Pemerintah Korea Integrasikan Data Center, Tetapkan Patok Ukur Baru Pada IT E-Government (Bagian 1)

Badan negara komputasi dan Informatika Korea Selatan "National Computing & Information Agency-NCIA", telah mulai mewujudkan sebuah ide agar pemerintah menempatkan semua sumber daya IT yang dimiliki semua lembaga pemerintah secara terpusat di satu tempat dan mengelolanya sebagai sumber daya IT yang terintegrasi,hal ini diungkapkan oleh Kim Kyung-sup, presiden NCIA. NCIA menjadi satu-satunya didunia yang berfungsi sebagai Pusat Data Pemerintah Terintegrasi atau GIDC (Government Integrated Data Center). Saat ini, NCIA menjadi rujukan untuk "Tolak Ukur untuk GIDC" dan diakui sebagai salah satu solusi e-Government terbaik di dunia, ujar Dr. Kim. Klaimnya mengenai ini dikuatkan oleh Survey e-Government PBB tahun 2010, dimana Korea menempati peringkat pertama dari 192 negara yang disurvei. Pada tahun 2005 menduduki peringkat ke-5 dan pada tahun 2002 peringkat ke-15. 

"Tidak ada pemerintah lain di dunia ini yang pernah mencoba pekerjaan ini. Pada mulanya, sejumlah orang bersikap skeptis terhadap capaian sukses proyek ini, mengingat berbagai potensi konflik kepentingan diantara berbagai kementerian dan skalanya", ujar Kim .

Menuju Smart E-Government melalui layanan Government Cloud Computing 

Jumlah pengguna telepon cerdas di Korea kita jumlahnya melampaui 20 juta. Berarti 4 dari 10 orang Korea mengguna telepon selular cerdas. Komunikasi yang interaktif telah menjadi fitur yang krusial dalam era cerdas. Di jantung tren, ada layanan komputasi awan atau cloud computing. 

Pemerintah menilai bahwa komputasi awan penting untuk mendekatkan pemerintah dengan masyarakat dan dengan berbagai tren yang sedang berkembang dalam layanan-layanan publik, sehingga pemerintah memutuskan untuk memperkenalkan paradigma baru, Layanan Pemerintah Berbasis ICT. 

Idenya adalah menghadirkan berbagai layanan e-Government yang cerdas melalui Layanan Komputasi Awan Pemerintah atau G Cloud. Pemerintah Korea telah memetakan sebuah rencana untuk menyediakan sebuah komputasi awan dan mobilitas yang mengacu kepada lingkungan. NCIA telah menetapkan 3 sasaran :

1. mentransfer 50% proses bisnis di berbagai lembaga pemerintah pusat yang bekerja dengan sistem yang berlaku saat ini kedalam sistem berbasis Komputasi Awan,
2. meningkatkan adaptasi perangkat lunak Open Source hingga 40% dan memotong berbagai biaya operasional hingga lebih dari 30%,
3. menawarkan Layanan Komputasi Awan Pemerintah yang terbaik di dunia. 

"Untuk mewujudkan tujuan ini, pemerintah kini dalam proses membangun sebuah landasan Komputasi Awan Pemerintah yang berfokus menciptakan berbagai layanan yang terpercaya, memiliki efisiensi dalam pengoperasian, memperkenalkan lebih banyak berbagai standard berbasis open source, untuk menyukseskan migrasi proses bisnis pemerintah kedalam lingkungan baru. 

Berbagai Capaian dan Tantangan Menuju E-Government yang Cerdas 

Sejak terbangunnya NCIA enam tahun yang lalu, lembaga ini telah membuat e-Government menjadi lebih stabil, aman dan efisien. NCIA juga telah melejitkan pertumbuhan perusahaan-perusahan IT kelas menengah dan kecil dan menunjang berbagai aktivitas ekspor model GIDC. 

Komputasi Awan Pemerintah buatan Korea akan diingat sebagai sebuah usaha mengatasi tantangan-tantangan e-Government secara menyeluruh yang paling sukses. Sistem keamanan e-Government kini telah semakin ketat. 

"Sederhananya, sejumlah rangkaian ketentuan pengamanan bekerja secara otomatis menangkal berbagai serangan Cyber yang memperlihatkan betapa keamanan semakin meningkat secara dramatis," jelas DR. Kim. " Jumlah ketentuan pengamanan yang teregistrasi pada awal berdirinya NCIA berjumlah 8.000. Namun ditahun 2011 humlahnya telah bertambah menjadi dua kali lipat. 

NCIA telah mengembangkan sebuah sistem pertahanan yang menyeluruh yang disebut e-ANSI (Advanced National Security Infrastructure) yang mencakup kemanan fisik dan cyber. Terimakasih kepada e-ANSI, NCIA telah sukses mempertahankan semua sistem sekalipun jumlah ancaman Cyber yang terus meningkat. 

Isu keamanan komputasi Awan tetap menjadi perhatian utama dalam inisiatif ini. Orang kerap berpikir bahwa berbagai resiko dapat meningkat sejak semua data dikonsentrasikan di satu tempat. NCIA telah melenyapkan kekhawatiran ini dengan menyediakan sebuah mekanisme pertahanan yang sistematik dan membuat Komputasi Awan bekerja optimal selama 24/7. 

"Kami telah berhasil dalam mengurangi tak hanya biaya-biaya peralatan tetapi juga biaya-biaya operasional seperti gaji, utilitas dan pemeliharan. Oleh karena itu, kita dapat meningkatkan efisiensi dalam mengelola berbagai sumber daya IT milik pemerintah," jelas Dr. Kim. 

NCIA membeli peralatan dan software untuk kepentingan berbagai kementerian dan menawarkan perangkat-perangkat ini melalui virtualisasi dan teknologi otomatisasi. Semua upaya ini ahirnya terbayarkan. Biaya pemeliharaan dan operasional telah berkurang sebesar 30%. 

Pada saat yang sama, jumlah pengeluaran dana yang alokasinya  tumpang tindih telah berkurang secara meyakinkan. Pemerintah juga telah melakukan penghematan sebesar KRW63,4 miliar (USD54,8 juta) semenjak NCIA beroperasi. 

