source communities. New features and best-practices developed by implementing countries can be merged into the generic DPG.​

  • Transparency and accountability: The open source licensin means that their code base can be independently scrutinised and audited. This also facilitates accountability and public discourse around issues such as incorporating best practices and designing DPGs with the aim of doing no harm.​

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Company

  • Access to Cutting-Edge Developments: Open source allows companies to adopt the latest algorithms and tools without reinventing them, accelerating innovation and efficiency in projects such as AI, thanks to community-driven advancements.

  • Leveraging Collective Intelligence for Greater ROI: Open source demonstrates that external contributions can significantly amplify a company's investment. Evidence that opening a project pays off financially comes from a recent report prepared under World Bank auspices. Careful tracing of contributions to their project—a form of geospa‐ tial software called GeoNode—showed that the World Bank’s subsidiary had invested about one million dollars in the project but had benefited from an estimated two million dollars invested by other organizations.

  • Widening Software Adoption, Knowledge, and talent pool: Open source fosters a community that enhances software understanding and adoption industry-wide, creating a robust ecosystem around the software. The broader adoption and discussion of open source code attract a larger, talented developer base, offering companies a rich resource for recruitment.

  • Enhancing Developer Skills Internally and Attracting and Retaining Top Talent: Participation in open source projects cultivates high-level coding skills among developers by exposing them to best practices and the expertise of leading programmers. Developers are drawn to impactful, globally recognized projects. Open source participation can significantly improve a company's appeal to high-caliber developers, in contrast to competitors less engaged in such initiatives.

  • Boosting Company Reputation and Accelerating Startup and Project Launches: Embracing open source projects and practices positions a company as innovative and forward-thinking, enhancing its attractiveness as a workplace and industry leader. In today's fast-paced environment, integrating and contributing to open source can expedite the development process for startups and new projects, focusing on competitive differentiation.