Open Source e-Government? No, thank you! by Renato Brunetta
Renato Brunetta, Italian Minister of Public Administration and Innovation, two days ago disclosed his plan for Innovation. Open Source is not mentioned, as well as there is no mention of cloud computing.
The Italian e-gov plan is contained in two power-point presentations, and seems not taking in any consideration the most up-to-date trends in the ICT sector.
Paolo Zocchi, recently appointed coordinator of the Italian Democratic Party Innovation Laboratory instituted by the Shadow Minister for Public Administration and Innovation, commented:
Brunetta’s e-government plan does not contain any element of innovation and no relationship with the most up-to-date trends in the ICT sector all around the world. We are facing in the next years a big shift from network computing to cloud computing: this process will be the key to give a new impulse to the global economy and will redefine dramatically the ICT market. It is very important that the governments will be very open to this evolution; in the case of the italian government, it seems very far away from adopting this view and from perceiving the needs of a dynamic informational society.
Roberto Galoppini, 
Josef Assad 9:00 am on January 24, 2009 Permalink
Why cloud computing? How does cloud computing single itself out sufficiently to warrant explicit mention in the precise context of e-government?
Roberto Galoppini 11:02 am on January 25, 2009 Permalink
Hi Josef,
cloud computing is increasingly going to be more and more important, even if government remains skeptical about the cloud. Despite Italian thought leaders at CNIPA – the National Centre for ICT in the Public. Administrations – take part in international conversations on e-government in cloud, regional and national IT laws are ignoring the cloud.
Tim O’Reilly says:
That’s why we open source and open standards advocates should be part of this process, since open source will fuel the growth of cloud computing anyway.
Carlo Piana 9:40 am on January 26, 2009 Permalink
Beats me, there is no vision. One can have a bad vision, but having none is dreadful.
“One computer in any classroom”: this morning’s buzz. For doing what? To teach how to start Word? Is that what we want our children become? Tamed monkeys?
Roberto Galoppini 11:39 am on January 26, 2009 Permalink
The government is just planning to reduce costs, they don’t plan to increase vision AND efficiency. That’s probably why they don’t talk about open (source, standards) and show cases mentioned are only promoted by vendors.
Alex Roe 4:46 pm on April 18, 2009 Permalink
“and seems not taking in any consideration the most up-to-date trends in the ICT sector”
From what I’ve seen of Italian graduates over the last five years or so, not many of them are particularly up-to-date in terms of IT. Most need lessons on how to use Excel, and very few seem to know that Word can check the spelling of English words automatically. In this day and age, I find this amazing, and worrying. I hate to think how much companies in Italy have to spend on training employees in basic computer skills.
Surely the Italian education system could devote a few hours to teaching high school students how to use Word and Excel – they would not have to invest in software either OpenOffice is free, and if you can use the open source equivalents of Word (Writer) and Excel (Calc), then using Word and Excel would be easy.
Open source software is not popular institutionally in Italy because no money can be made from supplying it! The infamous ‘interests’ at play, one fears.
Best,
Alex in Milan, Italy – and an open source fan too
Roberto Galoppini 4:40 pm on April 21, 2009 Permalink
Ciao Alex,
I believe that Italian companies can make also big money from open source, QualiPSo is the living proof. Still large system integrators and solution providers are reluctant to approach open source beyond tactics, probably leaving on the table a number of opportunities.
About schools and IT skills, there are interesting alternatives to the ECDL, like INGOT, and we could save some money approaching IT education in similar ways.