"Kami sedang mengimplementasikan berbagai kebijakan yang bertujuan untuk membentuk sebuah lingkungan pasar  yang mendukung pertumbuhan perusahaan-perusahaan berskala sedang dan kecil," ujar Dr.Kim. "NCIA tidak hanya memperkuat kapabilitasnya dengan menjalankan kemitraan dengan perusahaan-perusahan lokal tetapi juga aktif memperkenalkan tren-tren baru serta berbagai teknologi baru dan menyebarkannya kesemua sektor pemerintah."Perusahaan-perusahaan berskala menengah dan kecil berpartisipasi pada 50% proyek-proyek NCIA setiap tahunnya.

Bersambung : Bagian 2

Martin Simamora | koreaittimes.com

National workshop on UN e-Government Survey and FOSS4Gov

The workshop on 29 and 30 September will consist of full day sessions while the session on 1 October will be a half-day forum. The session on 29 September instant will be on UN e-Government Survey and Critical Success Factors, a senior ICTA officer said. Aimed at improving operational efficiency of public service the workshop on this day will go into a detailed consideration of the indices of successful surveys.

After the registration of participants the audience will be welcomed by ICTA Chairman Prof. P. W. Epasinghe and Head of the United Nations Project Office on Governance Jong-moo Choi.
This will be followed by keynote addresses by two erudite experts on the subject, Presidential Secretary Lalith Weeratunga and UNDP Country Director Douglas Keh.

The workshop which brings together local and foreign experts will be a rare opportunity for sharing of experiences and inducing synergy. Among other speakers lined up for sharing their valuable knowledge and experience are UNPOG Programme Operations Expert S. K.

Belal Hassan; ICTA Programme Director Re-engineering Government, Wasantha Deshapriya; ICTA Information Infrastructure Programme Head Dil Piyaratne; Telecommunication Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka Consultant Dr. Manoda Gamage; Republic of Korea SangMyung University Prof. Kyoung Y. Bae; Republic of Korea Ministry of Public Administration and Security Winner of 2011 UN Public Service Award Seok-tae Lee and Republic of Korea, Winner of 2011 UN Public Service Award, INVIL Deputy Director Shin Hoon.

The 30 September event is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. and will focus attention on Free and Open Source Software for Government (FOSS4Gov). Colombo University, School of Computing Senior lecturer Dr. Ruvan Weerasinghe will present the keynote address at this session.

Other speakers at this session include ICTA Legal Advisor and Programme Director Jayantha Fernando; ICTA Head of Technology and Chief Technology Officer Sanjaya Karunasena; FOSS Localisation Consultant Danishka Naveen; Surveyor General Department Lecturer in Survey and Mapping Dr. A. H. Lakmal; Kolonna Divisional Secretariat Network Administrator Rajeen Prasanna; Siti Hawa of Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU) Open Source Programme; Government of India Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Department of Information Technology Joint Director Punyabrata Ghatak and Respere Lanka (Pvt) Ltd. CTO Mifan Careem.

The third day’s programme (1 October) scheduled to begin at 9 and close at 12:30 p.m. will be a forum on Public-Private Parnerships and South-South Cooperation.

Among the presenters scheduled to make presentations at this session comprising two open discussion sessions are ICTA CEO Reshan Dewapura, UNPOG Head Jong-moo Choi, Jae-won Kim of Samsung and Amanthi Wickramasinghe of UNDP.

Referring to the two-and-half day event Dewapura said that the workshop would greatly help in sharing of experience and expertise in the relevant fields. Drawing attention in particular to the UN e-Government Survey, Dewapura said that the survey and the report emanating from it would induce public trust. This is founded on the transparency contributed to by the reported findings. The trust thus gained is consolidated via free sharing of Government data based on transparent standards. The potentiality for e-Government to deal with public service would also promote reform in the best interests of the people served.

Expressing his views on the UN e-Government Survey ICTA Programme Director Re-engineering Government Wasantha Deshapriya said that it was true that technology could not replace good policy but technology could empower the citizens so that they would be able to offer constructive criticism to existing but improvable methodologies.

E-Government to Connected Governance assesses the e-government readiness of the 192 Member States of the UN according to a quantitative composite index of e-readiness based on website assessment, telecommunication infrastructure, and human resource endowment. ICTs can help reinvent government in such a way that existing institutional arrangements can be restructured and new innovative arrangements can flourish, paving the way for a transformed government.

unpan.org

Greek eGovernment Interoperability Framework

The Greek e-gif has been regulated in the Greek Legal system with the article 27 of the Law 3731/2008. The Hellenic Ministry of Interior, Decentralization and E-government is responsible for the maintenance of Greek E-Gif in co-operation with the public agencies in Greece. The Greek e-gif also provides several the xml schemas, core components, codelists according to the UN/CEFACT/CCTS, in order to describe the documents and the data that the Greek public administration exchanges. The Greek e-Government Interoperability Framework (Greek e-GIF) consists of the following main documents:

• The Certification Framework for Public Administration web sites and portals, which specifies the directions and standards which must be followed during the development of public web sites for the Greek Public Administration
  
• The Interoperability and Electronic Services Provisioning Framework, which defines the main principles and the general strategy to be followed by the public agencies when developing e-government Information Systems
  
• The Digital Authentication Framework, which sets the standards, the procedures and the technologies required for the registration, identification and authentication of the users (Citizens / Enterprises)
  
• The Documentation Model for Public Administration Processes and Data, which describes the notation, the rules and the specifications for the documentation of processes, documents and electronic data exchange.

The results of the Greek E-Gif regarding e-services, responsilbilities, processes, documents, data, xml schemas, core components, codelists etc, are stored in the interoperability registry hosted by the Public Administration National Portal "Ermis" http://www.ermis.gov.gr/portal/page/portal/ermis/.

Aims and objectives

Adopt and maintain standards, specifications and rules for the development and deployment of web-based front and back-office systems for the Greek Public Administration

Accelerate the development of electronic collaboration of public agencies, for the delivery of high quality and secure one-stop eGovernment services to businesses, citizens and other public bodies

The Greek Interoperability Framework is in conformance with the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) and applies best practices from relevant international standardisation

semic.eu

Seminar Workshop e-Government di Lingkungan Pemerintah Kota Balikpapan

Bertempat di Auditorium Pemkot Balikpapan beberapa waktu lalu (5 juli 2011) telah dilaksanakan kegiatan seminar dan workshop mengenai e–Government di lingkungan pemkot Balikpapan, kegiatan ini di ikuti oleh 200 peserta yang berasal dari masing–masing SKPD yang ada di Lingkungan Pemkot Balikpapan.

