As posted on the GKD mailing list, 28 June 2001:

I lead the technology team for the Development Gateway. Carlos Braga has asked that I reply to the thoughtful messages posted by Steve Song (6/25) and Zbigniew (Zbig) Mikolajuk (6/27) of Bellanet and IDRC respectively, both of which dealt with technology issues. We strongly agree with Steve's recommendation that the Gateway should adopt an open approach so that others can freely integrate, participate in and benefit from the Gateway's content and technology. As Steve noted, we have already begun making significant advances here. To this end, I thought it might be useful to respond with concrete examples of where we are now and where we are going, and to get your feedback and ideas on this important issue.

The Gateway's technology architecture is based on the following design principles:
Commitment to open-source and standards-based technologies;
Decentralized and distributed approach to content, coordination, and ownership;
A scalable and modular architecture;
Promotion of online community building along with personalization and high standards of privacy protection.

The core technology platform is implemented using the ArsDigita Community System (ACS), an open-source code software system for interactive Web applications. With the exception of the Oracle database, all components of the Development Gateway platform use open-source code, to enable us to manage the code and to distribute the code as widely as possible to developing countries and partners without having to pay proprietary license fees. Another significant advantage we considered with this approach is the ability to encourage co-developers of the Development
Gateway platform.

Identified below are some of the open strategies that we are pursuing:

1. Decentralization
For the past several months the Gateways technology team has been focused on re-architecting the Gateway to support both logically and physically decentralized implementations of the Gateway. The objective is not for the Gateway to be centrally controlled, but to encourage local ownership and to ensure local relevance and capacity building and a democratic
exchange through a decentralized framework. Already, we have made significant progress and are working with Country Teams in 13 countries and several institutional partners who have full developer access to our source code and are customizing the gateway for their purposes. This joint code development process is being facilitated through a technology
working group web site where code sharing, discussions, chat, and technical assistance is shared among 67 developers from around the world.
We are also piloting several community sites where independent organizations, such as regional NGO network in Eastern Europe, are autonomously building and managing their web sites.

2. Gateway as an Open Source platform
Open Source Software licenses have various terms and we are still in the early stages of considering and consulting on what is most appropriate for the Gateway knowing that practitioners within the open source and development community will have different opinions on the subject.
Today, my own sense is the General Public License from the Free Software Foundation (LGPL license) represents the spirit of the Gateway in that it ensures that modifications and improvements made to the Gateway source code remain pubic and therefore is effective in encouraging a cooperative development environment.
At present, we do not comply with the true definition of Open Source.
What we have essentially established is a "community" open source development license for our Country Gateway teams and other institutional partners who have access to the Gateway source code for their own customization and modifications. We are looking into how best to adopt a more broad open source approach that would enable others in the
development community to benefit from the Gateway technology and information exchange. It is important to note, however, that not all components of the Gateway would be open source and/or open content. For example, as a highly modularized collection of components the Gateway's core infrastructure and applications like content management and community collaboration tools could be GPL open source, while other special-purpose applications like eProcurement or eBookstore would have other license arrangements.
Those who have been involved in launching a successful open source initiative like the Gateway knows that there is a tremendous amount of work involved - including programming overhead of developing the code for public inspection, componentizing, modularizing and packaging the software, infrastructure investments in system administration, support,
communicating and coordinating developer community. Therefore, we need to be sure that there is enough interest within the community and confident that we can adequately support a broad open model.

3. International Open Standards
The Gateway will use and promote International Open Standards whenever possible. Here are some examples of the standards that we have already adopted.
XML
We are using XML as the method for information and data exchange between the development gateway and country gateways, partner organizations, and other systems. All of our XML is either an existing or evolving standard or, if an existing or evolving standard does not exist, we will publish
our standard under an open license so that others can access Gateway content (metadata and links). Currently, our AIDA project database utilizes the open standard IDML. We will use the open standard SCORM for e-learning courses. We will publish our standard for documents links since we are not aware of an adequate existing standard (the closest being
RSS which does not meet our need).
Other
Some examples of other international standards we've already adopted include W3C Standards, Tcl, Unicode, UTF8. Examples of standards we plan to adopt in the future include J2EE, SOAP, WSDL, UDDI, WAP and other protocols: VoiceXML

4. Open and Relevant Content
Steve writes that the Gateway should declare Development Gateway content free in the same manner that MIT has made their courseware free. MIT is the originator of the material and owns full rights to its distribution.
The vast majority of the content on the Gateway is not owned by the Gateway. Both copyright and intellectual property rights remain with the originators when the Gateway links to other sites. Content that is authored by the Gateway will be made available to others through an open content license similar to our open source technology approach. As stated earlier, we are making Gateway content publicly available in XML published
format, and will encourage partners and other development organization to participate in this open standards sharing and to freely publish THEIR OWN information according to these standards.
In response to Zbigniew's vivid illustration of the farmer's needs in an Sri Lankan village, the whole purpose of our open and decentralized technological approach is to allow multiple development experts, practitioners, and end users to be able to exchange information easily and practically. Currently on the Gateway users from around the world can register on the Gateway with a simple two-step process, post resources
(links, documents, directories maps, etc.) and download resources. [They] can also ask questions and [participate] in online discussions. In short our technology package allows that Sri Lankan farmer to inquire and try to find out how to curb his plant disease, what is needed now [is] for
development actors to link and exchange information. The Gateway is not being built to provide the answers or a particular donor view of development, but rather to serve as a free-flowing platform where farmers, agronomists, and program officers from varied experiences and perspectives
can help each other and seek common solutions.

5. Conclusion
In sum, while a lot of progress has been made in positioning the Development Gateway as an open initiative within a relatively short timeframe, a great deal still remains to be done. Decentralizing and opening the Gateway to the development community imposes new responsibilities on the development community as well. We are already beginning to share our technology and make content readily accessible, but
the Gateway platform will need the active participation of the development community if it is going to achieve its objective of promoting dialogue, effective partnerships, and innovative approaches to solve real development problems.

I look forward to your feedback.

Monika Quigley
Head of Technology, Development Gateway
http://www.developmentgateway.org
The World Bank Group