Not that we are offended. Cloud computing is not our religion – it is just an experiment – part of our research. We may be proved wrong – but at least not so far. We are glad we use the model.

Here is how we, at LIRNEasia, use ‘CLOUD’ Computing:

This blog itself is in the CLOUD (WordPress, to be specific)

All our documents are in the CLOUD (Scribd)

All our photos are in the CLOUD (Flickr)

All our video clips are in the CLOUD (You Tube)

All our databases are in the CLOUD (Here is one: http://www.asianict.lirneasia.org)

Then, we plan to go further in this research cycle by contributing more to:

(a) Wikipedia, a CLOUD (One example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_of_service_experience) and
(b) Others’ blogs – another CLOUD

In short, LIRNEasia is an organization that runs – on CLOUD – without a single central physical server. All what we have are our laptops which we use to directly access the CLOUD. (ie. without going through a Local Area Network) So whatever we do; eat, sleep and dance we do it in the CLOUD.

Why LIRNEasia takes CLOUD COMPUTING so seriously?

We saw the potential at very begining. It is the only way a regional research organization without a large IT budget could survive, let alone operate. We were proved correct. (Out IT budget is only for our laptops and three broadband connections. Why three? – Redundancy. When CLOUD is everything for us, better not take chances)

Perhaps RMS might want to have a look at our Virtual Organisation Report which we did to share our experience with similar organisations. Dated April 2008, it is bit outdated now – we have come a long way since then. (Yes, many things can happen in five months, like increasing the hit rate of our site by 50%) Still it is a document worth reading.

We proudly recommend it for anyone who does not want to spend dollars on proprietary hardware to get rid of proprietary software! Thanks RMS, for the opportunity!

LIRNEasia might not be as high tech as some of the big IT players but in our own way we have made a successful effort to make ourselves a virtual team. Not a choice – that was the only way we could operate in multiple countries (For example, in this cycle, TRE surveys will be in nine countries -  Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Maldives, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand; not to mention CPRSouth 3 in Beijing)without budgets comparable to what INGOs use to run regional networks.

We also thought our own experiences will be useful for others. Hence the Virtual Organisation (VO)  project. It had two aspects; developing the VO and using it to conduct LIRNEasia’s other research projects.

The case study is now out. It describes our efforts, outcome and lessons learnt. It is intended for any research/civil society (or even private sector or government) organisation, with limited staff that plans to work from geographically distant locations. It is also for project based organisations with limited overhead budgets.

Downlaod the full report at the link below.

Report: LIRNEasia as a model Virtual Organisation

Divakar:
How can we get researchers and participants to engage in LIRNEasia activitites? And sustain these relationships?

Money?
-this is tough, since we have limited funds

Professional development?

Look at Shared values.
LIRNEasia has a set of values, that can we abstract from these values that will get people to participate in our activities?

Open Source community is a good example
Highly capable ppl who work across the globe to develop code that is shared freely with anyone. It is very unstructured, but very successful. The participants don’t get paid fro it, but they get the advantage of its use, and its participatory development. How do we resonate from that?

Rohan:
Property right imposed on you in Open Source (according to the Success of Open Source) where you can make money from it, but you are obligated to share source code with everyone else: it cannot be restricted from anyone.
LIRNEasia should take from this, and not restrict its output from anyone else.

Luxman:
Question is why Open Source evolved? B/c MS had monopoly

Divakar:
No, it has evolved b./c of the Internet: it allows code developers to work together where ever they are

Rohan:
To fix problem, you had to go to MS; Opensource overcomes this, allowing users themselves to fiddle with the product to their liking.

Divakar:
Weber asks hwhy OS’rs collaborate:
1. Gallery modely – OS is like a gallery of work, people across the world can see it, and comment on it. It works b.c it is an OPEN system ofcommunication – automatically promotes excellence.. medeocraty is sqeezed out of the system – LIRNEasia should take from this.
Harsha:
We haven’t been around long wnough to get that confidence to ‘show the world’ our work.

Rohan:
Vicious attacking of bad work at software forums; do we have this in our system?
Our website seems to be going in that direction.

