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See also:

Reasons for public administration to use Free Software.

Survey and Study: Open Source Software in the Public Sector

CSIS Open Source Policy survey

Wikipedia: OpenDocument adoption

Austria

• 2005-01-25: Vienne: Vienne to migrate to OpenOffice.org and GNU/Linux

• 2010-07-23: Linz - region for Free Software (German)

• 2011-07-04: Department of Justice's migration to OpenOffice a success

• 2001-10-18: Ministry of Justice uses FS-based eGovernment application for data warehousing

Belgium

• 2006-07-23: Belgian government chooses OpenDocument

• 2008-10-01: Ministry of Justice: Half of all desktop PCs at ministry of Justice migrated to GNU/Linux

• 2009-10-06: The city of Schoten sets the example: How to be a good player in the free software community

• 2010-09-29: Belgian public administrations organise 4th ODF plugfest

• 2011-02-11: New beta versions of components for eID

• 2011-07-31: Open source tools enrich tool-set at Walloon employment agency

Bulgaria

• 2005-04-20: The Bulgarian municipality of Vratza launched e-services based on free and open source software

Czech Republic

• 2009-06-12: Ministry funds open source document management system

• 2011-06-28: Czech environmental agency relying on open source and open standards

Denmark

• 2009-04-22 Municipality uses OpenOffice and saves a million DKK per year

• 2009-09-00 Roedorve (DK) migration to OOffice (Slideshow about the migration)

• all governmentally ordered software are released as Free Software and available on a governmental portal : /softwareborsen

• Parliament resolution on Open Standards : B103 June 2nd 2006 : “Parliament imposes on the government the duty to ensure that the public sector's use of IT, including use of software, is based on open standards”

• 2009-10-14: Open source software in the Lyngby-Taarbaek Municipality

• 2011-07-01: Students to develop open source software for the Danish public sector

• 2011-08-09: Hospitals in Copenhagen drop MS Office

Estonia

• 2008-05-29: Free Software in Estonia: a long-term policy

• 2010-08-30: Tallin city and college fund poll and referenda application

• 2010-09-28: EE: Government publishes open source policy and starts repository

• 2011-02-14: Ministry saves millions by using openoffice

France

• Agriculture Ministry: "Le ministère de l'Agriculture fait un pas vers (GNU/)Linux"

• National Assembly: "(GNU/)Linux s'installe dans les PC des députés"

• Gendarmerie nationale (national police): La gendarmerie nationale passe à OpenOffice (update: Gendarmerie saves millions with open desktop and web applications

• Tax administration: one PDF and another

• 2010-06-17: Defence ministry : Defence ministry to test Open Source office tools

• 2010-08-27: Marseille city administration can't get rid of vendor lock-in

• 2010-11-22: Vendor independence helps save money at city of Arles

• 2011-02-10: Ruling cancels public procurement tender that excluded FS

• 2011-08-03: France and Tunisia to cooperate in Open Source Software

• 2011-10-13: Council of State clarifies right of local government to opt for open source

• 2011-11-17: Government procuring two million euro worth of FS support

Finland

• 2009-02-25: Government encourages open source use by public administrations

• 2010-12-02: Scientific study into migration proves value of FS

• 2011-01-28: City of Helsinki to start FS desktop pilot

Germany

There is a KBSt letter from 2000 about Free Software. There is also a list of Free Software projects in the German adminstration on KBSt's website Software/OSS-Kompetenzzentrum/Projektsammlung

• Federal administrations:

  • The Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik favours Free Software and pays for development. They also have a good explanation of Free Software

  • 20090220: BMI invests in "open source" (German)

  • 2010-10-29: Resource centre helps public administrations implement open source

• 2011-02-11: Ministry of Foreign Affairs to ditch open source desktop. Previous good news about it:a blog and another and an update from OSOR

• Local adminstrations:

  • Bremen: [http://www.oss.bund.de/node/112 | school administration infrastructure]]

  • Munich (City): Declaration of Independence: The LiMux Project in Munich and Munich picks GNU/Linux

    • 2011-06-28: Munich's move to a vendor independent desktop "on track"

    • 2012-02-23 Success with OpenOffice migration (German)

  • Schwäbisch Hall (City): info in German and in English

    • Staff at Schwäbisch Hall accustomed to vendor independent desktop

  • Jever, 2004: migration from NT to UCS

  • Mannheim, 2005-12-05: Mannheim migrates to FRee Software (Does anybody know the status of this?)

