huridocs-tech Low-Cost ICT Strategies (part 2 of 2)

(continued from part 1 of this message)

Working in harmony with the nature of information

One of the key concepts in ecology, is the idea of harmony. We must
learn to search for harmony and to work for it, because the dynamic
balance that it represents gives peace to our lives. Thus, today, it is
now commonly accepted that we must work in harmony with nature instead
of in opposition to it. For to conquer nature and to defeat it is, in
truth, a self-defeating goal, because we are part of nature.

Information has its own nature. It is non-material; basically a numeric
measure of resolving uncertainty. By its nature, information is easy to
duplicate at little cost, unlike material goods which require
significant amounts of matter and energy to go into every unit. As the
economist would say, the marginal cost of reproducing information
approaches zero. It is this nature of information which determines its
social character, why people tend to copy it, to share it, to exchange
it. As the mathematician would say, the acquisition of information is
not a zero-sum game, it is a positive sum-game. To use a popular term
today, sharing information goods like software is a "win-win" situation,
because you do not lose what you give away.

Free software like Linux/GNU works in harmony with the nature of
information, because it recognizes and takes advantage of its social
nature. Intellectual property rights (IPR) like software copyrights, on
the other hand, work against the nature of information because they
create statutory monopolies that artifically create information
scarcity, so that the privileged monopolists can dictate their price of
a good that, by nature, is easily available to all once created.

That is why, despite that power of Bill Gates and his fellow cyberlords,
they will never be able to completely implement their so-called property
rights over information, because they work against the very nature of
information. The social nature of information will continually assert
itself and people will continue to copy and to share whatever
information they find useful and worth sharing. On the other hand, free
software and its copying license, the GPL, work in perfect harmony with
the nature of information. In the future, IPR will become obsolete and
GPL and similar practices consistent with information's social nature
will become the general rule.

When we work in harmony with the nature of information, it becomes
easier to improve, and its quality, reliability and usefulness rised
rapidly This is probably why Linux is superior to Microsoft Windows in
many respects. It can do many tasks (multitasking) and service many
users (multiuser) at the same time. It has all the facilities for
communicating with other computers (networking): it can be used as a
workstation, as a server, or both; e-mail is built-in; and it is
Internet-ready. Linux can also be configured with a graphical user
interface. Unlike Windows which inexplicably stops every now and then
(sometimes taking your work file with it), Linux machines run
twenty-four hours a day for months with no problem. Ask any local
Internet service provider (ISP): many use Linux, hardly any uses Windows
NT.

Linux, furthermore, is Unix-compatible, a Unix look-alike. Who hasn't
heard of Unix? It is THE operating system, the one which runs on almost
every computer from lowly 386s to supercomputing Crays. Nearly all
computer science departments in every self-respecting university in the
world use Unix as their platform for teaching and research. The latest
developments in computer science often make their appearance on Unix
first, before trickling down later to other operating systems like
Microsoft Windows or the Mac OS.

Social movements and non-government organizations (NGOs) should look
beyond the cost effectiveness of Linux, into its philosophy of freedom
in software. It is a philosophy consistent with the advocacies of
cause-oriented groups, voluntary associations and alternative movements
-- a philosophy of pooling resources, sharing, and working in harmony
with nature and with information.


Genuine compulsory licensing (GCL)

If the General Public License (GPL) ensures public access to free/open
software, genuine compulsory licensing (GCL) provides an
internationally-recognized mechanism for public access to commercial
software and other copyrighted or patented goods.

GCL works as follows: Somebody who wants to use/commercialize patented
or copyrighted material approaches NOT the patent or copyright holder,
but the government for a license to do so. The government grants the
license, whether the original patent or copyright holder agrees or not,
but compels the local licensee to pay the patent/copyright holder a
royalty rate that is fixed by law. Many countries in the world have used
and continue to use compulsory licensing for important products like
pharmaceuticals and books, in order to bring down their prices and make
them more affordable to ordinary citizens.

GCL would legalize the operations of computer shops which offer copying
of commercial software as a service to the public, but would require
these shops to pay a reasonable royalty -- usually between 5 and 10
percent of the local price of copied item -- to the original copyright
owners. It would allow the government television channel, for instance,
to show on television the Discovery Series, while paying a reasonable
royalty set by law.

Genuine compulsory licensing (also called mandatory licensing in some
countries) is a demand of many countries who want to access technologies
but cannot afford the price set by patent/copyright holders. While this
internationally-recognized mechanism was meant for the benefit of poorer
countries, even the U.S. and many European countries use it.

In the article "Cyberlords: the rentier class of the information
sector", I explained why GCL is an important demand which not only helps
poor countries to acquire access to expensive technologies on their own
terms, but which also splits the cyberlord class because small
cyberlords welcome GCL while big cyberlords oppose it.

