NewsForge: Italian Public Employees Join to Promote Open Source

“With a few notable exceptions, such as the Massachusetts
directive in favor of OpenDocument, government agencies usually do
not experiment or promote technological innovation in their own
offices. However, a small and scattered group of public employees
in Italy is trying to join forces to reverse this flow.

“Typically, especially in local government, politicians and
non-technical personnel set the guidelines about which software
should be chosen, and how different offices may use it. IT
personnel only have the ability to implement the software chosen
for them. This situation can create quite a bit of frustration,
especially among those technicians who know the benefits of free
software…”

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