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Hungary, Tatarstan Latest To Go FOSS
christian.einfeldt writes "It seems as if almost every other week there is news of another government migration toward Free Open Source Software. Two of the most recent such moves come from Hungary and the tiny independent former Russian republic of Tatarstan. On April 2, the Hungarian government announced that it will be modifying its procurement rules to mandate that open source procurement funding match expenditures for proprietary software, according to Ferenc Baja, deputy minister for information technology. In Tatarstan, a Republic of 3.8 million inhabitants, the Deputy Minister of Education announced that by the end of this school year, all 2,400 educational institutions in Tatarstan will have completed a transition to GNU/Linux, following a successful pilot program it rolled out in 2008."
I guess they were hungry for FOSS.
Home of fish and chips.
Isnt FOSS free? In other words, it won't make sense!
"Mandate that open source procurement funding match expenditures for proprietary software"
In other words, their expenditures for proprietary software must equal to $0.00?
That's the way to the desktop. Through governments and big organizations.
nemesis. Home of an experimental fe code.
Free Software != !cash software. They may have to pay like $10,000 for the source code for some big program, or to develop said program and OSS it.
Give the fools their tar tar sauce...
yeah right.
With the world economic situation putting strains on government money, they will be forced to consider cheaper alternatives. OSS can be much cheaper, but its cost is not going to be zero. You have to consider training and support. Even so, substantial savings can be had by going the OSS route. Companies like Microsoft must be shaking in their boots. If OSS gets a decent foothold in government, it will cause an expansion in the private sector. Years from now when the economy improves, OSS will be firmly entrenched.
Hopefully, financially responsibility in government will occur elsewhere as a result, but I'm not holding my breath.
-- Will program for bandwidth
I'm reminded of a pebble dropped in a puddle. The initial splash causes ripples that lap the sides, wetting them enough so that flies settle to eat there. The pebble, meanwhile, lies there and is only seen again after all the life surrounding the puddle has erupted and moved on, after the baking sun is done its drying.
So it is w/ Free Software in the United States.
It's not bad being outside, it seems. Lighter and more free.
Emergency civilian corporate aid black op authorised.
Mission priority: Alpha.
B-2 Stealth bomber carrying elite commando of Microsoft sales ninjas in orbital personnel deployment pods despatched from a private airport near Seattle.
Destination, Tatarstan.
Emergency use of ECHELON mind control sub system authorised by NSA.
After some searching, I haven't actually found much more in the Hungarian news than was reported in TFA. So, I can't add many details.
What I can say is that there is a fair chance that the coalition that rules Hungary today will not be in place six months from now. Secondly, Hungary needs immediate cost savings. It is not in any position to spend money now to save money later.
This might be part of the motivation. Hungary's currency is in collapse, so it is much cheaper for the government to pay local developers in forints for software and systems than it is to pay Microsoft and Novell in dollars or euros.
I'd love to know the internal machinations that went on here, but I suspect that someone took the opportunity of the fall of the forint and the foreign currency debt problem (an enormous problem) to push an open source agenda. Whether this will hold up, or whether MS will make a counter offer allowing the Hungarian government to pay cheaply in forints remains to be seen.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
Hungary won't change many attitudes in the U.S.
"...independent former Russian republic of Tatarstan..." Someone needs a basic lesson in geography and contemporary world politics.
Well it's about time! We can rejoice, my FOSS brothers.
Tatarstan is the subject of Russian Federation and actually is the same way independent as any other one.
More to say: sovereign independence of Tatarstan is the thing both impossible because it has no any outer state borders AND inevitably should lead to total destruction of Russia which is not the case to happen.
As a fact, the "pilot education program" about FOSS is the Alt Linux disk set packaged with a book for schools, is performed in several regions of Russia, Tatarstan is simply among them.
I even know someone in person from altlinux moscow based development team who is originally from Tatarstan.
Hope this is a fix to correct the info.
Linux is coming to you from 2 directions, the totally visible one that is your very government using/standarizing on it, and the subtle one that are cellphones and netbook bios.
At this rate wont be surprised a lot if Windows 8 ends being a MS version of Wine running in top of linux.
... Tatarstan will get a lot of plaque from Microsoft for this move.
