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| Raindolf Owusu with his Anansi OS in the background |
Raindolf Owusu (RO): Raindolf Owusu, a 21-year old second year student of Methodist University College, Ghana studying Information Technology. I am also the founder of Oasis WebSoft, an IT start-up.
TD: Why did you develop it?
RO: I am a strong advocate of free and open source software. I realized that proprietary operating systems are being entrenched in our society. Companies and the government spend so much money on paying for licenses for these software whereas these monies could be used to improve other sectors like education. These proprietary software contain so many bugs and also can easily be attacked by viruses and malicious software. I believe that the way forward for advancement in technology is the collaborative use of open source technologies. Africa is on the move, and software and technologies are a powerful tool for boosting economic growth and poverty reduction.
TD: What tools did you use and why?
RO: Building an operating system from scratch is not a one man job so I decided to use the Linux kernel which is open source, as the main platform that Anansi OS would be built on. Linux is stable and has so many code contributors around the world and operating systems like Ubuntu and Fedora were built using this strong kernel. I cloned Open Suse, a Linux distribution, to be a strong engine behind Anansi. I wrote the main Anansi tree with C, with some hardware-specific code using Assembly language. I wanted a simple but user friendly desktop environment so I used Gnome 3 and I integrated it with the main kernel using C++ and C#.
TD: How long did it take you to develop it?
RO: It took me close to a year to develop it. I spent most of my time in my school’s library and on the Internet researching about Unix and the Linux kernel.
TD: What has been the response so far and how does it relate to what you were expecting?
RO: It has been great. It’s been almost a week since I launched it on-line and it has had over a thousand downloads from Ghana, Britain, Kenya and other parts of the world. Open source communities are creating download mirrors for others to download and also www.distrowatch.com has included my OS as an upcoming Linux distro to watch. I was expecting this because, I am a firm believer in open source and it makes no sense to build software and hide the source code. When programmers can read, redistribute, and modify the source code for a piece of software, the software evolves. People improve it, people fix bugs. Intelligence should be open for everyone to learn something from.
TD: Do you have any competition? How is that affecting your business?
RO: Yes. So many people grew up with Windows so it will be very difficult for them to transition to use my operating system. I have devised a way to solve that in the sense that you could still use your default operating system and run Anansi OS on a live CD. Although it will take time but I have a strong belief that we will get there soon.
TD: What advice do you have for people developing such apps?
RO: Always ask God first to direct your path, look for a relevant problem around you, find the right tools and technology to build the solutions. There are so many relevant data made available online to make your work easy. Use these technologies and don’t limit yourself creatively.
TD: When did you start programming and what languages and platforms did you start with?
RO: I started when I was 16. I started with web development (HTML, CSS, Javascript, FBML) and later transitioned into software programming (Java, C, C#, C++, Python and, Ruby on Rails).
TD: We do not yet have a mass market software product made in Ghana. By mass market I mean a product that many people use (say 100,000 users per day eg. Windows, Facebook, Twitter, etc). What do you think is the reason for that and how can software developers rectify the situation (if it needs rectification)?
RO: Most developers limit their products to only Ghana and Africa. We should be able to build software locally but think globally.Also the reason why products abroad are that successful is because of how they are marketed, we need strong marketing strategies to market our software products to reach the masses.
TD: Is there anything else you want to say?
RO: It is time for our environment to stand firmly behind young African men and women developers who are always up at dawn working on something they believe in. It is not enough to congratulate them vocally for their achievements, it will be right if you can support them with your resources be they financial, intellectual, and so on. Anansi OS is free to use, and if you're using Anansi OS and feeling generous, consider a donation. All donations are sincerely appreciated. Thank you and do check out my website www.oasiswebsoft.com.
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