.igos.or.id

Dalam sambutannya walikota Balikpapan H. Rizal Efendi mengatakan “semua organisasi pemerintahan memiliki kewajiban untuk mengembangkan penyelenggaraan kepemerintahan yang berbasis atau menggunakan teknologi informasi, yang dalam hal ini kita sebut dengan e–Government, dalam rangka meningkatkan kualitas layanan public secara efektif dan efisien sesuai dengan Instruksi Presiden no. 3 tahun 2003 tentang Pengembangan e–Government”.

Kegiatan ini di bagi menjadi 2 sesi , sesi pertama terdiri dari dua paparan oleh narasumber Didi Sukyadi dari Kementrian KOMINFO RI yang membahas mengenai “Integrasi Aplikasi e–Government “ dan di lanjutkan dengan Agus Setyadi dari Kementrian Riset dan Teknologi RI yang membahas mengenai “Solusi menurunkan pembajakan software dengan open source”, kemudian dilanjutkan sesi kedua juga oleh dua narasumber yang pertama adalah Roy Simangunsong dari IBM Indonesia yang membahas mengenai “Membangun Pemerintah yang lebih pintar “ smarter government “ “, dan dilanjutkan oleh Mochammad James dari PT. Telekomunikasi Indonesia .Tbk dengan tema paparan " Telkom e-office".

Setelah kegiatan seminar kemudian dilanjutkan dengan agenda kegiatan workshop mengenai OS Linux dan juga di ikuti oleh SKPD berdasarkan angkatan – angkatan yang berada di lingkungan pemkot Balikpapan yang akan di mulai hari ini dan akan dilaksanakan sampai tanggal 4 Agustus, setiap angkatan mendapatkan jatah selama 2 hari setiap minggu nya yaitu hari rabu dan kamis, kemudian minggu depan berganti dengan angkatan selanjutnya

Pemkot Balikpapan

Indian Government Makes Open-Source Drivers A Requirement For e-Governance Projects

The Indian Government has initiated its e-Governance projects to connect the millions of Indians living in villages to the internet and related services. A very important part of this project is the procurement of the required hardware most notably PCs and peripherals for use by the people.

The Indian Government has announced that open drivers are a requirement for the hardware that will be procured under the e-governance projects. This is what the preamble of the Policy on Device Drivers for Procurement of Hardware for e-Governance says:

Government of India (GOI) endeavours to provide e-Governance services, which are technology-neutral, cost effective, interoperable and vendor-neutral. GOI Policy on open standards is a step towards meeting this objective in the development of e-Governance applications.

Because of this new policy, the OEM and vendors have to guarantee that the computer and peripherals that they are supplying can run all General Purpose Operating Systems and that open source drivers are available for all the components.

The policy allows for certain relaxations in case open source drivers are not available. The OEM or vendor has to first provide a justification as to why open source drivers are not available and give guarantee that the open source drivers will be made available before delivery.

A proper implementation of this policy will ensure that choices are available in case changes need to be made in the future. The availability of an open driver will prevent vendor lock-in and ensure that the vendors cannot take any unfair advantage in the future. It is good to see the government actively promoting Free and Open Source Software.

techie-buzz.com

Open Source In the Bavarian Government of Munich, Germany

Add caption

Anton Borisov interviews Oliver Altehage, Change Manager for LiMux-Project to understand the options and deployment of GNU/Linux and open source in the Bavarian Government of Munich, Germany.

Anton: Oliver, the City of Munich is famous for its open-source initiative, when Microsoft products must be substituted to Linux and open-sourced applications. Could you please shed some light on this idea, because I know it has original roots in 2000's.

Oliver: That is true. First idea was created in 2001, first concept appeared in 2002. Decision for migration of the city parliament was taken in 2004, and migration itself was started in November 2006.

Anton: It could be a naïve question – but why do Bavarians need open-source products? The state of Bavaria is one of the wealthiest in Germany; the City administration is not a commercial entity, but why does it need to cut costs?

Oliver: The cost cutting argument is not valid. It was and is a political strategic decision to get vendor independence, stand up for open standards and spend our money on local IT companies (6.5 Mio € during the last 4 Years). The project scope is defined to migrate 80% of PCs in the administration. This was defined at the project start and it was already foreseen that there will be constraints which do not show a benefit (technical and/or economical) after a migration to open source.

Anton: How was the migration plan composed - what parts have you decided to switch first, and why?

Oliver: From 2007 and till the end of 2009 OpenOffice.org and other software for the normal communication layer (Thunderbird, Firefox, etc.) was migrated to. At the end of 2011 no one will have a MS Office on his desktop (except some desktops). The era of 2009 - 2013 will be a roll-out of 80% of 15,000 clients to Linux operating system. Up to now about 6.500 PCs are already migrated to Open Source. Project plan is to have 8.500 PCs migrated until the end of the year 2011 and will close the project end of 2013 having migrated a total of 12.000 PCs. So overall we are on time, on budget, on quality – on track.

Anton: What were the reasons for choosing OpenOffice?

Oliver: That was the only alternative in 2007.

Anton: Could you describe an average workstation (an operating system, suite of applications), that an employee has now?

Oliver: My place as an example - Linux operating system Release 3.0 (Ubuntu 8.4 & KDE 3.5), OpenOffice 3.01, Thunderbird/Firefox, WollMux 10.8 (inhouse development), OpenProj, Fremind, Kivio, Hourglass, Digicam, Gimp, colourpaint, snapshot, showimg, Javacom, DB visualizer 6, Eclipse.

Anton: Would you tell about LiMux distribution - what is it in the first place? Should LiMux name be referred to Linux distribution that your team installs inside Munich area, or it is also a global name for migration project as well?

Oliver: It is only a local Munich Linux Version. The program WollMux is our gift to the community. But we take the name in two ways: the project called LiMux and the Basis-Client called LiMux too. We use now for our Linux OS Ubuntu LTS 10.4 (distribution) and KDE 3.5. Canonical (http://www.canonical.com/) and credativ (http://www.credativ.de/) are our development partners.

Anton: What open-source applications, tools, suites are currently used in Munich's infrastructure? How much of them are being run in Linux environments?
Oliver: We have up to 1500 "Fachverfahren" at Munich Administration. A "Fachverfahren" is a toolbased process, something like the process for car tax, German ecesis.

