About Us
Oman Free & Open Source Software Platform is an initiative among a number of FOSS Capacity Building Programs jointly launched by Ministry of Transport,Communications & Information Technology and College of Engineering at Sultan Qaboos University
Government Units
Higher Education Institutions
Private Organizations
Scientific Research Centers
Why FOSS?!
Privacy and Security
National security is a prime concern for governments worldwide. Unfortunately, national security is not a product that can be simply purchased from other countries. In terms of software security, using open source software is considered the first step towards guaranteeing national security.
Rich Feature Set
Due to the rapid growth of the code base, many FOSS projects has been much faster than its rival proprietary software. This is because in the FOSS model many companies, groups, and even individuals work on the same project at the same time.
Low Cost
FOSS has helped many companies to save considerable budget, especially in software licensing.The cost due to software licensing can draw a huge expenditure for enterprise companies as well as government agencies running a large number of desktops and servers.
Local Software Industry
While proprietary software has its own international developers and supporters, adopting FOSS motivates local IT companies to provide software services like technical support, training, customization, and development.
Services
FOSS Awareness
Awareness on Free & Open Source Software history, concepts, business models and local initiatives
12
Workshop
FOSS Training
Specialized training in different Free and Open Source Software Technologies.
340
Trainee
FOSS Consultation
Free and Open Source Software Consultation for Government and Private organizations.
15
Request
The main languages out of which web applications are built - whether it's Perl or Python or PHP those are all open source languages. So the infrastructure of the web is open source... the web as we know it is completely dependent on open source.
Mitch Kapor
Empowerment of individuals is a key part of what makes open source work, since in the end, innovations tend to come from small groups, not from large, structured efforts.
Tim O'Reilly
I think, fundamentally, open source does tend to be more stable software. It's the right way to do things.
Linus Torvalds
Intellectual property is an important legal and cultural issue. Society as a whole has complex issues to face here: private ownership vs. open source, and so on.
Tim Berners-Lee
If you want to build an open source project, you can't let your ego stand in the way. You can't rewrite everybody's patches, you can't second-guess everybody, and you have to give people equal control.
Rasmus Lerdorf
Proprietary software keeps users divided and helpless. Divided because each user is forbidden to redistribute it to others, and helpless because the users can't change it since they don't have the source code. They can't study what it really does. So the proprietary program is a system of unjust power.
Richard Stallman
I think open source is an evolutionary idea for humanity, this idea of transparency. It played out for us in the technology world, but it also played out with the idea of a truth and reconciliation commission and Wikipedia.
Megan Smith