(The star; June 10, 2010)

KUCHING: Sarawak students should be exposed to the open source technology to encourage them to develop their own software instead of just using those developed by others.

Deputy Chief Minister Tan Sri Dr. George Chan said with the open source technology, budding local software developers could explore the global software business market.

Dr. Chan said over the last few years, propelled by the ubiquitous reach of the Internet and the increasing popularity of the mobile applications, the open source movement had grown rapidly.

He said the open source movement had not only changed the landscape of the IT industry, but lowered the cost of producing and using IT.

"Today, open source software adn technologies have become mainstream and have become too strategic for any serious ICT player to disregard.

"The areas of application for open source are limitless and cover finance, human resources, customer care, education, health and science, agriculture, hardware devices and many more," he said at the prize presentation ceremony of the open source competition in Kuching yesterday.

The competitions is organised by Sarawak Information Systems Sdn Bhd (SAINS). Dr. Chan, who is also SAINS chairman, said working with the State ICT Unit, SAINS had been actively testing, developing and deploying solutions that were open source compliant.

He said one area of application in which open source was already being used in the State, which would have a major and beneficial socio-economic impact for all, was in the health care system.

He said SAINS had taken on an open source approach through full-fledged open source Hospital Information System (HIS) originally developed in Germany called MyCare2x.

"Today, it has been piloted successfully in the Cardiac Centre of Sarawak General Hospital and we hope to further extend its use to other hospitals in Sarawak," he said.

SAINS, the competition organizer, is now inviting entries for the next Sarawak Open Source Competition which will begin in March 2011. For more information please visit the competition website at http://opensource.sains.com.my