The administration of the Italian city of Bari must increase its use of free and open source software solutions, say local representatives of the Five Star Movement. Switching to open source will be part of the movement's election programme for the municipal elections in 2014.
The group earlier this month made a formal request to the city administration to list which open source solutions it is already using. "We suspect that open source is practically non-existent", explains Fabio Leli, one of the activists for the Five Star Movement in the city. "This is absolutely unacceptable, for there are municipalities much smaller than ours, that are reporting significant savings by using open source."
One example would be the city administration of Modena. It has 186 000 citizens, just over half the number of citizens in Bari (319 000 citizens) and according to Leli, Modena is saving more than one million euro a year by using open source solutions.
The Bari administration was supposed to publish its IT strategy last month, Leli says. "We are still waiting for it." Free and open source solutions are so far not included explicitly in the city's earlier IT strategies. "That is why we will present our own projects and plans. If the municipality continues to avoid open source, we will make it part of the electoral programme for next year."
The Five Star Movement has no elected representatives in the council of Bari. The group participated in the 2009 municipal elections but did not win any seats. Leli: "We had just started our local chapter that year." However, at the general elections in February this year, the party got 27 percent of the local votes. The movement now expects to win not only seats in the city council, but estimates it has a change to replace even the mayor. "In 2009, our candidate already came fourth, out of a total of nine. Until then, we will continue calling and planning for Bary to switch to open source solutions."
More information:
Five Star Movement's request to the city of Bari (in Italian)