(yes, I originally read it as "Tartarstan")
My life's goal is to get a score of +3!
The argument that free trade betters humanity is just a lie [...] All you need is share to ideas.
It's true that free sharing of ideas is a good thing. However "making your own" is not always the most cost-efficient thing to do. As matter of fact, it usually is NOT. Look at large transnational corporations. Do they make their own office furniture? Do they make their own computer hardware? Do they manufacture all pieces of the buildings that they are in? No, they don't - because it's cheaper to buy.
Same applies to countries. If your country is small and poor, and if you need to outfit an office with 10 computers, do you want to start with a chip fabrication facility, then R&D house, then PCB manufacturing, then electronic assembly? That'd be a neat thing to have if that's what you have in mind for the country; but it will take decades, and billions of dollars in investment, and you need to have highly educated workforce also.
That's why international trade is alive and well. Some goods are bought because they are simply unavailable in the destination country (usually raw materials, energy etc.) Other goods are bought because they are cheaper in other countries (like all the electronics in China.) Yet another category of goods is bought because it's too difficult (or takes too long) to make them at home (that applies to most weapons, except simplest, and to most aircraft, and to many medicines, and to many IP/core designs.)
So, for example, if you are sick you have two options: (a) to buy a bottle of pills from a foreign manufacturer and be on your feet within a few weeks, or (b) to start your own medical research (needlessly duplicating already done research!) and hopefully within 5-10 years come up with a possible drug that may or may not heal you. Your choice. Most people I know would pick (a), and then if they are really into medical research they are free to invent some other drug for some other condition.
Computer software is on the opposite side of the scale - easy to get into, easy to develop, easy to distribute. If you also have enough of educated people in the country then F/OSS software is the right thing to do. But note that F/OSS code is far more than mere "ideas" - it is a complete product which just happens to be free. Exchange of pure ideas across borders would require reimplementing those ideas within each country, and I don't see how it would help anyone. I can send you a complete set of JPEG screenshots of KDE, how long will it take you to recreate it all? And what is the chance that software compiled for Bolivian KDE will run under Paraguayan KDE? (Hint: WINE)
I thought this had to do with being hungry for tartar sauce.
Texas, Hawaii, and if you believe the rhetoric, Vermont and California were independent nations at one time.
Alaska was once controlled by Russia.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The singapore armed forces went for open source office software about a year ago but you donÃt hear that on slashdot
Yay Hungary! My grandfather would be so proud. Many years ago he called me and said, "I hear there's an alternative to this Microsoft bull shit. Make it happen on my computer. Oh, and I just got my Hungarian keyboard in. Make that work too."
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
You forgot option (c)
(c) Examine the formulation of the pill that somebody else made, and make a copy
That's the thing, is, that, all but the smallest countries actually have sufficient population to manufacture what they need. If anything, adopting protectionist measures encourages the development of automation to cope with labor shortages. The United States, for example, became an industrial power because of protectionist policies in the 19th century. Otherwise, she would have been blown out of the water by the United Kingdom, which was the world manufacturing leader in those days.
I can send you a complete set of JPEG screenshots of KDE, how long will it take you to recreate it all?
How many developers are -really- on KDE? That's the thing. Industrialization and parallel development can occur extremely rapidly in a country. Japan went from a feudal 16th century technology base to an industrial power in barely 50 years. Germany went from a middle european stomping ground for France to exceeding the UK in scarcely a fortnight. South Korea has industrialized extremely rapidly, and best of all, look at how far China has come in the last 30 years. All of those countries, even the USA, in its heyday, got their start by copying and then improving on someone else's inventions. The USA and Germany robbed the British. Japan robbed the USA and now China robs everyone. It's only the silly idea that an idea should entitle one to exclusive rights to resell it that holds countries back.
This is my sig.
what is the chance that software compiled for Bolivian KDE will run under Paraguayan KDE? (Hint: WINE)
What is the relevance of that at all? If KDE apps can run under GNOME, and KDE3 apps can run under KDE4 (and vice versa), I seriously doubt Paraguayan KDE will have a problem with Bolivian KDE.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Russia - which used to be the bad guy - is adoptng Linux - which is the good guy - while the US - who is supposed to be the good guy - keeps hanging onto Microsoft - which are the bad guys?