Anton: Experts say, that it usually takes from 2 to 8 months to completely convert small and medium-sized businesses' infrastructure to Linux. From your experience, what are the major stumbling blocks an organization like yours could face?

Oliver: We need 3 years for the migration to a OpenOffice Suite. And we will need 4-5 years for migration to Linux operating system. Stumbling blocks are usually: less standardization, less consolidation, less acceptance by the employees. In general we have the usual project challenges that come in projects with 13 organizational departments with 21 IT departments which have an individually grown IT. We mitigate this by focusing on the people, their requirements and mapping them against the e.g. security requirements.

Anton: How many people are busy on developing LiMux project?
Oliver: Our team is up to 20 people

Anton: Are there any ideas so far expressed by German federal government to re-use the Bavarian experience?

Oliver: There exists a lot of communes, small cities as followers: Freiburg, Schwäbisch Hall, Böblingen, Schwäbisch Gmund, Köln, Regional Finance Office Niedersachsen

Anton: What is your opinion about the German Foreign Office going back to Windows from Linux?

Oliver: It is not our behaviour to comment on decisions from other public administrations. Because the German Foreign Office has some problems based on their international structure. Munich has less international net infrastructure. I think in general, perhaps they have focused less attention on the acceptance by the employee. This is one of our main focuses in the project: 0,5 day training for the Linux BasisClient and 1 day training for the shift to OpenOffice.org, 2 people for communication and change, a team with 5 people for locally Migration-Support and latest/freshest version of OpenOffice.org with our own "killer application" WollMux (www.wollmux.org)

Anton: In Germany PCs come pre-installed with Windows, is there any law which gives users the right to buy PC without any OS or the OS of choice? If not, should there be one such law to protect users from vendor locks?

Oliver: I don't know this. But it is possible to buy PC without an OS too.

Opinion, expressed by our German expert:

1. A government should always be independent – in general, and especially when it comes to software and operating systems. Government must be independent. So I prefer Linux as an operating system for governments, and also for the German Foreign Office. Anyway it hits the whole German government. Concerning their weird movement back to Microsoft, it can't be argued without having insider information.

2. Most of the vendors in Germany offer PCs with pre-installed OS's. Microsoft Windows 7, of course, but sometimes it can be Linux.
However, it is possible to buy PCs without a pre-installed operating system for use with your own. Quite possibly this is a marketing strategy of M$ in order to "push" vendors selling their PCs with Windows. At least the devices aren't a lot more expensive than devices without OS. You pay more if you decide to purchase a PC/Notebook without OS and additionally buy Windows license.

There is no law, that allows or forbids it – such a law is an unnecessary thing. The computer illiteracy of human beings is the law – those who build PCs by themselves can decide which OS to install.


muktware.com

Iceland's open-door government

After the recent economic crash, many governments had to overhaul both financial structure and fiscal regulation. The majority, including the US government, formed a plan of attack using the same bureaucratic and economic venues in use for centuries. Politicians come to the table with plans and ideas based on their own thinking and research. Some use these opportunities to filter in their own agenda, hidden in layers of jargon and political colloquial, to be reviewed and passed (or passed on) by a body of politicians behind closed doors.

With this kind of complicated maneuvering, those that want to know what is going on in their government and why changes are taking place often have to sift through pages of jargon to get to the meaning. The problem lies in the process through which political action takes place--a process largely hidden from the eyes and ears of the people. Why not open up to the people you are trying to help?

Iceland, on the other hand, has taken a bold and very public approach. Understanding that the problems of the present are the results from the past, they are rewriting their constitution by crowd-sourcing ideas and suggestions via the Internet. Through the use of social media like Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, and YouTube, Iceland opens the doors to everyone around the world to observe or participate. Anyone can send in suggestions or comments that will potentially be added to their constitution.

Why would the government do this? Perhaps to gain more ideas faster? Or to engage their constituents more effectively? Whatever the reason I find it interesting and worth everyone and anyone's attention. Any person interested―me, you, him, or her―could literally have a hand in shaping how a country handles healthcare, banking, or taxes. You can do it! That's huge.

We already spend a lot of time on social media. Why not use some of the time you spend organizing your Facebook farm to help a real country reorganize? Tweet about legal reform and that tasty beverage you just consumed at the corner bar―then see what others had to say on the same subjects.

This has the potential to set precedent on how governments restructure and regulate. Or perhaps how politicians write and submit bills. The possibilities go on and on. With transparency, political systems can reinvigorated not just in how they run, but also in how they determine who helps run it. Business and industry have experienced this kind of revitalization through the Internet and with advancing communications technologies. Why not politics? If a young kid in Idaho creates a fantastic new iPhone app, why couldn't that same kid have a fantastic idea on healthcare data handling or business rules reform?

Thinking back to the founding of my own country, I wonder how Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and the others would feel about opening up the discussion about democracy in a very real and very open venue? Perhaps there would be a deeper emphasis on government checks and balances or perhaps a sharper focus on the social reforms.

Whatever the case, the discussion is open and we invite you to contribute. How would your country be different if government was open in this way? Do you think this is a recipe for success―or confusion? Vote and veto in the comments below.

All new e-governance projects must work on open source operating systems: Draft

Computer hardware and peripherals used by all new e-governance projects must work with Linux and other open source operating systems, says a draft policy. The rules for device drivers - software that make devices such as printers and servers talk to computers - have been put in the public domain by the department of information technology, which will take into account views of hardware makers and other stakeholders before finalising the policy. The proposed policy is expected to save government money as open source systems come cheap.

Many states are keen to adopt cheaper systems but shy away due to their non-compatibility with latest hardware. The draft effectively rules out use of closed systems such as Apple Macs and iPads. It is also silent on smartphones that run on proprietary software.

For instance, India's showcase project, Nandan Nilekani-led Adhaar, makes extensive use of Blackberrys. In general, India has always supported use of open source operating systems but it is the first time a policy is being framed on the use of operating systems and device drivers in government projects. The policy is expected to open a Pandora's box, as most companies, including makers of PCs, servers, chips, and operating systems, have arrangements to make their products talk to each other.

However, open source communities don't have such arrangements. The policy will mandate global MNCs such as IBM , HP, Cisco, Samsung , Sun Microsystems and EMC to supply IT equipment confirming to open source operating systems , for existing as well as future contracts. For MNCs, egovernance is a large $20 billion market in India.

