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Croatia Adopts Open Source Policy
lisah writes "Croatia says that concerns over the expense and limitations of proprietary software led to last month's decision to adopt a free and open source software policy within Croatia's government. Officials say the move will make the government's work more transparent as well as help to better manage its operating costs. Taking it a step further, under the new policy the government will also support the use of open source in schools, saying, 'both closed and open source solutions will be equally presented to students.' Vlatko Kosturjak, president of the Croatian Linux User Group, is unmoved. Citing the practical and technical difficulties of embracing open source on such a broad scale, he says until the policy is actually implemented, '[it] is just like an unsent letter.'"
Ah, Croatia, one of the best kept secrets. The blonde, blue-eyed women are among the tallest in the world. Nude beaches on the Adriatic Sea. Almost everyone speaks English as a second language (knowing Croatian of course will get you further, but you can pick that up over time). Everything is cheap. And now, open source.
What? Like Thailand a couple of years ago, with the gov't's own Linux on the fast track to becoming the national OS and the gov't requiring 90% use within two years? Oh, yeah, since MS offered the gov't a sweet deal, that software hasn't been updated. Last version was December 2004. In the lifespan of a Linux distro, that means that it's dead.
Put identity in the browser.
Lithuanian women are the tallest, followed by the women from some Scandinavian country (I do not remember which one, either Iceland or Sweden). Croatia (and other Balkan countries, Greece, Albania, Serbia, Bulgaria, etc) are way behind, they are not even in the top ten.
Nikola Tesla was not Serbian. He was a Serb. From Croatia. So both the Croats and Serbs make a claim on him, which is fine. Like when an ethnically Chinese person born in the US makes a great discovery, both the Chinese and Americans feel proud.
Don't get ethnicity (Serb, Croat) mixed up with nationality (Serbian, Croatian). Tesla himself said that he was proud both of his Serb ancestry and Croatian homeland. The area where he was born has never been a part of Serbia.
You sure this guy isn't the president of the Croatian Microsoft User Group?
Vlatko Kosturjak is a good guy, and he has been instrumental in maintaining a high profile for Linux and FLOSS in Croatia in the last 10 years. He has also administered the Croatian LUG website for years, helped organise numerous talks by OSS/Free Software speakers, install fests, and worked on translations. In fact, the work that HULK has done on promoting FLOSS in Croatia (including complete translations of OpenOffice, KDE, GNOME and Fedora into Croatian), despite their low activity levels is amazing. So don't jump to conclusions.
He is simply skeptical that this is the ultimate victory for us just yet. There are real issues in getting FLOSS implemented on a large scale, especially when Windows is as entrenched as it is in Croatia, and where shady dealings secure deals for big companies far too often.
When we see FLOSS deployed at a large scale in Croatia, we can open the champagne. Until then, it's just a blurb from a politician, possibly trying to get a better price from MS. It's not like we haven't seen this in other countries already...
Hi all! As a Croat I just had to post something to clarify... Croatia is a young country, and therefore we had to build our IT program infrastructure from close to nothing, meaning not many legacy problems. Being a small country (for a great holiday:) ), changes to this type of things is easier that applying the same to the US - imagine having to teach all the employees new tricks or worse new programs. Croatia has had a very long tradition of unix, and later linux usage. Our academic network http://www.carnet.hr/ is a long time promoter of OSS. All universities in Croatia run a Debian distro modified to suit every need of the students, teachers,... And new trends are constantly implemented. The same program is offered to secondary schools (and in a small extent to primary schools). Croatia has created an office for implementing new technologies called eHrvatska http://www.e-hrvatska.hr/ and they have been working on it for some 2-3 years now. At first there was no sign of actitity from them, but in the last year they brought to the public a series of interesting services nationwide (eVAT, eLearning, e), digitizing courts, land-ownership books,... Croatia was one of the first countries to include Digital signature into its legislation, opening the way for eBusiness and eGovernment. Even The head of Croatian Linux User Community is sceptical because Croatia has a deal with Microsoft for supplying MS software for all government needs, but it has become clear the money just leaves the country without any intent to come back. Making a WinXP and Office localization was a nice gesture, but nothing more. We have smart people, good programmers with great ideas making software for foreign countries. Why not earn some money at home by making software for home... I personally don't care if the move is made because of money issues, creating a software demand will mean jobs for programmers, and better service for citizens.