So who are we supposed to support if they ever go to war?
PS: are they going to change the name of the capital of Tatarstan to Linuxgrad? And they could also have a Stallmangrad. Think of the tourism income from geeks...
I am anarch of all I survey.
Please fix the factual error - Tatarstan is neither tiny (it is bigger then Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) or independent.
There is no such a thing as free klobasa!
In Soviet Russia, the Tatarstan-window manager owns you!
Tatarstan is not _former_ republic of Russia, it is one of Russian states.
Tatarstan is not tiny - it is one of the most populous and important regions of Russia. Its capital Kazan is one of the most important cities in Russia.
Tatarstan is not independent - it is an autonomy within the Russian Federation.
Tatarstan is not a former Russian republic - see above.
"the tiny independent former Russian republic of Tatarstan"
better fix that before you incur the Ruskie wrath (though you'd deserve it for your ignorance)
On the other hand, we all know that children arrive from the womb conversant in the ways of Windows?
No, but per Microsoft's latest TV commercials in the United States: "I'm a PC, and I'm four and a half." Children will be familiar with Windows after having used it to start PC games at home.
I hope the tiny independent republic of Texas, former state of the U.S., will make a good use of Linux-based systems in its national education.
the tiny independent former Russian republic of Tatarstan
Last I checked it still was a republic inside the Russian Federation.
Its okay, me too. :D
oh... i meant notation .. er.. revolution
er... forget it...
Microsoft only relies on American soil stats of operating systems use. So, Windows is always gaining over linux. World wide, Microsoft is losing ground to MAC, and to Linux.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
The news is not about spending about ~55 million USD on open source software.
It is about including open source software into the centralized public procurement list.
In Hungary all state / public departments have to follow strict public procurement procedures, to fight corruption and make sure that the taxes are spent on the best offer and not on the best lobbysts.
So if you want to buy 5 PCs with software and support for a small public office or a public school, you have to release a tender and wait for a few months until the offers come in... etc.
So, there is a fast-track method called the "centralized public procurement". In this case a central department releases a fairly large tender. The result of the tender is not the actual deal, but a framework contract with the winners and a "price list".
Any state financed organization is allowed to choose products from these price lists without the need for executing their own tenders. The main idea is, that this way even the smallest schools can get a reduced price as if they were ordering 1000s of PCs. However, they will still have to pay the costs from their own budget. So there is no "money infusion" here.
These tenders have a "framework sum" attached to them, which introduces an upper bound on the acquired products and services from the price list.
In theory, this sounds like a great system. Now back to the reality. Usually the prices on these central, reduced price lists are about 30% higher than on the market. The tenders are usually won by large corporations. Small companies usually don't have a chance, or only as subcontractors of the large ones. (Using a chain of subcontractors is usually not the recipe for cheap services, at least not in Hungary...:) )
So the news is about such a tender: the result will be a price list, that lists open source software and associated services. The framework sum will be ~55 million USD.
To get a larger picture: at the same time a very similar tender will be released for Microsoft and Novell software. The framework sum for this tender will also be ~55 million USD.
How does Novell get into the same tender with MS? Last year a similar tender was released, but exclusively for MS software: the tender included an explicit list ranging from Windows to mapping software. The framework sum was ~114 million USD.
There was quite a bit of an outrage about monopoly and corruption, so the government released another tender, but now for Novell software. (The framework sum was probably around ~22 million USD, but I am not sure.) So MS and Novell have already their own price lists.
There were many controversial contracts in the past, like exclusive Microsoft contracts in the public education ... etc. With these latest changes, I hope, that we will have a balanced scene, where the state departments can freely choose the best solutions for them, even with mixed setups, like running OpenOffice.org on Windows.
This new "open source" tender has not yet been released, so we will have to see, if this is just a new price list for e.g. RedHat and other "commercial open source" offerings, or an altogether different construct. There is some hope for the later, because in one interview Gabor Bodi (a state official responsible for the tender) said that they want to give the small local companies the chance.
We will see...
Best Regards,
Gergely
PS: Shameless plug: I started a blog series on this topic on my blog, however the entries are currently only accessible in Hungarian.
Tatarstan is "tiny independent former Russian republic" in the same sense as Texas is "tiny independent former US state"