publicOSS » Migration

Governments as providers

Edgar Maldonado — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:50:18 +0000

Reading Colin Charles’ blog I found out about MyMeeting. MyMeeting is a web application to manage meetings (decisions, schedules, etc.), and according to MyMeeting’s website is the “first fully open source package” that the government of Malaysia have released. Its really good news that governments committed to the FLOSS agenda follow their principles and release their developments. As Colin Charles, I recommend to take a look of it and use it (I know how hard is to get positive results form meetings).

Charles also asked “How many more governments out there are writing and releasing open source software packages?”. I know a few, so I thought it is a good idea to put together some kind of list. Therefore, I created a table using ZOHO with that information: Governments’ FLOSS.

If you are one of the few that read these lines and know about a project release by a government, I will welcome your suggestions.

The Peruvian case

Edgar Maldonado — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 05:03:26 +0000

When you look on the Internet for governments and FLOSS, the case of Peru is one of the first you are going to find. The letter that the Peruvian congressman David Villanueva Nuñez wrote to Microsoft is a classic.

Nevertheless, there is not a Peruvian legislative tool that makes FLOSS mandatory or recommends its use in public settings. What exists is the Law 28612 (2005) that recognizes the existence of FLOSS and opens the door to any governmental institution to consider this kind of software. The regulation of the Law (Decree 24-2006-PCM) gives the guidelines of the technical report that should be written prior any software purchase (cost analysis, risks, etc.)

If you want more information about the FLOSS movement in Peru, I recommend you to contact the people of APESOL (they also have a cool banner):

Printing

Edgar Maldonado — Wed, 14 May 2008 21:43:28 +0000

While I was visiting Venezuela, I observed that most of the printers that you find in a governmental office were HP (at least on those offices that I visited). A person, that is a subject in my thesis so I cannot talk about him/her, explained to me why HP was dominant. I won’t go further in his/her explanation (you would have to read my thesis), but you could check the page of the Linux Foundation. Specifically that is the page that describe how Linux-friendly are the printers by brand. Then, you will understand.

The government is one of the biggest buyers of office supplies in any country (that includes printers and ink). If I were a printer company, I would try to approach the FLOSS community.