Standing Situations and Issues of Open Source Policy in East Asian Nations: Outcomes of Open Source Research Workshop of East Asia

East Asia nations have made some progress with this technology, and started to introduce OSS for e-government systems during the early part of this century. Many countries granted it a central role in their policies. The reasons for this include adoption of software based on standard specification, liberation from vender lock-in, or opposition to the market control of proprietary software. However, the primary reason is to reduce adoption costs for e-government systems. While this policy work is useful, there is a great deal more that needs to be done. The OSS adoption policy in each nation of East Asia must be accompanied by technological progress in domestic IT service industries or US multinationals will expand at the cost of local businesses. If this continues unchecked it will create a new form of lock-in for East Asian nations. Some Asian nations are trying to promote their domestic IT service industries, putting their OSS adoption policy to practical use, and this workshop will provide case studies of that work. It will also provide a forum for discussing current challenges and opportunities around both policy and practical implementation issues across Asia.