Harsha:
we haven’t been arounf long enough to reach that level of excellence yet

Rohan:
Not got the audience yet

Sujata:
‘Community of practice’ where you are bound by a similar set of keywords. We have to break out of our CoP

HdeS
World Bank discussions generally only have about 40 (max) comments per week. Have we come to a stage where we can compete with them at this level yet? Even WB finds it hard to generate sufficient discussion.

Divakar:
We are different from WB in that the process is just as important as the end product.
Back to Weber:
2. Sharing: sharing has no costs, but great benefits. () Only thing with sharing per se is free-rider problem. BUT, Knowledge products don’t disappear. There is and ‘anti-rival’ problem – users who, even if they don’t contribute in the development (free-ride so to speak) give feed-back which betters the product at the end of the day.

RS:
Like public consultations

LS:
In SL, most people criticise

HdeS:
In academic work, most people free-ride anyway

RS:
But if you open it out before it is finalised, then that’s ok, b.c all these people actually did contribute

Sujata:
If someone takes our product, and polish it and then re-publish, credit doesn’t come back to us.

LS:
If we are working to a common goal; as long as the end goals are reached (values) then what does it matter

DG:
Our values need to be set out.

Sujata:
WB doesn’t have these underlying values, so maybe thast why they can’t generate discussion.

DG:
Weber:
In the academic set-up, only the finished good is published – aftetr peer-review, etc. For fear of being criticised,, and being plegerised.
Our process is different b.c its opened out to review from the starting point.

HdeS:

RS:
In a university, you don’t open out your work out, only to a very small close community. You don’t give half-done work. Only once its complete and polished, you publish.

HdeS:
In SL, not a lot gets written altogether, generally speaking.

DG:
3. Joint enemy – MS—keeps community motivated

Sujata:
What if MS disappears? Will the community go away? Don’t think so

HdeS.
It’s a common goal, not enemy. Will keep it going.

Sujata
Common enemy comes under ‘values’

DG:
OS developers usually have a day-job also. They say that working on OS gives them extra skills, connections and leverage.

DG:
Major differences between LIRNEasia and OS:
- is code similar to research?
o Good code works, it runs; good research is contentious. Can we create the kind of single-minded approach that will define ‘good research’

RS:
Can only figure out if something is good or not (Sayer??), the test is practical adequacy; does the trap catch mice?
There’s not really such a thing as ‘good code’ or whatever it is. One may have flaws, or many diff ones may do the same job

DG:
Linux says whats good and whats not. (before) Now, it’s a broader (but restricted) community that decides/approves code – processes and procedures to decide.

LS:
Cannot compare code with our kind of research.

DG:
cannot always expect to have agreement. But should that be a stumbling block to participation? No. need common values to work within as parameters – not just moral values, but procedural as well. Need a value system, this will

RS:
Need to work on our review process

Sujata:
But how? – get the values out? Money?

RS:
Money is secondary. We need to make this bigger in SL, and everywhere.

Project: (a) Look into Google scholar and look at everyone who has done work on Infrastructure reforms in Asia. Take those in that subset those who are living in Asia – potential customers. Then establish relations with them and put on mailing list. (c) go to the universities in Asia and support them to improve research, teaching curricula, etc. basically improve performance. ? new, better students. Give them incentives (via graduate fellowships) . Basically get them into our ‘community of practice’ Need common values to engage them into our CoP

HdeS:
There are always two opposing views on everything. Someone will always be against our work.

DG:
Measure of success shouldn’t be whether it changes govt policy immediately, but how well the process went.

HdeS: if thats our output, then that measure is ok, but if policy change is the ultimate output, then our measure of success is whether the policy change was made.

DG:
We can’t ensure that policy will be changed, but realistic objective should be that we get people to react.

RS:
Realistic objective should be influencing policy. Don’t expect that all your ideas (nor your enemy’s) ideas will be accepted, but the policy makers will do something with influence from both sides. Policy is the avoidance of the worst outcome.

LS:
Harsha’s Saradiel work prevented the worst from happening, not necessarily the best.

—Goodbye!!—