Support for open source office tools included, almost from the start
The French government has updated Mareva, a set of spreadsheets and instructions that help public administrations to determine the strategic and economic value of IT projects. The IT project management tool, first released in 2005, has included supports for free and open source office suites since 2007.
The most recent version of Mareva, 2.1, was published in December. It increases the spreadsheets’ lexicon, making the toolbox useful to a wider group of public administrations.
Mareva (Méthode d'analyse et de remontée de la valeur) lets public administrations test different scenarios for IT projects. This helps them keep tabs on costs and increase value creation, writes DINSIC, France’s inter-ministerial Directorate for IT, in an announcement.
The IT project management solution was first made available in 2005, by ADAE, the precursor to DINSIC. Support for free and open source software was added sometime after August 2007, when Mareva supported its use in OpenOffice. In 2014, it switched to support LibreOffice, a much more rapidly developing open source office suite.
LibreOffice has been certified for use in France’s ministries. The office suite has been part of the ‘SocleLogiciels Libres’ (SIL, List of Free Software) since its start in 2013.
More information:
Announcement of Mareva 2.1 (in French)
Mareva ePractice case study