Latest Examples of Public Sector Moves to Free Software
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-02-21 10:51:48 UTC
- Modified: 2014-02-21 10:52:41 UTC
Summary: European software policy as detailed by recent news
UK
-
Parliament is still treating Linux users as though they aren't citizens. It's website, for them, is like the door of an exclusive Soho gentleman's club.
If you aint got Microsoft, you aint getting in - though we might give you a second chance if you go home and change that boho suit.
Video broadcasts of Parliamentary proceedings are designed to be watched by people with Microsoft software.
-
The UK government has revealed that it is considering ditching Microsoft software for open source alternatives. Cabinet minister Frances Maude has said he wants to see a range of software being adopted by the thousands of civil servants that work across departments and believes that this could save millions. Indeed, since Maude spoke out on the matter, it has been suggested that the government has spent more than €£200 million on Microsoft products since 2010 alone.
-
That pales into insignificance with what is going on in the government of the UK. Although they have been making some good noises lately, they are in a deep hole.
-
Tom Morris did some digging and found that only three members of the 23-member board appear to actually be programmers or have a technical background. So a campaign to drive home the importance of programming skills is predominantly made up of people who lack those very same skills.
[...]
A more obvious example of what George Monbiot calls the captive state would be hard to find. This is just a cabal of private businesses looking for a government subsidy to ensure their future profits. Corporate welfare, in other words.
Europe
-
Open source software is creating 'tried-and-tested' solutions addressing interoperability, portability and security, writes ETSI, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, in its December 2013 report on standards for cloud computing. Future specifications and standards may derive from open source projects, the standardisation organisation suggests.
France
-
Already 58 candidates for the municipal elections in France have signed April's Free Software Pact, stating that they will support the use of free and open source software. Free software advocacy group April began its support campaign in early January. "Many candidates are keen to announce their support and to detail their plans for freedom in the digital age", the group comments.
-
France's free software advocacy group April has launched a campaign to get candidates for the European elections of 22 - 25 May 2014 to state their support for these type of software solutions. The Free Software Pact campaign is Europe-wide and the group is inviting free and open source enthusiasts to help contact as many candidates as possible.
Belgium
-
The government of the Flanders region in Belgium is using open source for its new open data forum, opened this week Tuesday. The site host is running Linux, web server Apache and content management system Joomla for the open data knowledge exchange website.
-
For their e-government services and their websites, public administrations in Belgium's Walloon region should prefer to use standards and open source software solutions, recommends André Blavier, an ICT expert working for the Agence Wallonie de Télécommunications (AWT), a government agency. Yet an even bigger priority for the Walloon government is making its data publicly available. "Open data will help development digital public services, and create a more transparent government."
Holland
-
TYPO3gem, the user group of Dutch municipalities using the TYPO3 content management system, is becoming a model for other groups of public administrations using open source solutions, according to a study published by the Open Source Observatory and Repository last week. Examples include the group of towns using Drupal, an alternative content management system, and a number of municipalities using zaaksysteem.nl, a case management solution.
Germany
-
Berlin will not switch to open source operating systems for its workstations, the German Linux Magazine reports. The administration of the German city state again dismissed a request by the opposition party Bündnis 90/Greens to replace outdated proprietary desktop systems by open source. Such a switch clashes with the city's efforts to centralise the IT infrastructure.
Switzerland
-
Unanimous bar one abstention, the parliament of the Swiss Canton of Bern yesterday voted in favour of a bill to exploit 'synergies in its software use". The law instructs the canton's public administrations to increase their use of open source, make their own software publicly available and, when starting new IT projects, give priority to this type of solutions. The measure is expected to result in financial savings.
Denmark
-
A group of five Danish municipalities are making available as open source KITOS, their IT project management solution, announces OS2, the Danish online community for public administrations and open source. The solutions will be web-based, letting municipalities manage their IT projects, systems and contracts.
South America
-
Caracas, Feb 7 (Prensa Latina) Experts from Venezuela and Argentina shared experiences on software developed on the basis of free software, as part of the efforts to spread awareness among the population, specialized sources confirmed today.
