FLOSS in Government at Robert Pogson

Politicians tend to be reactionary. They see which way the wind is blowing and run that way to maximize votes and ensure re-election. The fact that politicians are stepping up and promoting FLOSS is a sure sign that FLOSS is “there”.

See an Italian politician pushing for legislation preferring FLOSS, The four free software rights in draft law in Italy's Calabria region.

It’s not just individual politicians sticking their heads out of the foxhole. “The council of the Italian region of Puglia on Wednesday unanimously voted in favour of a law encouraging its public administrations to use free and open source software and to make publicly available its data. It is the first law that combines open source and open data, reports Leggi Oggi, an Italian legal news site.”

and it’s not just Italy:

Finland,
Spain,
France, and of course,
Germany

and others have all made significant moves to using more FLOSS in government. It’s all good.

FLOSS and GNU/Linux are cooperative projects of the world to create and use good software. It makes sense for governments of all sizes to participate in this global movement to make the best use of IT and to share software-efforts. It makes no sense for taxpayers to be on the Wintel treadmill. Collectively we can use Free Software for the benefit of all.

I recommend Debian GNU/Linux because it makes the best use of your hardware and costs very little to obtain or to install. The Debian organization gathers FLOSS from everywhere and puts it into convenient packages for installation and updates, making it easy to maintain large or small IT-systems.

My Mission

My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. I do not care whether my solution is the same as yours. I like to think for myself.

My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. I have been blessed by working in schools where students and school systems have benefited by good, modular software easily installed in most systems.

I have shown GNU/Linux to thousands of students and hundreds of teachers over the years and will continue in some way doing that until I die in spite of the opposition.