When referring to compulsory licensing, it is important to emphasize
that it must be genuine, because the GATT/WTO agreement pays lip service
to compulsory licensing but defines it in a way that negates its
essential purpose by giving back to cyberlords the power to set the
terms of the license.


What about hardware?

Even free software like Linux/GNU are expensive in terms of the hardware
necessary to run them and the time needed to learn them, to master them,
and to modify them for our particular requirements. These additional
investments have to be justified vis-a-vis the competing requirements of
our impoverished people, only a small minority of which have access to
potable water, to medical care or to a telephone.

Unlike information goods, hardware is material. Therefore, the cost of
replicating hardware and building infrastructure cannot take advantage
of the near-zero marginal cost that information goods enjoy. Harware is
therefore expensive.

To look at the options open to a developing country which wants to
provide access to ICTs to its citizens despite the huge capital
requirements for doing so, it is useful to go back to the information
superhighway analogy. A government which wants to provide universal
access to transportation services will have the following approaches
available:

    * one family / one car
    * walkways, bicycles
    * efficient public transport

Most U.S. cities have taken the first approach. This is unfortunately
the default approach taken by many developing countries, which mistake a
car-oriented society as a mark of progress. This misguided policy is
further encouraged by industrial economies which export cars and other
transport equipment to developing countries. A common way of doing so is
by granting loans to cash-strapped governments to enable them to engage
in road-building sprees so that people will buy more cars. We know today
that this approach is unsustainable even for rich countries which may be
able to afford them. There will certainly be not enough resources
available to provide the metal as well as the fuel necessary to provide
one car for every Indian or Chinese family. Even if there were, our
atmosphere will never be able to accomodate the highly pollutive as well
as greenhouse gases that will be emitted as a result of such an
approach.

Despite this, many developing countries continue to consider increasing
car ownership as an indicator of national progress.

The second approach would emphasize non-motorized transport systems like
covered walkways and bike paths. To a poor country, bicycle
manufacturing is much more technologically accessible than car
manufacturing. It will also require much less in terms of a road network
and fuel. This is, recalling Schumacher, appropriate technology.

The third approach is one that emphasizes public access to a
commonly-owned resource that is too expensive to be acquired on an
individual basis. It nicely complements the second approach.

While the three approaches are not necessarily mutually exclusive, it
often happens that one option precludes the other. In Metro Manila, for
instance, government transport policies were heavily biased in favor of
private cars, resulting in a rapid increase in private car ownership in
the region. As the traffic situation deteriorated and road congestion
worsened, it became very difficult to expand public transport services
as the politically powerful car lobby insisted on retaining the private
car biases in the government's transport policies. Therefore, instead of
improving the bus and jeepney system, the government took the much more
expensive option of building overhead rail systems, which will displace
buses and jeepneys and free more roads for even more private cars.

Had the government paid early attention to the development of
alternative transport systems like walkways, bike paths and an efficient
public bus system, middle class families would not have found the
private car a necessity for urban living, and neither would it have been
necessary to build very expensive overhead rail-based systems. The
experience of Curitiba in Brazil is a good example of this enlightened
approach.

Unfortunately, government are often drawn away from this enlightened
approach by the attractive loans dangled before them by countries who
want them to build more roads instead so that they can buy more cars.

The clear lesson from this experience is that an early enlightened
approach can make it much easier for a government to provide universal
public access at a much lower cost, than if market forces were allowed
to rule and set the direction of development of services. Letting the
"free market" direct the deployment of infrastructure would lock a
country into very expensive options which are most beneficial only for
the suppliers of the technology.

Let us now pose the question: what would be the analogue in the
information sector of walkways, bike paths, and an efficient public
transport system, the approach that makes much more sense, particularly
to developing countries, that the one-family, one-car approach?


The hardware solution: public facilities / universal access

Publicly-owned, publicly-accessible facilities represent this strategy
of resource-pooling and resource-sharing, a proven strategy among poor
countries. This approach contrasts sharply with what seems today to be
the dominant idea for introducing ICTs: "a computer on every desktop,"
recalling the "one family, one car" approach in the transportation
sector.

These two contrasting approaches are as follows:

      - public libraries vs. a library in every home
      - public viewing centers vs. a television in every home
      - public calling stations vs. a telephone in every home
      - the public access terminals vs. a computer on every desktop

The first represents a community-oriented approach that emphasizes
sharing and minimizes cost; the second represents an individualistic
approach that creates a huge demand for suppliers.

It is clear what strategy the ICT industry wants governments to take. It
is also clear what strategy will be able to deliver universal access at
a cost which cash-strapped governments can afford.