According to the Nacional Center for Information of Technology (CNTI), development teams operating systems Huayra (Argentina) and Canaima GNU / Linux (Venezuela) met by videoconference to strengthen the work in this area.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- GNU/Linux Grows at Windows' Expense and Microsoft Trolls Infest and Maliciously Target Articles About It
- Microsoft is - and has long been - organised crime
- They Say I'm Mr. Bombastic
- They didn't take good lawyers
-
- Computers Got Smaller, So GNU/Linux Got Bigger
- Many people here recognise the lack of urgency (or need) to get expensive new laptops
- BetaNews is a Plagiarism and LLM Slop Hub, the Chief Editor Isn't Addressing This Problem Anymore
- SS Fagioli is basically a parasite leeching off or exploiting other people's work
- Links 09/06/2025: Chaos in Los Angeles and Hurricane Season
- Links for the day
- Links 09/06/2025: Windows TCO and Many Data Breaches
- Links for the day
- Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VI: Political Stunts by Former President Edyta Demby-Siwek and the Connection to Profound Corruption at EUIPO
- it's like a money-laundering operation where one politician rewards another at taxpayers' expense
- Gemini Links 09/06/2025: Pipelines and Splitgate
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 08, 2025
- IRC logs for Sunday, June 08, 2025
- Links 08/06/2025: Tiananmen Carnage Censorship Persists, North Korean Goes Offline
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 08/06/2025: Love as an Ethnographic Method and Monitorix Gemini-Frontend v0.1
- Links for the day
- Links 08/06/2025: Exposure of More GAFAM Surveillance and Social Security Records Compromised
- Links for the day
- Linux Foundation is a Mediator for Microsoft et al, Not for Small Companies That Support Rather Than Attack the GPL
- Many people still wrongly assume that because it is called "Linux Foundation", then it is pro-Linux and represents the same mindset
- This Past Friday, Confirming What We Said All Along About Brett Wilson LLP: It's Shrinking, Has Considerable Debt, Loss of Net Assets Despite the Microsoft SLAPP Money
- The documents only became publicly available less than 2 days ago
- Some of the Many Reasons We Sued Microsofters for Harassment
- perpetrators of harassment
- For 20 Years Many People Were Sharecropping for Canonical's Oligarch, Now He's Deleting All Their Contributions
- "Ubuntu has erased instead of archiving the trove of material at Ubuntu Forums"
- There Was Always Too Much 'Crazy Stuff' Going on Around Freenode
- What many IRC users lost sight of
- Exposing Crime is Not a Crime (It Never Was)
- In the eyes of rich and powerful people, those who speak about their crimes are the "criminals"
- GNU/Linux Distros Abandoning Microsoft GitHub
- Will curl be next to leave Microsoft GitHub?
- Expect More XBox Mass Layoffs Soon If the Rumours Are True
- From a Microsoft media operative
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 07, 2025
- IRC logs for Saturday, June 07, 2025
- Europe Needs to Move Away From GAFAM; The Sooner, the Better
- Europe - not just the EU - must abandon GAFAM as soon as possible
- The Issue Isn't GNOME's Promotion of Diversity But GNOME Corruption, Abuse, Censorship, and Worse
- So-called "Conservative" (republican, pro-Trump, bigoted) people want you to think the problem with GNOME is politics
- When the News Sources Become Scarce and Increasingly Full of Polluted/Contaminated 'Content' (With LLM Slop and Slop Images)
- Integrity matters
- "Linux" Sites That Spew Out LLM Slop
- We're lacking enough material for another "Slopwatch"
- Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part V: Breaking the Law, Just Like EPO
- We'll hopefully cover some of the pertinent details later this year
- Links 08/06/2025: Security Lapses, CISA Cuts, and More
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 07/06/2025: Mime Types and Geminisphere Introduction
- Links for the day
- Links 07/06/2025: Slop Companies Retain All Private Data, More Books Banned in the US
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 07/06/2025: "A Monk's Guide to Happiness" and "Wireless Earbuds"
- Links for the day
- Links 07/06/2025: More Rumours of Mass Layoffs in Microsoft's XBox Division, New COVID Variant
- Links for the day
- Drug Addiction is a Real Problem, It Destroys Families
- a rather sensitive matter
- Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part IV: Political Scrutiny and Errors/Inconsistencies in Official Documents
- When such organisations receive scrutiny they start focusing on cover-up and muzzling of facts (or crushing people who say the truth)
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 06, 2025
- IRC logs for Friday, June 06, 2025
