PT: Government revamps portal on Open Source for administrations
Portugal's Agency for Administrative Modernisation (AMA) will overhaul its website advocating the use Open Source software for public administrations.
AMA announced its new Open Source plans on 15 April, when it signed a cooperation agreement with the Association of Portuguese Open Source companies (ESOP).
"The agreement between AMA and ESOP was made in the context of Portugal's plans to increase innovation by our public administration and businesses", AMA explained this week. "Our mission is to modernise and simplify the Portuguese public administration. Open Source adoption is important for those objectives."
Apart from reinvigorating the Open Source portal, the two organisations are planning several other activities and campaigns. They are planning several workshops to increase awareness and exchange experiences.
Part of the plan is to increase the awareness of Portuguese businesses on the use of Open Source. The two organisations enlisted the help of Iapmei, a government agency for small and medium sized businesses, part of the ministry for Economic Affairs and Innovation.
The two organisations say they will create a second portal to promote this type of software to businesses. The two will also begin an Open Source software repository, to be used by both administrations and businesses.
According to Gustavo Homem, president of ESOP, the two organisations will try to get public administrations to cooperate on the use of software. "We will develop support and consultancy services to help government institutions." ESOP is to provide knowledge and human resources to the plans AMA announced.
"This is a long-term project", Homem said. AMA and ESOP consider their cooperation accomplished if they are able to report many success stories and if many administrations and businesses participate in the activities and make use of the websites.
According to Homem, AMA and ESOP will begin by focusing on increasing the use of Open Source in data centre infrastructure, for websites and content management systems. "We also hope to increase the use of OpenOffice and aim to get public administrations to adopt Open Standards."
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Further information:
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Announcement on cooperation (in Portuguese)
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Sapo news item on the cooperation (in Portuguese)
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