Pakistan’s Software Export Board (PSEB) is pushing the message of open-source in the country. The Board recently provided training to over 8,900 participants in 124 workshops and awareness-raising seminars in the country under its Open Source (News - Alert) Resource Centre (OSRC) project. The goal of the PSEB-executed project is to raise awareness of open source software, presenting it as security-rich and a more economical alternative to expensive proprietary software.
PSEB experts have helped organizations develop an indigenous pool of open source professionals. An official with the group told reporters that about 23 computer network migrations of OSRC had helped the organization save Rs 36 million ($377,000) which would otherwise have been spent on expensive proprietary software.
OSRC, South Asia's first government-owned initiative, provides expert advice and support to government, private sector, not-for-profit organizations and academia, and helps combat piracy by raising awareness about Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) issues at various seminars, workshops and forums, and migrating computer networks from pirated proprietary software to open source.
PSEB’s OSRC project also networks with global open source organizations, including the National Competency Center for the Application of Open Source technologies (CENATIC), Center of the International Co-operation for Computerization's (CICC) Asia OSS, Bellanet, OSS Watch, South Asia Partnership International (SAPI), SAP (News - Alert) Nepal, and the United Nations Development Program's (UNDP) International Open Source Network (IOSN). It has also represented Pakistan at 34 international conferences, and formed linkages between Pakistan and newly emerging open source markets in Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Thailand, UK and USA.