Advocates of free and open source in public administrations are getting worried about developments in the autonomous regions of Extremadura and Andalusia. They fret that an upcoming feasability study on a proprietary cloud-based office suite and a proprietary database server will spell the end of the open source initiatives by the Extremadura regional government.
In Andalusia it is the replacement of a locally made enterprise resource system by a proprietary alternative that is troubling the open source enthousiasts.
The regional administration of Extremadura over the past week did not respond to repeated emails seeking comments. Other sources involved in Spanish public administrations' using free and open source could neither dispel or confirm the rumours on Extremadura.
One blogger from the region, Santiago Vicente, writes that both proprietary solutions will be pushed through. His post was referred to by other bloggers, for instance by Ramón Ramón, an open source IT consultant, who also could not yet provide more information. Ramón Ramón supposes the new political leadership of the autonomous region "does not understand what it means to train the next generations in values of freedom and values".
Ramón Ramón adds that he is even more dissapointed over a decision by the administration of Andalusia to purchase 14 million euro worth of proprietary licences for a German system for enterprise resource planning, following a negotiated procurement procedure. The proprietary ERP system will replace a locally made ERP system owned by the administration, Jupiter.
The news on the replacing of the local ERP system comes from a blog post by Francisco Vázquez Cañas, a local politician and head of the IT department of the province of Cadiz, part of the community of Andalusia. Vázquez writes that he does not understand why the public administration would ditch a system that could be shared with other public administrations.
Ramón Ramón: "Ask any ICT professional, once you commit to this proprietary ERP system you will become its slave. The small initial investment hides how within a few years the costs will spiral to close to a hundred million. Once the Andalusian government takes this step, it will have no way back."
More information:
Blog post by Santiago Vicente (in Spanish)
Blog post by Ramón Ramón (in Spanish)
Que Es news item (in Spanish)
Blog post by Francisco Vázquez Cañas (in Spanish)
Andalucia's decision on migrating the Jupiter ERP system (in Spanish)