The regional administration of the Italian island of Sicily is to consider a law nudging public administrations to use of free and open source software. The proposal, by Massimo Ferrara, a member of the Democratic Party, might also help prevent the break-up of a school on the island, the Instituto Majorana, involved in producing instruction videos on this type of software.

Ferrara presented his bill "the law on free software in Sicily" early last month.

The regional administration of the Italian island of Sicily is to consider a law nudging public administrations to use of free and open source software. The proposal, by Massimo Ferrara, a member of the Democratic Party, might also help prevent the break-up of a school on the island, the Instituto Majorana, involved in producing instruction videos on this type of software.

The regional administration of the Italian island of Sicily is to consider a law nudging public administrations to use of free and open source software. The proposal, by Massimo Ferrara, a member of the Democratic Party, might also help prevent the break-up of a school on the island, the Instituto Majorana, involved in producing instruction videos on this type of software.

Ferrara presented his bill "the law on free software in Sicily" early last month.

Public administrations that want to move to vendor independent open source applications need to put a lot of effort in communication, recommends Massimo Carnevali, until recently the IT manager of the municipality of Bologna in Italy. "Communicate to everybody, from users to management. Explaining where users can find help could be more important than actually providing it."

read more

Public administrations that want to move to vendor independent open source applications need to put a lot of effort in communication, recommends Massimo Carnevali, until recently the IT manager of the municipality of Bologna in Italy. "Communicate to everybody, from users to management. Explaining where users can find help could be more important than actually providing it."

Public administrations that want to move to vendor independent open source applications need to put a lot of effort in communication, recommends Massimo Carnevali, until recently the IT manager of the municipality of Bologna in Italy. "Communicate to everybody, from users to management. Explaining where users can find help could be more important than actually providing it."

read more

GisContent, a new community plug-in developed by CRS4, Center for Advanced Studies, Research and Development in Sardinia for the open source web platform jAPS 2.0 Entando was released and is available to download on sourceforge.net.

read more

GisContent, a new community plug-in developed by CRS4, Center for Advanced Studies, Research and Development in Sardinia for the open source web platform jAPS 2.0 Entando was released and is available to download on sourceforge.net.

GisContent, a new community plug-in developed by CRS4, Center for Advanced Studies, Research and Development in Sardinia for the open source web platform jAPS 2.0 Entando was released and is available to download on sourceforge.net.

read more

The Innovationpark South Tyrol (TIS) in the autonomous province of Bolzano in Italy, is increasing its efforts to support innovation in local industry in using free and open source technologies. It recently made 'Free software and open technologies' one of its seven departments.

The Innovationpark South Tyrol (TIS) in the autonomous province of Bolzano in Italy, is increasing its efforts to support innovation in local industry in using free and open source technologies. It recently made 'Free software and open technologies' one of its seven departments.

read more

The Scriba eBook Maker, an open source tool to create documents for e-readers, is helping to reduce the wasting of paper in the Italian Parliament. Senators are increasingly combining smart phones and tablet devices with the Scriba e-document service, offering them a practical access to all kinds of documents.

read more

The Scriba eBook Maker, an open source tool to create documents for e-readers, is helping to reduce the wasting of paper in the Italian Parliament. Senators are increasingly combining smart phones and tablet devices with the Scriba e-document service, offering them a practical access to all kinds of documents.

read more

The Scriba eBook Maker, an open source tool to create documents for e-readers, is helping to reduce the wasting of paper in the Italian Parliament. Senators are increasingly combining smart phones and tablet devices with the Scriba e-document service, offering them a practical access to all kinds of documents.

The council of the Italian region of Puglia is about to approve the law proposed last December that will make the use of open source and open standards mandatory for the region's public administrations, according to news reports. The region expects to save up to a million euro per year by increasing its use of this type of software, at the same time creating business opportunities for small and medium sized enterprises.

Included in the plans is a fund that over the next three years will  finance academic and commercial projects on this type of software.