"It's a welcome step. The policy on open standards was never complete without a guideline on device drivers. It will increase costs for large MNCs as they would now have to make their equipment work on open source software," said an industry leader with a large hardware MNC who didn't want to be named. Hardware makers will now not only have to write the software for their servers and computers but will have to train their customer service departments on it.

Computers here would mean all desktops, workstations, laptops , notebooks and servers procured for egovernance projects. The policy will also be applicable to peripherals such as web cams and in-built speakers. The new regime will thus save costs for a government department if it decides to migrate to another operating system, due to a price increase in one.

Most proprietary operating systems operate on a yearly licensing basis. The policy may, however, delay signing of contracts. An IT department official said, "There will definitely be a delay in the procurement process, but that will be less serious compared to the problem associated with implementation of e-governance systems non-compliant with this policy."

economictimes.indiatimes.com

Can the U.S. 'win the future' without open data?

“Winning the Future through Open Innovation,” is a progress report recently released by Aneesh Chopra, US Chief Technology Officer, to the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) on the Administration’s Open Government Initiative.The report highlights a number of programs at different agencies that represent a wide variety of open innovation techniques, from opening datasets and APIs to creating incentives for competition or testing and certifying open standards.

Less than a week after the report's release, the Administration launched the Campaign to Cut Waste through the newly-formed Government Accountability and Transparency Board (GATB), an 11-member group which will review and cut about 50% of Federal websites to reduce spending and prevent duplication of efforts.

Ironically, Data.gov, which is lauded in Chopra’s memo to the NSTC as a “signature initiative in the endeavor” to democratize data lost 75% of its operating budget (the Electronic Government Fund) during the budget compromise in April, prompting the Sunlight Foundation to launch a “Save the Data” campaign. To be clear, the E-government Fund was cut by Congress, not the GATB, which seems at odds with the federal government’s goals of improving accountability, transparency, and efficiency.

The very amusing video from White House about the Campaign to Cut Waste demonstrates clearly that the Administration understands the legal and administrative barriers to innovation and the ways that technology can improve government efficiency (and who doesn’t enjoy seeing the Federal Register used as a doorstop?).


The CTO’s memo takes it a step further by highlighting programs that have embraced technology and collaboration to produce award-winning websites that allow citizens to compare insurance options (Healthcare.gov) and search through patent data for free (US Patent & Trademark Office Data Product Catalog,) instead of paying the previously required $43,000 per year subscription.

Like it or not, new programs (and new websites) cost money. But, as proven by many of the examples in the memo, programs that embrace collaborative innovation and technology can save money in the long term. For example, the NASA Tournament Lab enables 20,000 software developers to compete with each other to develop the best computer code for NASA systems. NASA has concluded several challenges so far, exceeding researcher expectations at a fraction of the cost of procuring software in a traditional manner. It also has given NASA many different software options to choose from and test, instead of selecting and procuring one software product at a time which may or may not fill the agency’s needs.

As the GATB and Congress rightfully consider ways to reduce spending and eliminate waste, it is more important than ever for policy makers to better articulate how and why open, collaborative innovation is essential for job and economic growth and for enabling the government to more efficiently and effectively serve its citizens. The CTO’s memo provides concrete examples of how new models and methods of collaboration are transforming government for the better, but policy guidance from strong leadership will be needed to implement these changes across agencies and departments to achieve the overarching goals of improving efficiency and transparency. Cutting the Desert Tortoise or Fiddlin' Foresters websites may indeed help us save money, but restoring the Electronic Government Fund during the next budget cycle and investing in collaborative, innovative projects between the public and private sectors is a better way to “Win the Future.”

opensource.com

US federal CIO Kundra to leave White House for Harvard

Vivek Kundra, the first federal government CIO in US history whom president Barack Obama appointed about 2.5 years ago to reform the government’s inefficient and budget-hemorrhaging IT infrastructure, is leaving his current post for a fellowship at Harvard University.

According to a post on the White House blog, Kundra will leave in mid-August to become a joint fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

While working for the Obama administration, Kundra has been charged with addressing complex federal IT issues, including an aging infrastructure, consistently failing projects and growing threat vulnerability. “Two and a half years after joining the administration, Vivek has delivered on that promise,” the blog post read.

One of Kundra’s achievements cited in the announcement was cutting spending by US$3bn. Other achievements were a move toward greater use of cloud computing and strengthening the government’s cybersecurity posture.

The news comes only about six weeks after Kundra announced that a massive project to consolidate federal data centers had reached a significant milestone. In April, he said government agencies had completed implementation plans for shutting down more than 800 data centers by 2015.

About 140 data centers are expected to be shut down in 2011, many of which have already been shuttered.

Kundra kicked off the reform initiative in September 2009, announcing its two cornerstones: data center consolidation and cloud computing. In December 2010, he released a detailed 25-point implementation plan for the reform.

In addition to infrastructure consolidation and shift to a cloud-first policy for procurement of IT services, the plan includes increased focus on the use of best practices by federal agencies, inter-agency collaboration and changes in the way the government spends its IT budget.

In a presentation at a White House forum in April, Kundra said seven of the 25 deliverables had been completed, five were on track to be completed and two were behind schedule.

datacenterdynamics.com

Hacking for Transparency at Brazil’s Major e-Government Conference

CONSEGI, an open source software and e-Government conference organized by (and mostly for) public IT departments and officers, took place on May 11, 12 and 13th, in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. For the first time, the theme of the event was open government data, thus bringing activists from all over the world – such as Rufus Pollock, from OKFN; Nigel Shadbolt, from data.gov.uk, and David Eaves, from the Vancouver’s Open Government Motion and other projects – to share their experiences in OGD and the culture of openness.

Apart from government officials and university students, CONSEGI was also attended by hackers. About 30 of a group of more than 500 hundred scattered all over Brazil (and abroad!), we were there as members of the Transparency Hacker community. Half of this group arrived in Brasilia after a 15-hour-long bus drive from São Paulo, and still managed to pay a visit to the Congress in an express and exquisite hacker tour around the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.

But the way that lead us to CONSEGI was much longer than anybody’s trip to Brasilia. Transparency Hacker is a community of hackers, developers, activists, journalists, professors and government officers/officials that dates back to October 2009, after the realization of the 1st Transparency HackDay.

