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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.'"
Correction: We can't verify that some foreign government or corporation isn't spying on us if we use closed-source software. Also we can't translate the software into croatian ourselves, but have to wait for the vendor to do it.
In a month Microsoft will be offering them a fantastic licensing deal and like other countries that "decided" to use open source, they'll likely change their course.
I think government all around the world should adopt similar policies.
1. Governamental software is usualy specialized, so they had to pay for the whole development. Now they can build uppon OSS saving money.
2. The development will probably be made by locals. Creating more programmers there, and more business based on OSS (support, custom development, etc).
3. They will have full control of what there softwares do. No more hidden calls home by proprietary software.
4. Security will probably be better: security by secret is the worst kind.
My only question is... Why only there? Why don't other nations use similar policies? Why they keep buying from foreign companies instead of using OSS?