Saturday 04 February 2012 Government 2.0: The Road Ahead
Spanish county moving all desktops to open source

This move to open source can expect other advantages, such as the freedom to use, change, copy, distribute software and the use of open standards

Spain: Spanish county of Axarquía is planning to install open source software in desktops in all its government offices—targets about 700 PCs in first phase—to help bridge the gap between a public administration and its citizens.

Once the migration is completed, more than 3,000 desktop PCs in the county will have been moved to open source, reports ePractice.

To help users to select open source alternatives to proprietary software, IT administrators have developed 'Inventory Libre', an application that scans a PC, determines its hardware capabilities and draws up a list of software that is currently installed and used.

Where proprietary applications can not be replaced, they will be made available on a central server, where they can be accessed from the user's open source desktop PC.

García Pérez, who is working in an IT company and involved in the migration process, said that the county expected significant cost savings on licence fees due to the ongoing migration.

"Public administrations moving to open source can expect other advantages, such as the freedom to use, change, copy, distribute software and the use of open standards. It will help make the governments IT more secure," Perez said.
 
The county has about two lakh inhabitants and is located in the northeast of the province of Malaga. In total the county in the autonomous region of Andalusia and employs about 1,500 civil servants.
—iGovernment Bureau

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