[Lilux-info] [Fwd: Call for help: formulating a national government strategy on Free Software]

fyi -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Call for help: formulating a national government strategy on Free Software Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 23:53:15 +0100 From: Mark Shuttleworth <mark(a)ubuntu.com> To: Ubuntu Announcements <ubuntu-announce(a)lists.ubuntu.com> This is a mail to the global Ubuntu community, to ask for your help in formulating a national government strategy on Free Software for South Africa. We hope this work will also be used as a model for many countries world wide. We are participating in a task force that is considering how South Africa should lead the adoption of Free Software in government, in the private sector and in civil society. It is a unique gathering of people who would like to create the most effective possible strategy for the country, building on the great ideas that have already been implemented elsewhere. The group includes representatives from the following government departments: - Health - Education - Agriculture - Communications (Post and Telecommunications Regulation) - Labour - International Relations - Treasury (Taxation) - Public Services (eGovernment) - Local and Municipal Government - Science and Technology - Transport - National Statistics It would help us tremendously to hear from people who are aware of real Free Software projects in different countries around the world that are relevant to each of these groups. For example, free software tools for running medical clinics, or garbage collection coordination, or telecenters for access to ICT, or coordinating the legislative process. Any free software related to some function of government would be useful to know about. If you know about such a project in your country, please visit this wiki and add it to the relevant department page: http://wiki.go-opensource.org/taskforce/ If you can briefly (in a few sentences) describe the project, and even better, know a URL to web pages that describe the project, then please add them to the relevant pages. For example, last month I visited an amazing project in Brazil, looking to create mainframe-reliability platforms for government using commodity hardware and [Ubuntu ;-)] linux. So I've added that project under the "National Government Projects" page: http://wiki.go-opensource.org/taskforce/NatGovProj The projects are likely to be run by government departments but it would be equally interesting to hear about private sector, or civil society (NGO) projects that are related to the work of those departments. If you think it's possibly useful, please do add it. This will allow us to put South African authorities in touch with people doing great work with Free Software in their equivalent departments internationally - and hopefully begin to foster global cooperation on those projects. The projects don't have to be Ubuntu related - this is about Free Software, not a particular app or distro. The meetings start Monday morning, so anything you can add this weekend or during the week would be appreciated! THANK YOU! I'm very excited about the opportunity to participate in this forum. After years of calling for serious thought about the opportunities that Free Software present for countries, especially developing countries like South Africa, it seems that the idea is finally gaining traction. We will keep this wiki open, and I hope it will become a good resource for anybody who is trying to create a coherent strategy on Free Software for their government. Mark PS - if you'd like, create a WikiName for yourself (click on UserPreferences and create an account) so that your changes will be identified as coming from you). -- ubuntu-announce mailing list ubuntu-announce(a)lists.ubuntu.com http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-announce