The Government of Jordan and Ingres announced last week that they plan to work together to increase the use of open source software starting with the university system in Jordan. Students will have an opportunity to learn about and begin working on open source projects as a way to train the next group of up and coming technology workers. This program will also provide free certification, additional training, an open source laboratory environment and more with the goal of making Jordan the regional leader in open source technologies.
These efforts in Jordan are part of a larger open source trend in governments around the world. Here are just a few of the many examples:
While some governments (UK & US) are focused on making sure that their procurement groups are evaluating open source solutions along with similar proprietary solutions to make sure that they pick the solutions that best meet their needs with a balance between required features and cost, other governments (Vietnam) are putting a preference on open source software to reduce IT costs and avoid being locked into licensing agreements with software vendors. Whatever the reasons, we are seeing more and more governments seriously considering open source solutions, and I expect to see further increases in government usage of open source software in 2010.
These efforts in Jordan are part of a larger open source trend in governments around the world. Here are just a few of the many examples:
- The UK Government is accelerating the use of open source in schools, government departments and public services by making sure that open source is considered as one of the potential solutions as part of the procurement processes for new software.
- Vietnam has a goal of migrating government software to open source by the end of 2010 with a focus on Open Office, Firefox, Thunderbird and other open source software.
- Munich, Germany is making extensive use of open source software on municipal PCs, including Thunderbird and Open Office.
- The United States has made a number of recent moves toward open source: the whitehouse.gov move to Drupal, the memo from the Department of Defense (DoD): Clarifying Guidance on Open Source Software, and more.
While some governments (UK & US) are focused on making sure that their procurement groups are evaluating open source solutions along with similar proprietary solutions to make sure that they pick the solutions that best meet their needs with a balance between required features and cost, other governments (Vietnam) are putting a preference on open source software to reduce IT costs and avoid being locked into licensing agreements with software vendors. Whatever the reasons, we are seeing more and more governments seriously considering open source solutions, and I expect to see further increases in government usage of open source software in 2010.