  • Friesland (district), 2008-05-27: migration in German district Friesland on track

  • Wittmund (district), 2009: http://www.oss.bund.de/node/118

  • Freiburg, 2011-01-28: OpenOffice three to four times cheaper

  • Freiburg, 2011-07-28 Office suite monoculture stymies interoperability

  • Gummersbach, 2011-09-28 FS desktops much easier to manage

Greece

• 2011-03-04: First migration of a Greek Public Organization to Free Software

• 2011-08-30: Scriptum open source application enhances the management of public sector services

Hungary

• 2009-01-23: Government withdraws tender requesting proprietary software

• 2009-04-12: Government decides that spending on proprietary software cannot excede spending on free software this link is broken, many pages in the net still link to it. Does anybody have the original source?

• 2009-04-30: Procurement continues to puzzle open source companies

• 2009-09-16: Easier open source implementations for public administrations

• 2010-01-15: Open standards made mandatory for public administrations

• 2011-06-17: Government planning to use vendor-independent document format

• 2011-10-27: City of Miskolc to move to vendor-independent desktop

• 2012-01-04: Open document standards mandatory in Hungary government

Iceland

• Iceland governments Free Software policy

Ireland

• Very cautious approach to FS, rather advocating OSS standards over the use of Free Software themselves. However, a very precise describtion of what OSS is an what it is suited to the Public sector.

• 2011-03-10: Computer Service Board switches to FS

Israel

• 2003-12-30 : Israel suspends acquisition of Microsoft software - waits for Open Source alternatives

• 2003-112-15 : Israel accelerates Free software migration

• 2010-0-10 : Minister of Improvement of Government Services, said that projects under his responsibility will go open source to improve transparency. (sorry for the google translate links, else it was in Hebrew...)

Italy

• National Council for IT: "free software usage observatory"

• South Tyrol public transport: "free software since 1993"

• South Tyrol: "use of OpenOffice.org" and "and also GNU/Linux"

• All Italian-speaking schools: "they all use project FUSS"

• 2007-12-18: Italian Ministry of Economics and Finance uses GNU/Linux for mission-critical apps

• 2008-01-15: Italian Court Selects Red Hat Solutions for Core IT Applications

• 2009-03-17: IT: Head of IT Venice region: 'Open source wherever appropriate'

• 2010-07-07: Bolzano region begins discussion on open source strategy

• 2010-09-23: Italian regional administrations republishing proprietary software as open source

• 2010-12-02: Considering the use of open source is mandatory in South Tyrol

• 2010-12-13: Puglia region makes open source and standards mandatory

• 2011-01-25: Emilia Romagna Region shares findings on open source usage in public administrations

• 2011-02-14: Updated law presses public administrations to share software

• 2011-04-19: Fabriano municipality's embracing Free Software

• 2011-07-27: Puglia region council to approve open source and standards law

• 2011-09-30: Free software and open technologies spur innovation in South Tyrol

Kosovo

• 2004-11-09: Kosovo joins the UNDP FOSS project with the municipality of Klina

Latvia

• Ministry studying open source for government mail and groupware

• 2011-01-21: ODF acceptance mandatory

• 2011-01-26: Valmiera municipality values its vendor independence

• 2011-11-23: Valmiera city council 'saving energy and costs with FS'

Luxemburg

• A non-profit organisation asks for more Open source in Luxembourg

Malta

• 2010-06-01: The Government of Malta asked all their agencies to prefer Free Software in all future purchases (PDF)

