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.'"

Comments

Translation

[PixieDust]

FTA

"The use of information technology in government administration bodies is increasingly becoming important. So far, most of the software we use is proprietary software, so we cannot modify or complement it, or link software from different vendors. These software products impose rigid commercial conditions of use and limit our possibilities. In this way, government administration bodies may be led into a dependent position on the supplier of the software. This could lead to closed information systems, which make the success and efficiency of our eAdministration project more difficult.

Translation: We can't spy on you as easily with closed applications that we can't modify to include auto-reporting, screenshot captures, web-logs, etc. Well, not without adding something like logging software.

Localization (was Re:Translation)

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting point. Objectively, is FOSS internationalized more promptly and to a higher standard than closed-source software?

Re:Great for now but ...

[xtracto]

Oh, but Thailanees (people from Thailand?) are not alone, something similar happened in Mexico in 2002, when Miguel de Icaza and others started promoting the migration to "software libre" in the E-mexico project:

The project, dubbed e-Mexico, was first introduced by the government of Vicente Fox shortly after the ex-Coca-Cola executive took over the presidency in December of 2000. Funding was scarce, though, and the government began to look to corporate players to fill the void.

In fact, some time ago, I read that article (a bit old but still good and impressive for me) about what happened, and I had just read one of those "Microsoft is Bad but Bill Gates is great with his Bill&Melinda foundation" discussions in slashdot.

The truth is that before reading this article I had the belief that well, even tough Microsoft acts bad because it is a corporation, maybe the man and his wife may be better but oh surprise:

Despite general agreement that open-source technologies would be more flexible and cost efficient, Mexico's Linux revolution was quashed after Fox met with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, according to de Icaza.

"Bill Gates flew down to Mexico, and they announced a donation of $30 million dollars ... and Linux was dropped," de Icaza said.

And, to make things worse:

icrosoft has pledged $60 million in software and training to help fund Internet kiosks that are being built in remote communities. The software maker has also allotted $10 million to train workers in small and mid-size businesses, along with an additional grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to the country's Vamos México program to be used to move the country's libraries online.

Now, for those of you who does not know, this "Vamo México" program was made by the presidents wife, is is being investigaded by authorities for missuse and corruption .

So, being things as they are here in Mexico (corruption has already rot the system) I am sure Mr. Fox got its piece of Gates cake to maintain MS software. But what I could not stand is the use of the Bill & Melinda foundation on this matters. I've got no respect from this man nor anything related to him.

Re:Vlatko's 'asleep on the wheel' response

[kost]

Hi! I'm Vlatko! I guess you just read in brief and you didn't read actually my complete statement, right? We're always offering help and we already helped in so many ways. We're all very positive about open source policy. For example, E-croatia (Main goverment IT body) website is running on open source technologies thanks to us. That's just one example. Yes we're ethusiastic, but I think implementation is crucial thing. You can write on paper whatever you want. Paper can stand whatever you can write :)