IT POLICIES FOR DEVELOPMENT:
ANALYSIS AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF FREE LIBRE
OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE INITIATIVES OF
THE BOLIVARIAN REPUBLIC OF VENEZUELA

Maldonado Rangel, Edgar Armando

IT POLICIES FOR DEVELOPMENT: ANALYSIS AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF FREE LIBRE OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE INITIATIVES OF THE BOLIVARIAN REPUBLIC OF VENEZUELA

Open Access

Author:: Maldonado Rangel, Edgar Armando
Graduate Program:: Information Sciences and Technology
Degree:: Doctor of Philosophy
Document Type:: Dissertation
Date of Defense:: June 05, 2009
Committee Members:: Andrea H Tapia, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Andrea H Tapia, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Lynette Marie Yarger, Committee Member
Frederico T Fonseca, Committee Member
Richard Matthew Doyle, Committee Member
Keywords:: Open Source Software
Public Policy
Information Science
Latin America
Abstract:: In recent years the two concepts of economic development and technological advancement have become entwined so that they have, in many cases, come to mean the same thing. For countries seeking economic development through engagement with the Information Economy, policies supporting technological development claim privileged positions in national agendas. Often supporting this belief is the view that the most direct route to technological advancement is through full participation in the global information economy. However, for developing nations, full participation in this global information economy is at times impossible due to the need for attaining the levels of technological advances of developed countries. Few developing nations have resources to create internal information economies, which support national information products, software, hardware, and services. This dissertation examines one of the exceptions, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, which, because of high revenues from oil exports, finds itself in the unique position of possessing the economic ability to support the mandatory adoption of Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) in the nations' public administration. This study seeks to understand how Venezuela's approach to development has contributed to the crafting and implementation of its FLOSS policies. An expanded version of Gallivan's (2001) framework of the contingent authority innovation adoption is the method for responding to the overall research question: How have non-traditional social and economic approaches to development influenced the creation of Venezuela's FLOSS migration policy and its subsequent implementation? The conclusions of this study indicate that the FLOSS migration process of Venezuela fuses the agenda of social inclusion, sovereignty, and freedom that the government pursues with the availability of a “free”1 technology. The government promotes “endogenous development,” or development taking into account national capacities and expectations. The adoption of FLOSS follows this notion by training overlooked sectors of the population and nurturing private initiatives that do not follow traditional business models. The present project specifically contributes to the literature that examines information and communication technology policies and its impact on developing countries. In addition, the theoretical expansion of Gallivan's framework can be used for other governmental technological adoptions where ideology and politics play critical roles. Finally, this study also provides recommendations for Venezuela's FLOSS migration process that may be useful for other countries planning to commit to similar enterprises.

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