The Italian province of South Tyrol is taking into production an eGovernment forms system based on open source software. The province’s form engine is based on Orbeon, running on the CentOS Linux distribution.
In the next three years, South Tyrol will add about 100 government forms per year to the Orbeon form engine. The system will also be made available to municipalities and other public administrations in the province.
“Open source code has made easier the interoperability with local systems” says Davide Montesin, a software engineer helping the South Tyrol government’s eGov Competence Center in building form engine.
To combine the authorisation software used by the province with the open source form engine, the South Tyrol developers made a few changes in Orbeon’s Java code. “Had this been proprietary software, we would not have been able to make this interoperability improvement.”
Montesin, the project’s lead engineer, presented the system at SFScon, a free software conference that took place in Bozen on 13 November.
Monumental
Over the years, the government of the autonomous province has created several online forms to be used by citizen and companies. In 2013, the government began an overhaul of the existing electronic forms, aiming to replace these by the Orbeon/Linux-based solution, using open XML standards.
The provinces Orbeon XForms system already handles electronics applications to deal with mobility, monuments and the provincial archive. The online forms can be used to apply for hunting and fishing licences, and to access volunteer and social services linked to the provincial government.
The project will soon be adding some 25 new forms related to tourism, education, business registration and municipal services.
Translation
Plans for an open source-based eGovernment forms solution were first discussed in 2012, adds Patrick Ohnewein, head of the Free Software & Open Technologies Department at TIS innovation park, a research organisation in Bozen.
Ohnewein says the South Tyrol developers are working closely together with the Orbeon developers in San Mateo in California. “We’ve sponsored many features, including a German translation. In return they’ve helped us to solve some technical issues”, he said.
The Orbeon Linux eGovernment form engine is making it much easier for citizens and companies to contact their provincial government, says Montesin. “And over time, this solution will allow a paperless workflow.”
More information:
SFScon introduction to the eGovernment forms project
Presentation by Davide Montesin (pdf)