Unfortunately, many governments do not give this issue much thought, and
accept without question the approach which the ICT industry is taking.
The Philippine government, for instance, had in 1998 a project to
install a public calling station in every one of the 1,500
municipalities of the country. The budget for the project was
drastically reduced; instead the government is relying on private telcos
to install telephones, which they are doing, but mostly in urban
centers, and the target is to install one in every home.


Public ownership of the infrastructure

Because the ICT infrastructure is very expensive, the effort to set it
up presents an opportunity for collective pooling of resources by an
entire community. Once the infrastructure is set up, it can then offer
universal access, charging only enough to maintain good quality service
and provide for future requirements. This is the rationale for public
ownership of natural monopolies and large infrastructures.

To open such public works to private ownership open the door to
rent-seeking with no time bound, extracts additional cost from users to
support the profit-driven rent-seekers who will charge as much as the
market will bear, and contributes to the further concentration of wealth
in the hands of the rich. Because of the low marginal costs of moving
and reproducing information goods, the information sector attracts more
than its usual share of rent-seekers. A conscious effort by the
government to encourage public or community ownership of ICT
infrastructures can avoid this problem.


Conclusion: The Philippine Greens' Programme for the Information Sector

Within the Philippine Greens, we have developed a critical analysis of
the emerging global information economy and have formulated what we
believe is an appropriate set of responses to the entry into our country
of the Internet and various other information and communications
technologies (ICTs). This set of responses contains many of the elements
discussed above, as well as other policies which, we hope, represent a
well-rounded policy framework for the information sector.

These information policies include:

1. The right to know. It is the government's duty to inform its citizens
about matters that directly affect them, their families or their
communities. Citizens have the right to access these information.
Neither the State nor private corporations may use "national security",
"confidentiality of commercial transactions", or "trade secret" as
reasons to curtail this right.

2. The right to privacy. The government must not probe the private life
of its citizens. Citizens have the right to access information about
themselves which have been collected by government agencies. The
government must not centralize these separate databases by building a
central database or by adopting a unified access key to the separate
databases. Nobody should be forced against their will to reveal any
information they do not want to make public.

3. No patenting of life. The following, whether or not modified by human
intervention, may not be patented: life forms, biological and
microbiological materials, biological and microbiological processes,
genetic information.

4. The moral rights of intellectuals. Those who actually create an
intellectual work or originate an idea have the right to be recognized
that they did so. Nobody may claim authorship of works or ideas they did
not originate. No one can be forced to release or modify a work or idea
if he or she is not willing to do so. These and other moral rights of
intellectuals will be respected and protected.

5. The freedom to share. The freedom to share and exchange information
and knowledge must be recognized and protected. This freedom must take
precedence over information monopolies such as intellectual property
rights (IPR) that the State grants to intellectuals.

6. Universal access. The government will facilitate universal access by
its citizens to the world's storehouse of knowledge. Every community
needs access to books, cassettes, videos, tapes, radio and TV programs,
software, etc. The government will set up a wide range of training and
educational facilities to enable community members to continually expand
their know-how and knowledge.

7. Compulsory licensing. Universal access to information content is best
achieved through compulsory licensing. Under this
internationally-practiced mechanism, the government itself licenses
others to copy patented or copyrighted material for sale to the public,
but compels the licensees to pay the patent or copyright holder a
government- set royalty fee. This mechanism is a transition step towards
non-monopolistic payments for intellectual activity.

8. Public stations. Universal access to information infrastructure is
best achieved through public access stations, charging subsidized rates.
These can include well-stocked public libraries; public telephone
booths; community facilities for listening to or viewing training
videos, documentaries, and the classics; public facilities for telegraph
and electronic mail; educational radio and TV programs; and public
stations for accessing computer networks.

9. The best lessons of our era. While all knowledge and culture should
be preserved and stored for posterity, we also need to distil the best
lessons of our era, to be taught -- not sold -- to the next generations.
There should be a socially- guided, diversity-conscious selection,
undertaken with the greatest sensitivity and wisdom. It is not something
that can be left to a profit-oriented education system, to circulation-
or ratings-driven media, or to consumption-pushing advertising.

The information economy is growing at a phenomenal rate, often
independently of the capacity of communities to absorb it, or of
governments to control it. This growth is driven mostly by global forces
external to our own society but very much present within it.

Left by themselves, these global forces will simply treat our country
and our communities as fodder for their relentless drive in search of
profit and growth. On the other hand, we want the balanced development
and interaction of our agricultural, industrial and information sectors
in a way that enhances the overall quality of life in our communities.
These are often orthogonal, if not opposite directions.

To be able to attain that dynamic balance between these sectors so that
they enhance each other and contribute to the overall health and
sustainability of our communities -- this is the challenge of the
information sector.


Roberto Verzola



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