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[News] Governments in Romania and India Talk About Free Software

  • Subject: [News] Governments in Romania and India Talk About Free Software
  • From: Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:32:23 +0000
  • Followup-to: comp.os.linux.advocacy
  • Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
  • User-agent: KNode/4.3.1
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ICI is involved in Romulus European project of framework programme 7

,----[ Quote ]
| The Bucharest-based Research and Development 
| Institute for Informatics (ICI) took part in 
| the framework programme 7 European project, 
| named Romulus, on domain driven design, 
| based on Open Source for pragmatic, reliable 
| and secure, Web software development. 
| 
| [...]
| 
| âThe software created as part of the project 
| is especially meant for people who want to 
| work with open-source, which makes it 
| possible for them to create their own pages 
| on the Internet,â explained Laura Ciocoiu, 
| ICI researcher.
`----

http://www.financiarul.ro/2010/03/13/ici-is-involved-in-romulus-european-project-of-framework-programme-7/

âItâs A Huge Challenge, I Thank The FMâ

,----[ Quote ]
| Open Source and Linux as a platform is 
| gaining acceptance in the government, 
| especially at the state level. Should there 
| be a progressive move to adopt open source 
| software in the government?
| 
| I think technology choices have to be made 
| as appropriate for each project
`----

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?264658

Silicon Dreams

,----[ Quote ]
| As expected, with such big e-governance 
| projects in the horizon, the old debate of 
| open source versus proprietary software is 
| getting resurrected. But despite Nilekaniâs 
| overwhelming engagement with proprietary 
| softwareâInfosys has a lot of business with 
| Microsoftâthe open source lobby is quite 
| enthusiastic at his arrival in the policy 
| lounge. Says corporate affairs director, Red 
| Hat, Venkatesh Hariharan: âI am hopeful 
| that, as a veteran technologist, Nandan can 
| bring some of these best practices to the 
| world of e-government.â This optimism comes 
| from Nilekaniâs hard bargain for open source 
| software in a 2006 report as chairman of a 
| special group on e-governance under the 
| Knowledge Commission. Advocating the case 
| for open source software, the report had 
| said: âBecause of the enormous size and 
| scope of e-governance effort in India...we 
| must actively encourage, wherever possible, 
| open source software implementations and 
| open standards.â
| 
| But open source evangelists warn, âThere 
| could be political pressure if he openly 
| favours open source software for government 
| projects because of the monetary and 
| political muscle of proprietary software 
| companiesâ. And that is where Nilekaniâs 
| skills and strength as an administrator 
| would be tested.
`----

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?264656


Recent:

Tatomir, Microsoft: We have more Bentleys than Poland

,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft Romania, the local subsidiary of world's biggest software producer
| would end the fiscal 2009 (July 1 2008 - July 3 2009) with a 10-15% decline
| in revenues, thus missing the growth estimates made at the end of last year
| by 1 to 4%, stated Calin Tatomir, the company's chief executive.
`----

http://www.zf.ro/zf-english/tatomir-microsoft-we-have-more-bentleys-than-poland-4607712/


Romania Issues â100 Million To Microsoft Without Bids

,----[ Quote ]
| The government has announced it will pay â300 million (Â262 million) to a
| Romanian IT company for PCs and Microsoft software licences for use in
| education (see Google translation), while also directly paying Microsoft â100
| million (Â87 million)  for software licences to be used in government
| agencies between 2010 and 2012 (see Google translation). The country is also
| paying â58 million (Â50 million)  this autumn for its existing 2004 to 2009
| framework agreement.
|
| The problem of contracts that are not tendered properly is rampant across
| Europe, and wastes public funds that could be better spent elsewhere, says
| Georg Greve, president of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE). The
| Swiss government issuing a contract to Microsoft for Â8 million a year,
| without a tender), and cases may be more extreme in Eastern Europe, he said.
|
| "This decision of the Romanian government seems careless and endangers the
| country's sustainable economic growth by increasing its dependency on
| proprietary software and by wasting funds that would have been better used
| elsewhere, for instance on infrastructure," said Greve.
`----

http://www.eweekeurope.co.uk/news/romania-issues--100-million-to-microsoft-without-bids-1003


Microsoft Makes Itself at Home in Transylvania

,----[ Quote ]
| In what is perhaps a sign of desperation, Microsoft is really pushing
| governments around the world to sign up to el cheapo mega-deals that they
| think they can't refuse. The FSFE's Georg Greve points out to me in an email
| that there's an interesting angle to this story in Romania...
`----

http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/05/microsoft-makes-itself-at-home-in.html


