Activities/world_Policies_overview_FS

Introduction

On this wiki page, we attempt to provide an overview of the laws and policies that exist outside of Europe, together with some practical examples of existing digital solutions developed for public administrations as Free Software. If you are working for Free Software in your country, it is useful for you to know what your government says about the topic. Comparisons between different countries can also be instructive.

Many countries in the world have laws and recommendations referring to the procurement of Free Software and Open Standards. Many countries already use and/or build their public digital solutions based on Free Software.

We also provide an overview for Europe.

Join in and help us make this overview the best it can be!

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Africa
    1. Ethiopia
    2. Mauritius
    3. South Africa
  3. Australia
    1. Australia
    2. New Zealand
  4. Asia
    1. Central Asia
    2. Eastern Asia
      1. Hong Kong
      2. Japan
      3. Republic of Korea
    3. North Asia
      1. Russia
    4. Southeastern Asia
      1. Philippines
      2. Singapore
    5. Southern Asia
      1. India
    6. Western Asia
  5. America
    1. Central America
      1. Guatemala
    2. North America
      1. Canada
      2. Mexico
      3. US
    3. South America
      1. Argentina
      2. Bolivia
      3. Brazil
      4. Paraguay
      5. Venezuala
  6. Europe
    1. Eastern Europe
      1. Russia
    2. Southeastern Europe
      1. Kosovo
      2. FYR Macedonia

Africa

Ethiopia

As part of the country's digitalisation strategy, the Ethiopian government has planned and carried out repositories that are concerned with developing Ethiopian related apps, chatbots, APIs, AI etc,

Mauritius

Mauritius has NOSECC, the National Open Source Excellence and Competence Centre, established in Government in 2014 by the Ministry of Technology, Communication and Innovation.

South Africa

The South African Government's Economic Development Department has produced Free Software affiliated with its tasks for coordinating the country's new growth path.

Australia

Australia

Australia have instituted the development of policy for biodiversity and conservation with the augmentation of Free Software - for instance, in the databasing of species populations et cetera. This is one example of 21 national government organisations that have licensed Free Software in the year 2018. The list also includes dta.gov.au, a site for the Australian Government's Digital Transformation Agency.

New Zealand

New Zealand activated a government repository for Free Software initiatives in 2015.

Asia

Central Asia

Eastern Asia

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is known in the community for its policies surrounding its data portal, served by Government for Cantonese citizens. The portal is Free Software for CKAN.

Japan

Japan's Information Access Division, Geospatial Information Authority is likewise a government repository for Free Software, intending to allow citizens' detailed access to the country's Geography as a policy intiative.

Republic of Korea

In the South Korean Government, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport facilitates policy with Free Software and vice versa. Up until 2018, the Government Ministry has created 3 instances of licensed software.

North Asia

Russia

In October 2016, an attempt was made by lower chamber of the Russian Federation's Duma by creating a draft bill that gives precedence to Free Software in public procurement. The draft bill gives precedence to local IT businesses that offer Free Software for public tenders, and codifies the definition of Free Software according to 4 freedoms it grants its users. However later the legislation was changed to give preference to "russian" software and not Free Software.

Southeastern Asia

Philippines

The Republic of the Phillipines has a government repository, which includes a Government Portal project licensed with GPL-3.0.

Singapore

Singapore's Government Digital Services instigate Free Software as part of their objectives to transform the delivery of Government policy for end-users. Up until 2018, the organisation has licensed 65 instances of Free Software.

Southern Asia

India

One instance of Free Software policy in India takes place in the state of Kerala. Kerala's government policy for Media Literacy is orchestrated with Free Software as a directive. That is, the state government established the Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE) in 2001 - it's repository for Free Software is on Github.

Western Asia

America

Central America

Guatemala

Guatemala's Ministry for Public Finance has established the use of Free Software on its repository.

North America

Canada

Canada is sharing several software solutions under Free Software licenses:

Furthermore, here the response by the Treasury Board of Canada to public feedback on missing Free Software considerations in last Open Government Plan.

Mexico

Mexico manages resources for government policy within its Open Data project that is updated on the Government's Mexico Open repository.

US

In 2013, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology (S&T) conducted a study based on interviews with Free Software experts, suppliers, and potential users, including government contractors and government employees. The study concluded that many interviewees stressed that contracts should require that software developed with government funding be maximally shared, developed collaboratively, and provide full data rights to the government; and emphasised that the government should release such software as Free Software by default.

In March 2016, the US Government published a draft of Source Code Policy Archive (pdf) for the public to comment upon. The policy requires every public agency to publish their custom-build software as Free Software for other public agencies as well as for the general public to use, study, share and improve the software. In August 2016, Federal Government released it as the Federal Source Code Policy. The new policy requires for each of the next 3 years, at least 20 percent of custom-developed Federal source code to be released as Free Software. The Federal Source Code Policy was issued in August 2016, and in November 2016 US government launched code.gov, a principal platform hosting federal government’s custom-developed software released as Free Software.

In 2016, the interdisciplinary research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the MIT Media Lab, changed their internal procedure of software release to eliminate the unnecessary administrative hurdle of approving the release of software under Free Software license by an internal committee: since the change of policy, any Free Software request is viewed as the default and is being automatically approved.

South America

Argentina

Argentina share a Franco-Argentinian international centre for information systems with France. The institute's repository has been established to develop Free Software for inputting data and information within databases.

Bolivia

In 2002, the Agency for the Development of the Information Society in Bolivia (ADSIB) was created by Supreme Decree 26553. In 2015, ADSIB enabled groundbreaking tools for presenting HTML using Free Software - called reveal.js

Brazil

The most well-known governmental programme that integrates Free Software with policy in Brazil is Interlegis. Interlegis' mission is to digitalise the rule of law in Municipal, State and Federal levels. Up until 2018, the programme has licensed 109 instances of Free Software with the following: MIT, AGPL-3.0, Apache-2.0, GPL-3.0, ISC, GPL-2.0, BSD-2-Clause, MPL-2.0, LGPL-3.0.

Paraguay

Paraguay has a National Secretariat of Information and Communication Technologies (SENATICS) that upgrades Free Software alongside government activity.

Venezuala

Venezuala has implemented SUSCERTE, the Superintendence of Electronic Certification Services, established in 2001 by the Government of Venezuela. Since 2014, this inquisition has adopted Free Software in their undertakings.

Europe

Eastern Europe

Russia

In October 2016, an attempt was made by lower chamber of the Russian Federation's Duma by creating a draft bill that gives precedence to Free Software in public procurement. The draft bill gives precedence to local IT businesses that offer Free Software for public tenders, and codifies the definition of Free Software according to 4 freedoms it grants its users. However later the legislation was changed to give preference to "russian" software and not Free Software.

Southeastern Europe

Kosovo

All licenses and certificates introduced by Government ministries and agencies are monitored and valued by civil society through a Government-made Free Software: an OPI Platform called Map-Ashi.

FYR Macedonia

In 2010, the Ministry for information society, together with several NGOs, businesses and universities, initiated and led the project of the National policy for Free Software (in Macedonian). The policy promoted inter alia open standards, and to publish every state funded project in education and research as Free Software. The policy also promoted the priority given to Free Software in public procurement, and the incentive to familiarise government officials with Free Software and to promote general digital skills independent from a particular vendor.

Unfortunately, since completing a draft of the policy in 2011, the project has been indefinitely postponed.

Activities/world_Policies_overview_FS (last edited 2019-12-05 11:23:53 by bonnie)