Nineteen companies, both multinationals and local enterprises, a bank, universities and Open Source developers in Latvia are launching a new organisation to promote Open Standards and Open Source software, the Latvian Open Technologies Association (LATA).
Its members include international IT companies such as IBM, Sun Microsystems and Oracle. Also participating are VSAA, the Latvian State Social Insurance Agency, Hansabanka, one of the more popular banks in Latvia and draugiem.lv, a Latvian social networking site.
The new association was launched a month ago. LATA says it will provide and support open IT solutions, aiming to expand the use of Open Standards and Spen Source software.
The Latvian Open Source Association (LAKA) welcomes the move. It notes that while LAKA has been representing the developers of Open Source software over the years, less emphasis was made on the representation of the users of the Open Standards and Open Source software. This left a gap that the newly formed association will hopefully fill over time, said Gints Polis, chairman of the board of LAKA.
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