12.03.10

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South Tyrol (Italy) Might Make Free Software Mandatory

Posted in Europe, Free/Libre Software, Microsoft at 3:31 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Tyrolean Dolomites

Summary: Italy’s liberation from proprietary software is work in progress despite interferences from Microsoft

ACCORDING to the EU-funded OSOR, Italy carries on its journey towards software freedom (despite Microsoft obstacles) and is now “[c]onsidering the use of open source is mandatory in South Tyrol”:

“Public administrations must use this type of software whenever it meets the requirements, the solution and its community are mature, and when it overall does not cost much more than a commercial alternative”, explained Pöhl, one of the speakers at the South Tyrol Free Software Conference, that took place on 12 November in the Italian city of Bolzano.

As recent experience suggests, corruptible officials like Vendola (mentioned 3 times including the translations [1, 2, 3]) will be Microsoft’s weapon against these moves towards greater autonomy in Italy and Marco serves this latest update from Italy where he gives Vendola the benefit of the doubt:

Personally, I still think that the most likely case is that Vendola and his staff simply didn’t think this through and walked in the deal considering it an harmless, no brainer step. But we’re still in time to make the best out of the deal, or at least control the damage: while I write the Puglia Open Source Law must still be issued and all the activities mentioned in the protocol must still be defined and carried on by that “Committee”. All the FOSS advocates in Italy offered to help with that and the offer is still valid (as long as nobody tells us again “yeah, right, but isn’t it cooler to speak about fibers and fast Internet access?”).

Let’s keep an eye on Italy, which we’ve just added to our Wiki, mostly by grouping the links below in a dynamic page that everyone can edit. █

Microsoft’s plan for Tyrol

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2 Comments

mfioretti said,

December 3, 2010 at 4:27 pm

Hi folks,
I have just found the mentions of my Vendola articles on this website. Thanks for your support! I also wanted to let you know that I have started to add a list of links to all the non-italian articles about this story to the italian version of my most recent article on this topic:

http://stop.zona-m.net/it/2010/12/come-gestire-il-protocollo-vendola-puglia-microsoft/

in order to show to italian readers that this is looking bad even outside the country!
Please let me know if you know of other non-italian articles about the Vendola-Microsoft deal so I’ll add the links to that list

Ciao,
Marco F.

Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
December 3rd, 2010 at 4:46 pm
Marco,

I’m only aware of yours and Moody’s.