Our first meetup took place when very few people were familiar with open government data in Brazil, and even fewer were discussing it with society. Nevertheless, this first hackday based on public information and data gathered over a hundred people; and the group who attended it then triggered the start of a collaboration process that channeled the use of public data in new and imaginative ways, creating projects together, and raising awareness on the importance of OGD throughout the country.

Even though we’re pushing the subject into discussion in public forums and elsewhere, the amount of open government data available in Brazil is still very little. That’s indeed a motivation for us to keep our collective effort in making OGD a relevant topic in the government’s agenda, and we do this with actions that demonstrate our demands for openness: hacking, scraping and cloning government websites.

“Why?”, some may ask. Because that’s the way we will legitimately participate in controlling public budgets, in accessing data for local or city services and in raising awareness about the Brazilian legislative process, until the politics involved in opening data and promoting transparency are fully understood by our government representatives also as a process, not solely as an objective with time, date and limitations.

Our actions are inspired by many different political views and goals, but one of our practical wishes is to foster in every member of the group the autonomy they need to browse through this set of ideas and opinions, as well as keeping it diverse. We have no list of principles or set of rules, and although it may sound chaotic, this gives people freedom to fit in in whatever role they find necessary or that they find that they can give a significant contribution.

What many of our projects have in common is a critical approach over access to information, weighing technology and its possibilities for openness and participation as crucial elements for contemporary democracies.

Over the legitimacy of our practices, we made our way to CONSEGI as we did in many other government events – to show to public officers, representatives and politicians the reason why we want open government data and the formats and ways that we want this date to be made public. We do it because we can, and because we think that’s our role, but also because we believe that hackers and government can (or must) coexist.

In parallel with lectures, panels and workshops run by the Government and free software communities in CONSEGI, we held a Transparency HackDay. In the event’s unconference room we gathered the members of the group and other “curious citizens” (as some in the THack mailing list like to be referred) together to think and design projects, bringing things that were long only ideas into reality.

There were about eight ideas being projected, designed or implemented during these days, all in a collaborative manner. If we could put the finger on the featured projects, they would be listed as below:

• ChequeURL: it plays along the very idea of URL shorteners, and when the user pastes a URL of a news story, it automatically searches for names of companies. We are using a database of the 700 most important companies in Brazil. What this hack does is to compare the names of these companies and display their relationship with the Brazilian government, side by side with previous donations to candidates in 2010 elections.

• Otoridades: a simple platform (using WordPress!) that gives the citizen the ability to send reports of abuses of power. Everyone is invited to contribute. With it we plan to give a tool for Brazilians to voice-out their demands and stories of corruption and report of “authorities” who have used their influence in a negative way or to acquire personal benefits.

• Mapping of Legislative Process: we’ve been working collectively in the mapping of the legislative process. We want to make sure people understand how laws are made in the Congress; what the proceedings are and steps to pass a bill, and what the tricks and tips are that only our representatives are familiar with until now.

The lessons learned in CONSEGI include the notion that there is still much work to do in the open data scenario in Brazil, but there is will in some parts of the government to bring a culture of openness to the Leviathan. But indeed, the bonus point of our trip to CONSEGI was the ability to put names to faces and interact with other people from the international open data community.

We are very excited with what we are building here in Brazil, and the growth of our vibrant group of hackers is quite stunning. From now on, we would like to share best practices and learn from others, engaging Brazilians in a global conversation on the use of information for social good, and help riddling the puzzles and challenges that come to our hands, just for the sake of hacking stuff. Any ideas?

blog.okfn.org

Extending open innovation to open government: a roadmap for new opportunities in citizensourcing

Extending the principles of open innovation to the public sector is a particularly important transition. Public bodies are significant spenders on products and services and yet are often distant from the most dynamic processes in our economy. Dennis Hilgers and Frank Piller look at the wider benefits of an open public service in an extended web article downloadable on Innovation Management. The authors raise some of the most important issues below.

The logic of an open public sector

Terms, such as co-creation, mass customization, interactive value creation, or open innovation represent the increasing success of new (predominantly Internet-based) practices and give evidence that the general public can constitute a source of enhanced innovation. In many countries the public sector has been seeking to reform itself, anyway. Do the open innovation methods, broadly understood provide a way?

An essential purpose of so-called "new public management" reform of the past 20 years was to understand the citizen as a customer of public services, and to orient the organization processes toward the clients' expectations.

The citizen, or client, should be viewed as a principal and tax payer, yes, but also as customer or user of public services. Alongside this aspect, the e-government reforms during the last few years emphasized the digitalization of administrative processes to improve quality, time, and efficiency opening up entirely new opportunities to redesign organizational structures and procedures, but also in relation to communication with third-parties externally. As a result, many administrations have started to build up a systematic innovation management.

The rise of Citizensourcing in open government

Consequently, the question arises whether public management, in terms of "Citizensourcing", should also include the knowledge and experience of clients, users, and external actors into the public innovation and value creation process: can citizens act as contributor to public tasks that are traditionally performed by an administrative employee (mostly a civil servant)?

After a period of reforms based on customer orientation, is there nowadays a need for more customer/citizen integration, or even a collective value creation between a public administration and its stakeholders that can positively influence the political decision procedure?

Four factors suggest that this change is not only necessary but is also underway and needs to be recognised and improved. Those four factors are:

• The new technology of the Internet 
• A social revolution in the way we communicate
• The economic revolution that comes with a new division of labour
• And a demographic revolution as people with digital 'in their bones' – those aged 13 – 30 populate the labour market.

In considering these challenges, the question arises whether the diverse administrations at different regional levels and, in the end, the whole political-administrative system, is ready for this transformation.

Recent literature discusses this topic as "government 2.0", as a new way of interactively creating public value and moving to a new kind of citizen cooperation by systematically integrating external actors into the process of governing and administrating. Within this context, Barack Obama proclaimed in his first speech to his administration his desire for open government ("A clear commitment changing the way government works with its citizens: Government should be transparent, participatory and collaborative").

