In recent years the ESOP gathered 1,200 civil servants in awareness actions designed to raise awareness of free software alternatives in the sector. The legislation has also established the principle of the use of open standards and is one of the principles of cost-cutting plan in IT in AP (PGETIC), consider open source solutions before the proprietary options. But the open source numbers in the public service do not reflect the steps taken from the formal point of view.
In a debate organized on Thursday by the ESOP, the Association of Corporate Open Source Software Portuguese, the theme was the focus of discussion and it was agreed: in recent years been given several important steps, but there is still work to do to ensure that open source alternatives are gaining ground to proprietary solutions.
Luis Goes, who represented the Socialist Party in the event, defended the security and knowledge are critical to make important decisions and these two elements are shaken between public IT managers. It found that the capitalization of Public Administration, the motivation and the aging of the resources do not favor the dynamic environment that is necessary to have to bet on different technologies and take the risk of this change, a critical off of state IT resources in this legislature and the investment cuts in the same area.
The position was contradicted by João Mota Lopes, head of the Institute of Informatics and representative of the PSD / CDS coalition in the event, which brought together the political parties represented in Parliament .
The official shared the experience of the Institute to ensure that last year the budget has tripled and the number of employees increased by 45 and argued that the betting areas, such as the social security service scan the divestiture scenario is not true. He admitted however that the control of all technology purchases, made by the AMA and other public bodies depending on the amount, is tight and complex, while considering introducing a level of analysis and unprecedented filtering.
Today all software purchase intentions in the PA must take into account the open source alternatives, and if not by this means managers need to justify it. The AMA controls the process for any purchase above 10 000 euros. Alvaro Pinto, president of the ESOP, like the rest of the participants – were also at the Bruno Dias debate PCP and Pedro Filipe Soares the Left Bloc -. Welcomes the introduction of the mechanism, but suggests further action
“It has a positive effect because until now there was no scrutiny,” admits Alvaro Pinto, but another important measure would be public disclosure of the opinions justifying the choice of proprietary solutions instead of open source alternatives. Some are based on very little data based, warned the official. In the last three years, the association found that the volume of public investment allocated to procedures that define specific conditions in the proposals, to place themselves as offering a specific manufacturer has increased. In 2012 was 3.4 million euros in 2013 has advanced to 8.2 million euros and in 2014 reached 12 million euros.
ESOP, deputies (Bruno Dias and Pedro Filipe Soares, who played a central role in creating legislation open standards of the AP and the introduction of free software as an alternative in Parliament) and public managers (John Mota Lopes and Luis Goes (former ITIJ and current member of the board of the PS design office) agreed that have been important steps to promote the use of open source in the AP. Nearly all mentioned the existence of free software success stories the AP, but did not share the indicators that reflect the effect of all public measures in this regard. Although the issue has been on the table.
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