• 2010-10-28: Malta government starts consultation to increase use of FS

• 2010-12-02: Culture of open standards disseminated within Government

• 2011-02-28: Government starts open source portal

• 2011-09-20: Number of FS applications on government desktops doubled

Netherlands

• The Netherlands Patent Office changes to open source software

• impementing strategy by NOIV (netherlands) German news entry by heise.de

• Open Standaarden en Open Source Software Ministerie van Economische Zaken

• 2007-12-13: Netherlands supports open standards and open source

• 2009-10-09: Dutch police installs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (via pro-linux German)

• 2011-04-01: Kerkrade wins the ‘Open call for tenders of the year’ award

• 2011-07-28: Half of all public administrations have open source strategy

Norway

• 2007-12-21: Open document standards to be obligatory for state information (implemented 2009-01-01)

• 2008-11-17: seattletimes.nwsource.com: Norway encourages use of open source software

• 2009-07-02: New obligatory IT standards for the state sector adopted (See also FOR 2009-09-25 nr 1222: Forskrift om IT-standarder i offentlig forvaltning.)

• 2009-07-08: Media formats become obligatory open standards as well (via pro-linux.de (German) and linuxnews.pl (polisch) )

• 2009-10-14: Friprog awards Kongsberg municipality

• 2010-11-24: All regions and nearly all municipalities now use FS

Poland

• 2010-11-24 Poznań city's e-Government platform built on open source components

• 2011-10-11: Deputy Prime Minister calls FLOSS “the greatest success of the 20th century” and mentions some samples where FS is already being used in Poland

• 2011-10-18: Local administration of Goleniów having difficulties to use even more FS because of governments vendor lock-in

Portugal

• 2008-05-08: General secretary of ministry of culture migrates to Thunderbird

• 2009-03-06: The largest platform Portuguese eProcurement excludes enterprises that operate with computer technologies other than Microsoft

• 2011-03-02: The Administration of the Tagus Valley Hydrographical Region publishes a case study on the use of open source GIS software

• 2011-04-13: Open standards become prerequisite for government IT

Romania

• 2010-09-16: Romania to develop national open source IT policy

• 2011-02-28: Romanian government not against, nor in favour of open source

• 2011-05-24: Minister: 'Open source recommended wherever appropriate'

• 2011-08-15: Interoperability requirements force Ministry to block FS

• 2011-08-23: Doubts over validity of Romanian ministry's banning of FS

Russia

• 2009-03-02: Russian Government IT Development Strategy: Free and Open Source Software (en); http://cnews.ru/news/top/index.shtml?2009/03/11/340321 (ru); http://www.pro-linux.de/news/2009/13929.html (de)

• 2010-10-28: Russian government to invest in open source desktop

• 2010-12-27: Putin Orders Russian Move to GNU/Linux

Slovenia

• 2011-02-28: Slovenian public administrations moving to open source desktops

Spain

• The Spanish IT competence centre CENATIC has published a detailed report on the use of Free Software in the Spanish public administration. It has lots of example cases, as well as analysis of legal aspects and a look at strengths and weaknesses. Should make an interesting read.

• LWN article on GNU/Linux in Spain (Debian news entry about the same subject)

• OSOR: Zaragoza's move to complete open source desktop going to plan

• 2010-08-27: Andalusia government studying switch to FS desktop

• 2010-20-18 Andalucia steps back from Free Software policy

• 2010-10-19 A Xunta humilla á comunidade de Software Libre : 5Mio EUR paid for Microsoft licences

• 2010-10-21: Public administrations in Axarquia moving to open source desktops

• 2010-10-28: Andalusia: 'Open source has helped save millions of Euro'

• 2011-01-25: Basque Government will make other institutions benefit from its successful Open Source experience

• 2011-02-24: Donostia-San Sebastián City Council installs open source document management system

• 2011-02-28: Zaragoza: 'Spain's public sector major driver open source desktop'

• 2011-04-18: Asturias region adopts FS technology for local government

• 2011-06-02: FS widely used by the regional government of Extremadura

• 2011-06-23: Open process and vendor independence dearest to public administrations

• 2011-07-06: Two surveys launched to collect indicators on Open Source in Spain

• 2011-09-09: Government of Castile-La Mancha to drive Free Software innovation within MORFEO community

• 2011-09-26: Provincial government grants financial support to free software companies association

• 2011-09-28: National Statistics Institute says 90 % of Spanish public authorities implement Free Software

• 2012-01-18: Cenatic: developing software in communities of public administrations

Sweden

• The Swedish national Police is using free software and are talking about the benefits. They got some things right but are reffering to "open source".