We have identified three key steps along the way to realisation of greater public sector efficiencies through citizen-sourcing:

1. Transparency 
2. Participation
3. Collaboration

For reasons of space, in this short article we will only refer to one of these. However the full logic and detail of this process can be found in the Extended Web Article:
Participation in open government, or Goverment 2.0

Specific characteristics of these new participation processes are, for example:

• People's budget: Active citizen integration into budget decisions of the city council and consolidation concerning the utilization of funds. This includes discussions about objectives regarding the budget allocation, the intended outputs and outcomes, and the collaborative measurement of results by common evaluation. 
• Virtual town hall meetings: (or so-called "Mini-Publics"): On AmericaSpeaks.org e.g. citizens are included into the process of public decision-making by discussing problems concerning all political areas, and presenting the discussion results to the political decision-makers.
• Political agenda setting: Party programs, public strategies, and mission statements are increasingly created in publicly and participatory.
• Political monitoring: Monitoring of politicians and their misbehavior in the sense of a "representative watching".

Conclusion:

The move to open government is a logical step for citizens and government bodies. It is, in many ways, a chicken whose egg has already hatched. However, all organisations, public and private, need a process or a roadmap to show the way. Without it change feels like a descent into chaos. We set out this roadmap in the Extended Web Article and welcome comments and feedback on this – the better the roadmap, the quicker and smoother the journey.

-opensource.com

NSW embarks on pan-government Digital Archiving

defencereserves.com

The State Records Authority of New South Wales (NSW) is embarking on a project that will implement a digital archiving facility that would improve digital record keeping across the Government.

Community Access Points — State Records NSW (records.nsw.gov.au)

Cassie Findlay, Senior Project Officer in the NSW State Records Authority told FutureGov Asia Pacific that the State Records’ aim is to create a whole-of-Government digital archive to accept, preserve, and store digital Government records as archives.

“Up to until now we’ve only been able to accept and preserve records in hard copy format so we’ve been very much a paper based archives and of course this is something that is not really meeting the requirements of the Government anymore given that many Government organisations in Australia now do their business entirely in the electronic environment, the latter which we identified as something that we needed to address as soon as possible.”

The planned A$3.4 million (US$3.4 million) Digital Archive would be capable of receiving digital records in all formats from the NSW Government public offices, and convert the records into stable, long term preservation formats.

Records preserved will be available for retrieval by public offices and be accessible online to the public as constituted under the State Records Act’s access regime.

The digital archiving system will comply with the international standard for open archival information system which will make use of digital preservation tools, including the National Archives of Australia’s “Xena” tool for the normalisation of digital record formats.

“National Archives’ tool is one example that we are looking to adopt and to integrate into the digital archives solution” Findlay said.

“There’s a whole range of digital preservation tools that have been developed by groups all over the world that shows a lot of promise for our needs.”

“We will be initially looking at which ones best suits our requirements by looking at our business processes and what we want to preserve, things like what kind of records metadata we’re preserving, how that will integrate with our archives control systems, and a whole range of factors that will really build a suite of tools and technologies that will allow us to achieve those aims,” she said.

The digital records solution will hold both individual public office’s corporate memory and the archival resources of the Government and people of NSW, which would pertain to any information collected and received by a public office during the course of its official duty.

According to Findlay, many digital record formats used by the Government are proprietary in nature and can only be opened by the software application which they were created. As a result, if the original creating application is no longer available then the digital record cannot be accessed in the long-term.

Findlay added that Archives must be kept useable for hundreds of years and should span multiple generations of technological change.

“We have benefitted from the fact that the technology we’re using for the Digital Archives solution is Open source.”

“One of the driving principles in a lot of digital preservation is to stick with open source tools rather than locking yourself into commercial arrangements where you have restrictions with what you can and cannot do with your information, which is not acceptable for a Government archives,” she said.

The Digital State Archives Solution is a three year project, which has just started early this year. According to Findlay limited transfers of digital archive will be made available during the project’s development process.

Findlay further added that, once the project is completed, it will be a case of being open to transfers of digital records to any type.

“Our aim is for the project to be open for a full range of possible digital records to be thrown at us after three years.”

-futuregov.com | By Clarice Africa

BSA: Open standards will 'increase e-government costs'

The government will see its IT costs rise because it has chosen to get behind open standards, the Business Software Alliance has argued.

Government departments were told in a Cabinet Office policy note (PDF) dated 31 January that they "should wherever possible deploy open standards in their procurement specifications". In its note, it defined open standards at those that are "publicly available at zero or low cost" and that have "intellectual property made irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis".

On Tuesday, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) lashed out at the policy, which puts software companies with proprietary standards at a disadvantage.

"BSA strongly supports open standards as a driver of interoperability; but we are deeply concerned that by seeking to define openness in a way which requires industry to give up its intellectual property, the UK government's new policy will inadvertently reduce choice, hinder innovation and increase the costs of e-government," said the lobbying group, which represents many proprietary software companies.
European Interoperability Framework

The BSA urged the government to "align itself with the best practices recently endorsed by the European Interoperability Framework (EIF), which examined this very issue over a two-year consultation involving all stakeholders".

The second version of the EIF (EIFv2), adopted by the European Commission in December, recommended that "when establishing European public services, public administrations should prefer open specifications, taking due account of the coverage of functional needs, maturity and market support".

However, open-source advocates such as the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) complained that the EIFv2, compared with the first version, showed the Commission had abandoned the idea of mandating open standards as a "key enabler for interoperability".

Mark Taylor, chief executive of the open-source systems integration firm Sirius, said the BSA's response to the government policy note was "rubbish" and "absolutely predictable".

"A lot of time and effort was spent by those particular interests lobbying in Brussels," Taylor told ZDNet UK. "EIFv2 was definitely a step back from EIFv1."

The BSA said that the EIFv2 created a "level-playing field" for all types of software, including open source, to compete in providing the public sector with interoperable solutions. According to Taylor, this statement is "not true" and the new European recommendation is "discriminatory against open source".

"Fortunately, the UK government is one of the governments that had identified that," Taylor said. "If EIFv2 hadn't been a step backwards, there would be no need for governments like the UK government to come out with these policies."

-zdnet.co.uk

Aust govt enforces equal rights for open source

Government agencies in Australia should actively participate in open source communities and will be required to consider open source options equally when going to tender, under new policy announced Wednesday.

The new policy, announced by Federal Special Minister of State Gary Gray on the Australian Government Information Management Office blog this morning, asks agencies to include a provision in their procurement plans for projects over A$80,000 that the agency will equally consider open source software along with proprietary software. All procurement decisions will be based on "value for money", the policy states.

In addition to this, suppliers to government agencies will also be required to equally consider open source solutions when sourcing requirements to respond to tender requests from government. The policy provided examples of clauses agencies could use to ensure suppliers take open source software into account when responding to tender requests.

