What is The Idisenyo Project?
The Idisenyo Project is a group of Filipino individuals dedicated to introduce Free and Open Source concepts and projects to the online Filipino community. This group also aims to dispel Open Source LIFUD (Laziness, Ignorance, Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) in the Philippines.
The Idisenyo Project was founded by Sam Galope on March 10, 2007 and is being hosted locally with a low-cost desktop computer and a standard residential DSL connection.
What Is The Relevance of The Idisenyo Project?
The Philippines is a poor country. For the common Filipino, this is a fact and it is frustrating. With the advent of cellphones, personal computers, laptops, hand held devices, the Internet and everything going wireless, the situation is a bit Sisyphean. Everything is expensive. Everything needs to be bought. Everything and anything costs something -- ideas, innovations, software applications and hardware. Nothing is spared.
But there are alternatives... What a lot of us [Filipinos] do not know is that there are things that can be acquired for free, without obligation and without any strings attached that are of quality. These are ideas, innovations, software applications and hardware that are given for free for the sole purpose of giving, with the only condition that they should also be given for free. This is called the Open Source Model or GNU/GPL Model.
If this is the case, why not utilize the Open Source model, save the Philippines tons of money [especially in the Government], end poverty and prosper? The answer to that question is quite simple-- LIFUD (Laziness, Ignorance, Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt). We are too colonial. We no longer trust what we as a people can do. We look for solutions outside even though sometimes the best answers are inside us. We have forgotten ourselves.
The Idisenyo Project aims to appeal to the real Filipino, the Filipino who is innovative and free spirited. We aim to inform, guide, teach Open Source concepts and ideas to those who are interested for free.
What is LIFUD?
WikiPedia describes FUD as...
source: wikipedia.org
Fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) is a sales or marketing strategy of disseminating negative (and vague) information on a competitor's product. The term originated to describe disinformation tactics in the computer hardware industry and has since been used more broadly. FUD is a manifestation of the appeal to fear.
The Idisenyo Project spices it up a bit...
LI*FUD=LIFUD
LIFUD is Laziness, Ignorance, Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. It is an extension of FUD or Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. The Idisenyo Project believes that the negativity surrounding FOSS is a combination of Internal (Laziness and Ignorance) and External (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) factors. Both are damaging but not as much as the Internal (laziness and ignorance) factor, because one is no longer dealing with other people but oneself.
Examples of LIFUD:
- Why FOSS when you can buy?
- I'm too old to learn FOSS!
- FOSS is for geeks and nerds!
- FOSS is a poor imitation of normal software!
- Open Source Software is not secure because it is Open!
