Finland Works on an Applied Linux Institute

An old saying posits that a prophet is
never recognised in his own home or time. Helsinki, however, is
trying to prove all that wrong. To start, the city is planning an
institute that would play an important role in promoting FLOSS
across the globe, specifically in developing countries. It's a nice
way of remembering that it was in this city that a college student
once contributed the kernel of a new idea about how software is
developed and shared across the globe.The whole idea of the Applied Linux Institute began about six
months ago, following a seminar organized by KePa, a Finnish
development network that recently put together the study "FLOSS
(Free/Libre and Open Source Software) in the Developing World". One
common thread was how significant the ideas of FLOSS were to the
countries of Asia, Latin America and Africa. To Seppo Koskela, one
of the two people involved in taking this concept forward, "The
idea is simple: to get together the small Finnish Linux activities
(from) here and there and, when we are strong enough, to start to
cooperate and to help South-to-South FLOSS efforts."While working on the ideas on The Applied Linux Institute,
Koskela says he himself came across several small scale efforts
promoting free software ideology, open-source solutions, copyleft
licenses, Linux and OpenOffice.org training and so on. He says, "I
have noticed that the Finnish Linux-landscape is fragmented." He
argues that Linux nowadays encompasses more than a piece of code.
"It's a way of production and distribution, an odd phenomenon in
the field of copyright and intellectual property legislation, a
tool for community building and more."Over time, Linux has come to refer to the kernel of an
operating system, a wider set of software, the ambiguous community
around the development and the use of all kinds of free and
open-source software. It even has come to represent the special
copyleft licensing policy and a business model based not on
products but services.The Applied Linux Institute currently is a joint venture of
three public institutions: the Department of Communications at the
University of Helsinki, the Institution of Adult Education of
Vantaa (University of Helsinki) and the Department of Schooling and
Education of the City of Vantaa, which lies on the outskirts of the
Finnish capital.Koskela, who coordinates the Institute and its development
projects, became involved in digital media in the 1980s, when he
was setting up one of the first computer-based animation and video
studios at the Helsinki University of Technology. In the 90s he
became a video producer, media activist, coordinator and
teacher.The other person running the Institute, Dr. Sinikka Sassi, is
in charge of its research projects. Sassi started her academic
research by studying one of the first computer-assisted bulletin
board and discussion from the 1980s. Her doctoral thesis, "The Net
in the Hands of Citizens", was published in the late 1990s. She
currently is a professor of network communications at the
University of Helsinki, Department of Communications. Koskela and
Sassi are married and have two daughters.I recently had the opportunity to discuss the Applied Linux
Institute (ALI) and its future with Koskela.Linux Journal: How would you
explain the idea of the Applied Linux Institute? What will its role
be?Seppo Koskela: The Applied
Linux Institute is a network-type organization, dedicated to
multi-disciplinary research and development of free and open
systems. Currently it exists as a project and is located in the
Vantaa Institute for Continuing Education, University of Helsinki.
In time, the institute hopefully will be established in a more
permanent form.It would have three sections. First, The Academy would link
research activities from different academic fields, organize
seminars, carry out research and development of social innovations,
promote openness and transparency of governance and facilitate
usability of open systems (free and open-source software and
beyond).The School would organize the training of Linux and FLOSS
trainers, develop the quality of the training, publish
network-based and distance learning materials and promote the use
of Linux in schools.Finally, The Lab would maintain a server; organize the
development of applications; study the usability of different
teamwork methods (with the possibility of cooperating over
networks); study the legal and political aspects of FLOSS
production, such as the intellectual property rights; distribute
Linux and other FLOSS packages; and consider the localization
problem, that is, the quality and uniformity of software packages
in native translations.The main areas of the Applied Linux Institute are development
cooperation, multi-cultural development of open systems, and
citizenship and governance.LJ:How did the idea for the
Institute come about?SK: Nobody is a prophet in
her or his own land, and this goes for Linus Torvalds as well. The
Linux operating system was used on a larger scale in other European
countries before it was really acknowledged in Finland. Thus, it
came to our minds that we could pay homage to Linus Torvalds by
founding an institute in the name of Linux. In fact, Linus was a
student at the University of Helsinki, the same place where we
happen to be working.Practically, this project needed a full-time coordinator to
go ahead with the plans and support of the three different
institutions involved. To come into being in the first place, the
Institute needed the initiative of the city of Vantaa, which
[funded] a five-year professorship in the Department of
Communication at the University of Helsinki.In her position as that professor, Sinikka Sassi has had the
opportunity to create activities that benefit the institutions
behind her post. She believes the task of a university is to
promote openness, the accessibility of information and knowledge,
and the common good, so it seemed logical for her to get involved
in free software and open-source development in a more organized
manner.So far, it has taken a year of negotiating with different
parties and gathering information from the field. Currently the
Institute exists as a development project under the auspices of the
Vantaa Institute for Continuing Education, University of
Helsinki.LJ: What does this mean in
practical terms?SK: There are some ideas in
development. For instance, training already is underway at The