"[Agency name] encourages suppliers to submit and/or develop open source software for this tender," the document stated. "When responding to this tender, suppliers must demonstrate a willingness to actively consider open source software throughout all stages of procurement, solution design and implementation in order to produce a product that demonstrates value for money and is fit for purpose. This may include incorporating open source software components together with proprietary software components."

Gray said the original policy needed to be re-evaluated as the open source industry had matured since it was developed in 2005.

"The government's previous policy, established in 2005, was one of 'informed neutrality'," Gray said in the blog post. "This meant that agencies took an unbiased position that did not favour open source or proprietary software and procured the solution that was the best 'value for money' and 'fit for purpose' for their specific requirement."

"Since then, there has been an increase in the maturity of the open source software products and the use of open source software by governments around the world. In recent years, many governments have revised their policies to increase the adoption of open source software," he added. "This revised Australian government policy on open source software will ensure that we maintain international best practice and that our purchases of software will continue to reflect best value for money for the government."

AGIMO faced criticism last week over its decision to mandate the Microsoft-focused office document standard across government agencies over the Open Office XML standard.

The policy commences from Mar.1, 2011.

(www.zdnetasia.com)

Open Source Software And Cyber Defense

Federal enterprises and the IT fabric, important to a country's economy, are routinely employing open source software. Therefore, the study of this paper focuses on Commercial Open Source Software (COSS) as a secure implementation that results in good security engineering practices when used in integrated solutions

Therefore the paper suggests that Open Source software results in more secure systems. The key trends of Open Source Software are examined in this paper and it offers facts on the enhanced security features that particularly hold relevant for a White House cyber review.

The US government and several allied nations are regularly involved in providing information to the public about possible and harmful internet threats. They also provide information on intrusions into government and industry computers due to organized crime, malicious codes, from foreign militaries, and the intelligence services of foreign countries including Russia and China.

US INFRASTRUCTURE

The threats have gone to an extent where they are being highlighted every year in congressional testimony. Numerous discussions are being undertaken on the issue and large amounts of information is being shared in a wide range of venues. This paper discusses Open Source software as a computer software for which the source code and other rights are provided under a software license.

This allows users to use, change and improve the software and redistribute it in an altered or the same form. Because open source software is developed in an open, public, collaborative manner, it does not only imply having access to the source code.

(www.techrepublic.com)

India’s New Policy on Open Standards for e-Government

India’s government has recently voted through a new directive on the application of open standards in e-Government. Barely a year after China’s SAC (Standardization Administration of China) drafted its proposal on a Standardization Policy (see our earlier blog: “China drafts all-out national standards IPR policy“) and defined what is meant by a FRAND-licensing approach concerning standard essential IPRs in their opinion (i.e. royalty free or at least marginal royalties for patents included in standards) also India jumps onto the openness-bandwagon by ruling that only such standards shall be used for administration which are totally free of licensing costs (royalty free or RF-Licensing). Although the India’s Policy only concerns a small sector of technology, namely software solutions for an interoperable public administration framework, while the SAC’s proposal claims its applicability to all standardization efforts especially those taking place in high-tech industries, it is worth to have a closer look.

First a brief review about the tension between patents (or Intellectual Property Rights at all) and standardization. In short there arises a conflict between the demands on universal validity and applicability of interoperability standards and the exclusive right of a patent owner whose technology is necessarily to be used in order to comply with the standard (so-called essential IPR/patent). Thus, standards applicants feel exposed to any royalty demand and not seldom overcharged. As a result, the standardized technology could remain underused what is also problematic from an economic point of view. To diminish the conflict most Standard Setting Organizations (SSOs) have installed so-called FRAND-Licensing Policies. 

Under these policies all holders of essential patents are committed to license their standard essential IPRs on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms (FRAND-terms). Unfortunately, the FRAND-Licensing regime has evolved as hardly effective, last but not least since nobody knows what FRAND means in particular. Recently, the conflict seems to escalate even more, as it could be seen from the massive number of patent infringement claims stemming from yet unresolved licensing questions about essential patents between almost all big market players in high-tech industries (see our earlier blog Patents at War).

In this context there have early been proposals to give up licensing fees for standardized technology on the whole in order to resolve the conflict once and for all. It hardly needs mentioning that these proposals definitely lacks acceptance amongst most industry stakeholders the more so as the agents of these proposals has not given any answer to the immediately arising remuneration question. 

Nevertheless, in respect of India’s directive and the former SAC proposal the royalty free approach seems to gain most of sympathy even within the “young” economies of China and India. This is a worrisome situation for two main reasons. First, China and India represent nearby a third of the worldwide population and thus they are the (forthcoming) trendsetters also in respect of the patent system and its acceptance within the world-wide economy. Especially with regard to China, the – to be kind – already relaxed opinion about respecting intellectual property of others could become even more established. Second, in our opinion, the RF-Licensing demands are setting bad incentives for innovation.

Though a former draft of India’s directive has also FRAND-Licensing listed as fulfilling the demands for openness the now adopted version of the directive for open government standards formulates even more demands on standards than royalty free licensing. Especially the demand for a world-wide availability of the royalty free license appears very extensive. 

Thus the directive is not only acclaimed by the India’s Open Source Software community but also viewed with suspicion by India’s prospering software industries as it could reduce their future remuneration chances even world-wide. The basic idea behind the openness approach, namely securing India’s public administration’s ability to act and protecting it against unjustified royalty demands, is not unworthy but going this way the burden for India’s New Economy could turn out as too weighty. 

Considering India’s population any software solution for administration must be cutting edge technology. Therefore the question is not only whether RF-licensing is an appropriate means to solve the conflict between universal applicability of e-Government standards and the exclusive rights of a proprietor of an essential patent but rather which incentives for innovative software solutions could be set through it. By establishing a system which suggests that innovation could be get at no charge a big group of very innovative enterprises should back out of these standardization efforts.

Setting appropriate incentives for innovation has been also the background of the inclusion of FRAND-licensing into the new European Interoperability Framework (EIF 2) which also has the standardization of e-Government solution as its subject-matter. The EIF 2 leaves the door open for Open Source Software as well as propriety e-Government solution and hence the decision in favor of one of these solutions is stuck to the applicants where it belongs to.

(ipeg.eu)