The autonomous region of Galicia is engaging trade groups, universities and free software groups involved in nearly 30 per cent of this year’s plans for free software in the region. Galicia earmarked EUR 120,000, involving the groups in localising free software applications, writing documentation and organising conferences, workshops and seminars. The groups will also help to promote the use of free software solutions.
On 13 May, an official cooperation agreement was signed by Amtega, Galicia's agency for technological modernisation, earlier this month, with the three universities in the region, the Galician Association of Free Software (AGASOL) and six of the region’s free software user groups.
The consortium will for example be included in the organisation of Akademy 2015, the annual conference for developers of KDE, one of the main free and open source desktop environment. Akademy 2015 will take place in A Coruña from 25 to 31 July.
Free solutions
Amtega is also reaching out to regional IT trade associations to help promote the use of free software in businesses. The region’s ICT resource centre is demonstrating the use of Odoo, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and CiviCRM, a customer relationship management solution.
Galicia announced in early 2014 it would switch the regional administration to free software, including on the desktop. Amtega has begun switching the first 1500 desktop PCs to open source. The agency also funds the development of free software tools used by the region, including Arpad, an electronic document management and archive solution and AIRES, an electronic registration system tailored to the regional administration and built on top of Alfresco.
The region is also introducing over 50,000 students to free software tools, making it part of their 2014-2015 curriculum.
The current cabinet of the autonomous region is formed by the People’s Party (PP). Galicia held regional elections in 2012 and so did not take part in this weekend’s local and regional elections, which turned out to be the worst local election result in 20 years for the PP.
More information:
Statement by Axencia para a Modernización Tecnolóxica de Galicia (in Galician)
OSOR news item
Akademy 2015
Galicia 2015 free software plan (pdf, in Galician)