Institution of Adult Education of Vantaa. Another plan is Linux For
Kids, which would put together a distribution for kids. There's
also the user interface for citizens, the question of free public
information--what is really free and how to use it. It's a question
of democracy.[We also want to look at] Linux and FLOSS in developing
countries. The Service Centre for Development Cooperation
(KePa of Helsinki) soon
will publish a report, and after it comes out, we are going to look
for some common viewpoints.Our Linux Portal will be an attempt to bring together all the
useful information around the topic. It will also serve as a way to
build loose coalitions in order to raise funds from the Finnish
Academy, SITRA, TEKES and programs of The European Union. This is a
very laborious task indeed.The development of ALI still is at a very early stage; we
don't even have the obligatory Web site, not to mention a good
English translation of our ideas. I hope [this interview] helps
people understand what are the concepts, ideas and goals behind the
grandiose expression "Linux Institute".LJ: What contribution could
ALI make? Where do you see it fitting in to the larger world of
GNU/Linux?SK: The Institute wishes to
act as a forum for activities around free software and open social
systems, that is, to get together people who are interested in the
development of open systems and the idea of sharing. In practical
terms, it could help develop social innovations concerning the
needs of developing countries and the empowerment of citizens and
local communities. It could provide poorer people with easier
access to the Net and more advanced utilization of its resources.
It could assist in making governance more interactive and help
develop new democratic procedures.The basic idea is cooperation. It is important to understand
that development is not something to be delivered to poorer
countries or poorer people, but that they are an integral part of
the processes that already exist.Development is about facilitating resourcefulness, and the
whole point is to enable people to participate in the governance of
their own lives. Thus, we would like to get people from the North
and the South to work together and find new tools for
self-empowerment. The idea is to create an environment in which the
people could better empower themselves, both in the South and in
the North.LJ: Why is the Finnish
contribution to theoretical discussions on IT-for-development and
IT itself less than expected?SK: We are living in a
somewhat paradoxical situation. In the last few years, Finland has
been one of the leading countries in the area of information
technologies. Not many industrialized countries have been as
greatly influenced by the development of telecommunications as
Finland has. Thus, Finland can offer many valuable experiences to
the ongoing development dialogue, as well as practical solutions
regarding the digital divide.However, Finnish contributions to theoretical discussions
about the social and economic impacts of modern technologies have
not reached a similar level. One reason for this could be the fact
that the information society in Finland was created as a
national-level normative project. Every ministry has a specific
information society program with desired goals and fixed
measures.The normative-instrumental way of discussing information
technology development has a set framework of research and
theoretical considerations. Researchers who do not want to be
counted as technology-optimists or technology-determinists find
such a mode of discussion either alienating or limited. Therefore,
many social scientists have long ignored the topic.Research, therefore, is either fragmented or technocratic by
nature and bound by the concept of information society. When
compared to the variety of social experiments and practical
innovations around the world, research in Finland seems to fall
behind a bit. Therefore, the proposed research should focus on
studying the significance of social, cultural and philosophic
aspects of information technologies in both the South and the
North.IT implementation has to be user-centered and user friendly
in order to, first, facilitate empowerment and democratic
development and, second, be sustainable in the long run. Therefore
one of the main objectives should be to identify joint practices
and interactions over the existing digital divides.LJ: What could be the
outcomes of this venture?SK: A survey of Linux
activities in Finland found that there are a bunch of small
dispersed groups that could benefit greatly from a connecting link.
The Institute could help to exchange information and experiences
and to encourage people to use free and open software.On a more fundamental level the question is about the Linux
working model or means of production; could the principles of
sharing and voluntary cooperation be extended beyond the original
world of programming to other social activities? Some say yes, some
say no, and we would like to find out where and in what conditions
it might be possible.At this point, [the Institute has] only one full-time
employee (myself, as coordinator). But some others owe part of
their working time to the venture. The heart, however, is the
larger network of interested people and experts that actually make
it what it is or what it could be. We are starting with a training
programme, initially for Finnish administrators and school teachers
and then hopefully extending it to include international partners
as well.This venture started as a local and national project, but
thanks to the Internet, it spread around the globe in a few hours.
The software and the intellectual property rights are genuine
global issues, but the localization, training and applications meet
the local realities every day.On the whole, the idea of the Applied Linux Institute has
been well received here in Finland and internationally. There seems
to be a common need to expand the ideas and practices of free
software production to other fields of information and knowledge
production, as well as to social life.The turn of the millennium started with a gloomy and bloody
chain of events. But fortunately, a growing number of people in
every corner of the world are realizing that cooperation and
sharing could be a better way to survive and achieve a better
life.Frederick Noronha is a
freelance writer living in Goa, India.

email: fred@bytesforall.org