Ubuntu-Pakistan Croatian government adopts open source software policy Tuesday August 22, 2006

[Fouad Riaz Bajwa]

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Croatian government adopts open source software policy Tuesday August 22,
2006 (08:01 PM GMT)
By: Koen Vervloesem
http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=06/08/11/1855229

Last month the Croatian government adopted an open source software policy
and issued guidelines for developing and using open source software in the
government institutions. The Croatian government is concerned that
proprietary software leads to too much dependence on the software suppliers.
Open source software will make the government's work more transparent,
according to the government's document, entitled "Open Source Software
Policy."

The document includes the following guidelines:

    * Government institutions will choose and/or develop open source
solutions as much as possible, instead of using closed source alternatives.
    * The government will support development of closed source solutions
that use open standards for protocols and file formats, and which are
developed in Croatia.
    * The government will support the use of open source programs and open
standards outside of its institutions.
    * The government will support the use of open source solutions in
educational institutions; both closed and open source solutions will be
equally presented to students.

Domagoj Juricic, deputy state secretary at the Central State Administrative
Office for e-Croatia and the leader of this project, explains what made the
government publish the policy: "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.

"This is a policy document," Juricic emphasizes, "which means that the
Croatian government has recognised the importance of market alternatives
considering the platforms, tools, and other solutions that could help us
build a qualitative e-society. As in other political or economic examples,
our government should have an opinion on something that is rising on the
market and that is interesting from the point of building a domestic ICT
market. The Croatian government has never discriminated against any
platform, but never before we have put that as a political statement, and
that's what this policy is all about. This is our first public document that
mentions the use of open source software, and it presents some kind of
recommendation to our administrative bodies. The policy is not about
replacing something, it is about treating things equally."

Inspired by the EU

The Croatian guidelines are inspired by activities of the European Union in
the same spirit. The European Commission Action Plan 2000 had already
established a set of goals for the development of a European information
society. Stimulating the use of open source software in the public sector
and the development of an electronic government administration were the two
main goals. "The dependence on a supplier of proprietary software has been
identified as one of the most significant obstacles for the new EU i2010
programme, entitled 'A European Information Society for growth and
employment,'" Juricic says. "The same obstacle has been pointed out as the
reason for slowing down market competition in the information and
communications sector. Therefore, it has been established that open source
software and open standards must be built into the EU information and
communications market."

Croatia applied for membership of the European Union in 2003, and the
European Council granted it candidate country status in 2004. This could be
one of the reasons Croatia wants to follow the European guidelines for the
information society. In late 2003, the government of Croatia adopted the
eCroatia 2007 programme, in accordance with the EU recommendations. The main
goals of the programme are to provide the citizens and firms of the country
with timely information and to become a transparent and efficient service.
"In order to achieve this task," Juricic says, "we have to use open
standards and open source software that will enable interoperability of
computer systems in different administration fields."

Interoperability, transparency, and money

"The state administration bodies create and exchange a lot of electronic
documents," Juricic says. "There is a great danger that documents cannot be
opened and presented in readable form after a certain time, because we don't
have the licence anymore of the proprietary software, or the vendor can
seize support of the old types of documents. Therefore we require the state
administration bodies to use open standards for creating electronic
documents."

One of the key factors in the reform of the Croatian government's
administration is transparency. "The public has the right to have full
insight into operations of state administration bodies, including the
computer software. Proprietary software providing services to the citizens
reduces the transparency of the government."

It's also about money, Juricic says. "Because of the dependence on a small
number of proprietary software vendors, the competition on the domestic
information and communications services market is reduced, while the
administration bodies often do not have sufficient funds.
Therefore, we will obligate principles of openness and freedom of use for
the procurement of public information services. This will direct the
administration bodies towards open source software and open standards. Open
source software enables more rational distribution of state budget funds,
because it creates the environment in which domestic suppliers and
manufacturers may be more actively involved in any phase of the development,
maintenance, and use of the systems.
This will also reduce the total public expenses of providing services to the
citizens, thereby managing the taxpayers' money economically."

These guidelines are in sharp contrast with the present situation. As a
result of having no clearly established guidelines for procurement and use
of software in state administration bodies, IT experts of the different
bodies procure software which, in their opinion, is best suited to their
requirements. This is often proprietary software, which makes modifying the
software difficult, and often impossible.
Mostly, the administration bodies keep using the same software because of
existing business relations.

With the new guideline, the Croatian government will to the greatest
possible extent avoid the use of software that makes connecting with other
software or date exchange between different information systems impossible.
In case this is not possible because of already operational proprietary
software, Juricic says, "All subsequent upgrading and modifications have to
be based on open source software and open standards."

Vlatko Kosturjak, president of the Croatian Linux User Group (Hrvatska
Udruga Linux Korisnika), calls the guidelines "a pretty good start for a
quicker adoption of open source software and open standards in Croatia. In
the past, the government IT bodies have to take risks themselves if they
want to use open source software. With the open source software policy, even
the more conservative IT departments will feel safe now implementing open
source software."

If the Croatian government develops its own software, it will to the
greatest possible extent create software based on open standards. It will
also promote development of open source software and the development of
proprietary software based on open standards. It will promote the use of
open source software and open standards outside the state administration
bodies: in the public sector, the economy, and public services. And it will
promote translation into Croatian of open source software.

The Croatian government will also promote the development of course
materials to educate civil servants in the area of open source software and
open standards. It will promote integrating the knowledge of open source
software into educational programmes. Open source and proprietary software
will be presented equally in order to prepare the younger generations for
independent decision-making.

The future

It's still unclear what the practical consequences of the policy will be.
"There are still many questions to be answered," Juricic admits.
"We will see what this policy will bring to us in real life. For the moment,
it is important to declare that we're really open for all solutions which
are secure, interoperable, and cost-effective. Our next step will be forming
a list of ICT standards to use."

Kosturjak warns against euphoria with the policy. "Although the Croatian
open source community is very positive about the open source software
policy, we'll see how serious the Croatian government is when the next step
comes: the implementation of the policy. This will not be easy, as there are
obvious practical problems. For example, most of the government bodies have
now proprietary technologies together with proprietary file formats
implemented in their IT systems. Migration to open standards and open source
software can be technically difficult and painful. From the non-technical
point of view, this is also a political and financial issue. We (the open
source advocates) hope that the Croatian government will have the strength
to actually implement the open source policy. Until that moment, the policy
is just like an unsent letter."

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Forwarded for information purposes by:
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Fouad Riaz Bajwa



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