Open source movement spreads across Asia

roundup Open source has consistently made headlines in recent years, having drawn much industry attention both from technologists and business decision-makers.

Adoption and interest in the Asian region has grown, too, though from different aspects.

The Philippines, for instance, is seeing early adopters from the private sector, while Singapore's open source movement is currently enjoying strong momentum in the developer front.

In Malaysia, the government's July 2004 "master plan" to drive open source adoption in the public sector is seeing fruition. As of mid-July, some 71.1 percent of government agencies in the country have deployed open source, compared to 354 agencies in 2008 and 163 in 2007.

And while India also sees growing adoption, the open source camp in the country is miffed over a proposal for e-government projects to support multiple standards.

In this special report, ZDNet Asia looks at what's moving open source adoption across four Asian economies--Singapore, Malaysia, India and the Philippines--the issues faced and benefits reaped in these markets.