• The Swedish municipality Motala uses free software in schools and administration. There are several articles about it in swedish. Here is one example.

• The Swedish municipality Eksjö is also using free software in schools. This article mentions both Motala and Eksjö (as well as the Swedish Military).

• 2008-09-25: ODF made national standard

• 2011-05-24: Framework agreement increases use of FS

Switzerland

• 2010-09-17: Application lock-in and protest from users halt open desktop

• 2011-01-26: Public spending cuts for cantons using or migrating to free software

• 2011-04-15: Free software to allow access to Confederation geoportal via mobile terminals

• 2011-06-27: Geneva abandoning its open source email and office strategy

• 2011-06-30: Swiss MP wants administrations to dispel misconceptions open source

• 2011-09-04: Swiss court is allowed to release OpenJustitia under GPLv3

Turkey

• National Research Institute of Electronics and Cryptology (UEKAE) develops its own GNU/Linux distribution PARDUS

Ukraine

• 2010-09-02: Ukraine is working on own GNU/Linux distribution (German) (Russian)

United Kingdom

• 2010-01: Since January, United Kingdom has released a lot of public data, for use in applications any interested developper can imagine. Not only this is great news for all free society enthousiastics, but the platform itself makes a lot of use of Free Software. According to the presentation held by Prof Nigel Shadbolt (University of Southampton), the platform is based on Joomla and Mediawiki, and its data representation relies on Tim Berners Lee's open standard Linked Data.

• 2007-02-00: Birmingham libraries: "report of failure"

• 20090225: Government to actively and fairly consider open source solutions

• 2010-07-12: Idea of her Majesty’s Treasury: Switch to Free Software

• 2010-10-02: Data.gov.uk releases Open Source code

• 2011-02-11: 'UK government committed to open source'

• 2011-03-07: Opponents of open source criticise new procurement rules

• 2011-09-05: Government Commitment To Open Source Flounders

Other Resources

UK Government ICT Strategy resources

Out of Europe

South Africa

• South Africa’s IT agency to migrate to open source in coming year (short article in German)

China

• China's use of free software

India

• One year of Free Software implementation in ELCOT - the score card

Vietnam

• The Ministry of Information and Communications has issued an instruction on using open source software products at state agencies (via this article in German)

Argentina

• Municipality of Rosario: "Ordenanza Nº 7787 / 2004"

Brasil

• Brazilian Election Supreme Court migrates 430 thousand voting machines to GNU/Linux

• 2008-09-28: Brazil begins using the Open Document Format

• Case studies on migrations of Brazilian public institutions (in Portuguese)

• Brazil: Free Software's Biggest and Best Friend

• Why Brazil loves Linux

Ecuador

• Success for free software in Latin America!

Venezuela

• Jeff Zucker's 2005 status description

• http://www.migrandovenezuela.org/index.php?title=Portada%20Migrando%20Venezuela

Mexico

• Gobierno GDF/Linux

Canada

• 20090205: Canadian government eyes open source, asks for feedback Further information sources

• Debian in the Public Sector

• The European Commissions IDABC list of case studies

• (French) Migrations vers les logiciels libres

• Cases of official recognition/adoption of F/OSS

• Study on the: Economic impact of open source software on innovation and the competitiveness of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector in the EU (Pro-Linux article about the study in German)

• A study of the Fraunhofer institute documenting the advantages of "open source" software, Nov 2006 (German)

• "Open Source" Observatory and Repository for European public administrations

• oss-watch.ac.uk collection of "open source" policies

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CategoryAdvocacy