The Italian city of Udine is 'gradually and painfully' removing all the ties that bind the city's ICT systems to the usual proprietary operating systems and office productivity solutions, reports head of the IT department, Antonio Scaramuzzi. The city aims to slowly introduce more free and open source software alternatives.
Unhurried, the municipality is implementing open source technologies where feasible, avoiding big migration projects, Scaramuzzi writes to the Open Source Observatory and Repository (OSOR).
Earlier this month, IT trade news site Zdnet that the town is making Apache OpenOffice the default office suite. The software is already installed on all of the city's 900 PCs. ZDNet writes that this switch will save the city about 400 euro per PC in proprietary software licences.
Scaramuzzi confirms to OSOR that in the coming months the city will begin moving to OpenOffice. The IT department is using a survey to find out which of the proprietary office productivity tools are still used, and will begin training staff to use OpenOffice Write to create official documents. The switch is combined with the introduction of a new information system, he adds.
Linux PCs
The city is also beginning the removal of the proprietary office suite. This will be done in phases, the first of which comprises 130 PCs.
"A gradual but steady march is a good strategy for the introduction of open source technologies", writes Scaramuzzi. "It is also practical, because we do not have the human and financial resources for launching large-scale migration projects."
In 2015, Udine will also pilot replacing proprietary PC operating systems, switching to Linux-based PCs. Earlier experiments with Linux failed because too many of the city's applications were locked-in to the ubiquitous proprietary platform, Scaramuzzi says. He is hopeful that with many proprietary ties removed, this second pilot will prove more successful. "We're currently considering which department of the city administration is most suitable for the pilot."