Sahana - disaster recovery for the people by the people

Sahana is a Free and Open Source Software suite designed for post-disaster recovery. The word "Sahana" is not an acronym. Sahana means "relief" in one of the native languages of Sri Lanka, Sinhala. Sahana is the epitome of community generated and maintained FLOSS applications. It was imagined by volunteers, built by volunteers, and is sustained completely by volunteers against private competitors who didn't see the opportunity initially, and now that Sahana is nearing maturity, cannot compete with the FLOSS development model.

The history of Sahana is one of tragedy. The first version of the application was created after the massive 2004 Asian Tsunami in Sri Lanka with an internation support team with contributors from the United States (IBM) and Swedish development grants. The purpose of the application was to provide a lightweight IT solution to the collaboration problems inherent in an internationalized post-disaster recovery setting. The application was designed to push responsibility as far into the field as possible and to decentralize control so that actors could efficiently and effectively work together with a minimum of inter-organizational red tape. When the crisis in Sri Lanka ebbed a bit, the Lanka Software Foundation lead the charge for a redesigned, more robust and fucntional Sahana.

In addition to the initial deployment and use of Sahana in the 2004 Tsunami, Sahana has been used in many other crisis situations. There have been Sahana deployments in China, the Philipines, Burma/Myanmar, Pakistan. A customization of the application exists in New York City as well.

Sahana is a truly international program and community (as graphically illustrated in some of the awkward english phrasing in the application). The code that makes up the application can be internationalized into any language in the world given the need and the availability of a group of human translators.

Even though there is corporate involvement in the application (IBM and Respere to name two) the volunteer community that has emerged around Sahana has full control over the changes that are made to the Sahana application suite.

The community, in addition to being volunteer and community driven, is also quickly responsive to improvements and additions to the software. As an example, I mentioned the above quirks in the english translation. In 3 days, across the international date line and in 8 different time zones, a team has been assembled to fix the translations for basic english while another team is being assembled to create a National Incident Management System (NIMS) compliant english version for use by public and ngo organizations in the United States.

Warning: Many posts about Sahana to come
I plan on posting early and often about Sahana. A few of the topics I plan to write about:

1. Current and intended uses
2. Unintended/unplanned uses
3. Community operations / organizational structure
   
4. Future Sahana development ideas
   
5. Reasons why the US should adopt Sahana (both Gov't and NGO's)
   
6. Steps to make the US adopt Sahana (NGO)
7. Steps to make the US adopt Sahana (Gov't)

Value of FLOSS for NGO's in a down economy

I'm echoing the ideas behind this post at the 451 group. I think the money quote comes in the second paragraph when Jay Lymon says that the downturn

"...may even translate through to the vendors that develop, sell and support open source, since rather than sheer economic value, their open source software and development projects and communities, including developers and users, represent potential innovation and opportunity, rather than money in the bank, which at this point has diminished value."

The value of FLOSS for NGO's isn't necessarily the reduced cost, instead it's the involvement of the community in the core of their organizations mission. The tools that help you serve the community are best when they are created by the community itself.

This economic downturn may result in NGO's flocking to FLOSS because they think it is an inferior good like the classic economic example of the potato. The idea behind inferior goods is that when times are good and there is disposable income, people will demand and buy fewer of these items. Potatoes, interstate bus service, and ramen noodles are good examples of inferior goods. When incomes decrease or people expect their incomes to decrease, the consumption of these items increases relative to previous consumption.

FLOSS, with the perceived high learning curve to adopt it, is viewed as an inferior good. Many large NGO's do not use FLOSS because of the percieved opportunity costs of engaging an open source community around their organization. Traditional software procurement policies also inhibit the creation of open source communities. (see FLOSS myths debunked here)

The economic downturn, with the resultant and harsher impact on the NGO community, may force NGO's to take a harder look at FLOSS to achieve objectives with a smaller budget. If the NGO's decide to start up and maintain an open source community, they might find themselves not only with cheaper software, but a broader and more engaged volunteer base.

Don't be surprised if FLOSS is a normal good in an inferior goods clothing.

FLOSS and VOAD Definitions

The overarching theme of this blog and the idea of this post is the necessity of Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters (VOADs) to move toward a Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) procurement policy not just for software development but also for day to day work, emergency operations, and organazational philosophy.

Before I can start talking about how VOADs can use FLOSS and why the FLOSS community should lobby for participation in VOADs, I will have to give some basic definition to both acronyms. I will also argue against the reasons VOADs, and traditional large non-profits, have ignored FLOSS historically.

VOAD
Voluntary Agencies Active in Disaster is a coordination body "where the members are a coaltion of nonprofit organizations that respond to disasters as part of their overall mission." VOAD is simultaneously organized on a national, statewide, regional, and local level. Organizations that are active on all levels are the traditional big names in not-for-profit disaster work like the American Red Cross, Southern Baptist Convention, Catholic Charities USA (full list) . Many of these organizations are active on the state, regional, and local level also. Smaller not-for-profits are usually incorporated in the VOADs in the more local VOADs. In New York City, CityHarvest or The Clothing Bank are two examples of local non-profits engaged in only the local VOAD.

The organizations in VOAD are heavily focused on providing social services and recovery services to the victims of disaster. While some agencies are focused on the immediate needs of the disaster victims, others are focused on long term recovery, psychiatric health, or spiritual needs of the disaster victims.

FLOSS
Free/Libre/Open Source Software is (definition maintained by the Free Software Foundation)

Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:

• The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
• The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
• The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
• The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

A program is free software if users have all of these freedoms. Thus, you should be free to redistribute copies, either with or without modifications, either gratis or charging a fee for distribution, to anyone anywhere. Being free to do these things means (among other things) that you do not have to ask or pay for permission.

In a pracitcal sense, FLOSS means that you can make any changes you want to a personal copy of the software without fear of reproachment, and actually with the possiblity of encouragement by the community that uses that software.

Proprietary Software
The antithesis of FLOSS is proprietary software. Proprietary software is typically developed by a company that holds the copyrights on any products they release and does not (officially) let you, the end user make changes to the program.