IT: Venice region settles on open source and open standards
The Veneto Region, around the Italian city of Venice, has decided to move to open source software and open standards, the Italian Internet news site Zeus reports.
According to the report, the regional Council of Veneto passed a resolution to adopt to open digital formats and open standards, in November last year.
For new IT projects, the region's public administration is requested to favour open source software and open standards. In cases where this type of software can not be used, the authorities need to explain why this is the case, according to the Zeus item.
One of the goals of the resolution is to reduce costs. That open source can help realise this, is argued in a case study by GNU/Linux distributor Red Hat from 2007. One of the government organisations in the Veneto region, the Veneto Agency for Agriculture Payments at that time began using servers running Red Hat GNU/Linux. The organisations handles claims for and payments of financial assistance to local farmers. In its case study the company quotes Renzo Padovani, manager at the agency: "Open source played a significant role in our choice, given the pressure to contain costs in public administration."
According to Padovani, GNU/Linux is also used by the Veneto Regional authority.
The region is one of Italy's wealthier and most industrialised regions.
More information:
Zeus news item (in Italian)
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