AT: Parliament wants public sector to use Open Source and Standards

Four of the six parties elected to Austria's National Counil (Nationalrat) would be in favour of the public sector using Open Source and Open Standards. When asked this question, Austria's largest political party, the Social Democratic Party of Austria (Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs) simply answered 'yes'.

The Greens (Die Grünen), the third largest party, want to take it a step further and enforce the use of Open Standards and Open Source. "Open Source technologies guarantee non-discriminatory access to e-Government and public information for all people and it ensures their fair access to networks of information and knowledge." The Alliance for the Future of Austria (Bündnis Zukunft Österreich) and the Liberal Forum (Liberales Forum) expressed comparable views.

Two other parties have some reservations on the topic. The Austrian People's Party (Österreichische Volkspartei), the second largest political party, answered that it has no preference between Open Source or  proprietary software. "What matters most is to get the right solution, taking into account procurement costs and maintenance. Our biggest concern is to make sure that citizens can access government applications without problems and that all can share innovations and benefits." The Freedom Party of Austria (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, FPÖ), which has an equal number of seats in the National Council as the Greens, had a similar reply. Migrating to Open Source reduces licence costs, but creates new problems, the FPÖ answers. "Whether a switch is useful, depends on the balance between these two."

Internet voting

The question was part of a survey on electronic government conducted earlier this month by ORF. Other questions included topics such as voting by Internet and the right to Internet access. The use of IT in the public administration is a political issue, ORF writes in it's introduction., citing recent events in Vienna as an example.

Earlier this year, the council of the city of Vienna upset Green politicians when it decided to reserve budget to upgrade its desktop PCs to Microsoft Vista in 2010. The move was seen as a step back from a project with the city's own GNU/Linux version, Wienux. ORF: "The lack of clear political support made Wienux go into a tail spin."

The broadcaster published the answers to all the questions on its Futurezone website last Wednesday.

More information:

• ORF E-government survey (in German)