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Open Source Software (OSS) In Lebanon (Current Situation) |
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Very few companies and individuals use open source technologies in Lebanon. We don’t have an exact figure yet of the OSS users in Lebanon yet.
This extremely low percentage of users, in comparison with other developing countries, goes back to:
In addition some factors indirectly contribute in this low percentage:
- High availability and usage of pirated software that makes people indifferent of the price of the product used.
- The absence of Intellectual Property Rights in Lebanon that makes people use any product without taking into account the right of using and re-distributing it.
- The government agreements with giant proprietary software providers (like Microsoft, Oracle and IBM)
- The low speed internet connection, especially that open source technologies depends on the internet for periodical updates and support.
Looking at the software products usage, we can further segment it based on the types of customers: the packaged mass market software market and the enterprise solutions market. The latter is typified by many Microsoft products and the latter by many IBM products and solutions.
Within the packaged software market, further segmentation between server and desktop markets is possible. Thus, there are three broad market segments:
- Server operating systems and applications,
- Desktop/client operating systems and applications, and
- Enterprise solutions.
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Current Situation