RO: Proprietary licence deal draws ire open source proponents

,----[ Quote ]
| The Romanian government is about to spend millions of euro on proprietary
| software, drawing flak from the country's budding open source movement. "This
| government is out of touch with reality."
|
| The Romanian government announced its renewal of a framework software licence
| with Microsoft in the middle of May. The framework licence deal is worth 100
| million euro in software licences to be used by government agencies between
| 2010 and 2012. Romania will also pay the software giant another 58 million
| euro this fall, as the final payment for the 2004 - 2009 framework licence
| agreement that expired last month.
`----

http://www.osor.eu/news/ro-proprietary-licence-deal-draws-ire-open-source-proponents


Related:

Status of Ubuntu Romanian Localization Team

,----[ Quote ]
| This is the first post from a series of status updates for the localization
| activity of Ubuntu Romanian  Localization team.
|
| Right now Ubuntu is translated into Romanian in 27.5 %, with almoust all
| GNOME and configuration utilities translated, including the live cd menu,
| installation program and Ubuntu guides.
`----

http://adi.roiban.ro/?p=68


"Then, they fight you"

,----[ Quote ]
| I asked the organizers if our Free Software Group could hold a short session
| about the benefits of FOSS in education, with references to Ubuntu, Edubuntu
| and Kiwilinux and we were given a slot after the ones which had already been
| planned a while ago - those of Microsoft, Cisco and a local company that
| sells education software for Romanian schools.
|
| [...]
|
| It is sad to know they are resorting to this sort of coercing and that they
| have such influence over the educators but looking on the bright side of it,
| and that's how I perceived it after thinking a bit about it, THEY ARE
| SCARED :)
`----

http://janimo.blogspot.com/2008/05/then-they-fight-you.html


OOXML vote in Romania, signs of committee stuffing

,----[ Quote ]
| Today four have joined the committee, all of them seem to be MS partners
| (Fujitsu-Siemens is one of them, the others are local software companies).
| The sad thing is that these companies or people have not shown interest in
| the subject so far, have not participated in the 6 months online debate but
| are probably going to cast their vote in favor of OOXML . What they are doing
| is perfectly legal, after all anyone can join the committe, but it's sad to
| see attempts at public debate and the chances of it changing something
| getting offset by throwing money at the problem at the last minute.
|
| I'll keep an update on how things are progressing and the results and details
| of the vote when it happens.
`----

http://janimo.blogspot.com/2008/03/ooxml-vote-in-romania-signs-of.html


Romania says yes to OOXML once again

,----[ Quote ]
| For months, OOXML and Microsoft have taken over any other subject on this
| forum. The pro and con debates were heated, numerous and lengthy.
|
| In all this time, OOXML supporters have utterly failed to offer any solid
| argument for OOXMLâs adoption, while opposing arguments were abundant. The
| only coherent pro-OOXML statements boiled down to the same tired FUD that
| Microsoft has put together, repeated ad-nauseam, in spite of all the rich and
| detailed counter-arguments.
|
| [...]
|
| Therefore I feel justified in believing that âballot-stuffingâ was performed
| by Microsoft-friendly entities with the purpose of swaying the vote to an
| OOXML-favorable outcome.
|
| [...]
|
| It will come as no surprise that many of the other recent members are
| Microsoft business partners.
|
| Therefore I feel justified in believing that âballot-stuffingâ was performed
| by Microsoft-friendly entities with the purpose of swaying the vote to an
| OOXML-favorable outcome.
|
| I will stress, for the sake of clarity, that there has been neither public
| nor official statement so far regarding the CT210 members. Weâre not supposed
| to even know who they are, officially.
|
| [...]
|
| I repeat: thereâs a total lack of transparency. So far, the way I understand
| it (and I Am Not A Lawyer) ASRO seems to put its internal regulations over
| the laws of the state, one of which states: âthe following basic principles
| must be followed in national standardization: [â] transparency and public
| availabilityâ.
|
| If I am wrong and ASROâs position holds water, it will mean that the Romanian
| states is confortable entrusting its standardization to a body who can act in
| a completely opaque manner should it choose so. A very strange and disturbing
| notion, but there you have it.
|
| <h3>3. The conclusion</h3>
|
| The public debate on TIC-Lobby in the months leading up to the March vote
| have shown a staggering amount of arguments against adopting OOXML as a
| standard. There were links, tehnical details, technical experiments.
|
| The counter-arguments have been weak, obstinate and often repeated. Even when
| begged to do so, OOXML supporters have failed to put together even the
| smallest document containing arguments for their position.
|
| In the end, CT210 fell victim to ballot stuffing and ASRO is currently
| refusing to disclose any information other than the vote distribution.
`----

http://aranea.zuavra.net/index.php/97/
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