The Malta Information Technology Agency and IBM held a high profile joint business event that tackled the developments unfolding in the world of Open Source Software (OSS). The event, targeted for both public and private sectors, attracted a large number of attendees from various government ministries, local industry players and multinationals.
MITA chairman Claudio Grech opened the event by stating that government’s support to OSS is crucial for the development of the right eco-system in which OSS can proliferate. MITA has already taken two major steps in this regard.
“We have set up the Government of Malta Open Source End User Group which aims at raising awareness and knowledge of OSS and we have also published a vision document – the Open Source Vision white paper – which provides a set of high level principles intended to facilitate the accelerated, non-intrusive adoption of OSS within Government,” he explained.
Mr Grech added that the take up of OSS depends on various factors, including the availability of appropriate e-skills and the understanding of its potential, opportunities and limitations.
IBM’s government programmes executive, Jonathan Sage, delivered two key presentations on the adoption of OSS and on EU policy on OSS and open standards.
Mr Sage stressed on the importance of OSS in the educational sector: “It is important that from a young age, students are not locked to a particular technology or suite of products, but are allowed to explore and use various proprietary and non-proprietary products both at school and at home”.
He added that curriculums taught in schools should reflect the software that is available, including open source software. He also said that during their procurement, governments should not close their doors to OSS and that OSS should be considered on-par with proprietary software.
Mr Sage’s presentations later served to start a discussion by a panel made up of Godwin Caruana (chief technology Officer, MITA), Jonathan Camilleri Bowman (managing director, 2i), Peter Delia (director, Ricston) and Mr Sage himself.
The panel discussion, which was moderated by Vanessa Macdonald, touched upon several topics, including public procurement. Mr Caruana said that procurement decisions must always be taken in a context – one cannot solely look at acquisition costs, but one must also capitalise on past investments and consider operation and technical factors. Mr Delia added that government is a major buyer of ICT products and solutions and therefore if a level playing field between proprietary software and OSS is adopted, there will be value for OSS to grow further.
Mr Camilleri Bowman stated that from a business point of view, what is crucial is meeting customers’ needs irrespective of whether proprietary or open source software is used.
Event material (including presentations) is available from www.mita.gov.mt/events