Open Infrastructure, a way for Open Society


by Ján Husár
Chairman of SKOSI.org
25.11.2005
version 1.0.1


INDEX

1.Preface
2.National supporters
3.International supporters
4.European Union
5.Future
6.International Open Infrastructure Alliance proposal


Examples


a) Example of national support 1. Slovak Open Source Initiative (SKOSI.org)
b) Example of national support 2. OSS Alliance (Czech) (OSS.cz)
c) Example of international support by OSS.cz and SKOSI.org
d) Open Infrastructure list of supporters

1.Preface

There are many ways to achieve open infrastructure in the European Union. The easiest is to connect all the existing projects, which are operating as stand-alone organizations or national open society groups. Open Infrastructure is the major key for 'Informatisation' (which is the deployment of (mostly) public sector computer infrastructure), education (not only in schools) and helping citizens work effectively. Our priority should focus on the government and education sectors, open source and open standards communities, for building Open and independent infrastructure. Our vision of Open Society and Environment is based on the freedom of compatibility and choice.

Open Infrastructure Definitions:

FOSS – Free and Open Source Software

OpenSource Initiative (OSI) approved license for software which basically means freedom to use, redistribute and modify the source.

Proprietary software using Open Standards

Any proprietary software using Open Standards like the OpenDocument Format (ODF) for office applications such as IBM Workplace or Sun StarOffice.

Platform independent software, software which can be accessed from any platform by using
plugins or software with open API access

Proprietary or Open software which is able to run on any platform at server and client side (such as JAVA which is as client available at any platform accessible by Plugins), or software which is able to run in this environment (such as Cloudscape DB, SAP,...)


2.National supporters


In EU countries, there has been a multitude of waves of Open Source projects and organizations; like LUGs (Linux User Group), Unix User Groups, etc. Those are stand-alone projects, and there is little or no cooperation between them and for example in countries outside the English speaking communities there are many translating identical things but in different projects, even the information which can be found on web pages (project pages or web portals trying to gather all the necessary information under one roof) is a far cry from initial visions. At this point, there is less support of these projects, and they suffer from severe financial conditions and so on.

Cooperation level

A solution could be creating a foundation focusing on supporting the projects as whole, where the project itself and people involved work on it are able to focus at project priorities. They do not need to focus on areas of implementation (government, schools, etc.), public relations, marketing, providing the exact information as they did before. This can be done by the foundation, which can support more projects and some of those projects can later form larger projects (the same situation as with fusing localization of Mozilla firefox and gnu/Debian distribution, where they formed one localization team with the software being the projects)

Support level

Public Relations; marketing, conferences, materials, etc
Localization Platform
Certified software (localized and ready to use)
Government relations; government infrastructure consultancy
Project space; mailing lists, hardware, testing space, user support
Development Platform; building the system, version control
Education relations; projects helping educating citizens
....

Project definition

project must be creating elements of Open Source or Open Infrastructure (see Open Infrastructure Definition)




3.International supporters

Currently, Open Infrastructure support is provided mainly by smaller groups taking no care of EU and member Countries.


International support solution

cooperation on higher level
knowledge and information sharing
supporting projects on international level
supporting communities
taking care of Open Infrastructure implementation
EU and member countries consultancy
software repository
project implementation guidelines
web portal for communities, projects, government, education, citizens
conferences

4.European Union


Implementation of Open Infrastructure is a long and strenuous process, supporting Open Standards is the first step. Our vision is educating citizens through independent infrastructure available at schools or public places or provided by their government and employers.

Benefits of Open Infrastructure

cost-effective implementation
well educated citizens
software independent countries
support on national and international level
effective deployment of IT infrastructure in government and education sectors
compatibility and interoperability
freedom of choice
striving towards Open Society with Open Knowledge (Open Source Communities and Open Knowledge such as the WikiPedia project)

5.Future

Without Open Infrastructure directives, the EU future is anything but bright. Member countries are adopting their own directives; the eastern part of EU is taking the way of proprietary standards, forcing citizens to buy and use proprietary software, meaning there is a lot of software piracy. We must take steps as soon as possible, because 70% of funds provided by the EU used for deployment of Infrastructure are used for proprietary infrastructure. That means, support is controlled by corporations outside the EU and compatibility level is much lower than it should be. To stop this, requires intense work.

Helping the EU

We are not France, England or Poland, we are the EU.

help the EU to create Open Infrastructure directives
implementation of Open Infrastructure in Education sector
form Open Infrastructure Committee which can stop the EU and its members from taking regressive steps in IT infrastructure deployment

6.International Open Infrastructure Alliance proposal

We should start by forming a national FOSS support and cooperation groups like the OSS Alliance CZ did. This way, we aim to support the national FOSS community and improve our work using FOSS and Open Standards in the government and education sectors. Right now, future is being discussed and we should meet people from the FOSS community around Europe to spread the word of cooperation.

Open Infrastructure commission for EU
stronger base for FOSS and Open Infrastructure projects
support, hardware, people, financing
FOSS repository
national certified software (localised and ready-to-use/deploy)
success stories of using FOSS and its benefits (cost-effectiveness, opensource, etc.)
multi language Open Infrastructure portal
OpenDocument support
Open Standards support


a) Example of national support 1. Slovak Open Source Initiative (SKOSI.org)


The Slovak Open Source Initiative was founded to provide a basis for the Open Society by using Open Source and Open Standards technologies such as the OpenDocument Format, the Apache Web server and the OpenOffice.org suite. We are primarily focusing on the government and education sectors, open source and open standards communities, and national projects for 'Informatisation' (which is the deployment of (mostly) public sector computer infrastructure), and educating citizens (not only in schools). SKOSI.org is young organization, existing for 4 months only.
So far, we have managed to support the community with a few projects and some partnership events. This entails me working 100% for SKOSI.org (which includes supporting FFII.org).
SKOSI.org partnership projects
SK.OpenOffice.org - the Slovak Localization team of OpenOffice.org. (we must note that the 2.0 sk. release was released 4 days after English version)
** members : 4
Ubuntu-sk.org - the Slovak Localization team of Ubuntu-sk and the Slovak community project around the Ubuntu Linux distribution.
** members : 15 and still growing every week
FOSS hotspot - Free public accessible PC terminal (running Ubuntu) with Free Wi-Fi hotspot. Currently we have one functional and three ready-to-deploy hotspots. All are accessible in public places such as an English bookstore, coffee house, and nightclub. With this, we are trying to promote FOSS, Wi-Fi and SKOSI.org to the general public. Later, this project (in partnership with Sun Microsystems and Faculty of Technology and Chemistry) will provide for widespread access for internet terminals in libraries. (Currently 1300 internet terminals are planned for all libraries in Slovakia).
** Already have WiFi Hardware sponsor
** Will join Internet Terminals for Public in Libraries
** Will become diskless thinclient
FFII SK - promoting and helping FFII visions
** promoting Open Document
** promoting Open Standards
** delivering to schools and government
** EU Parliament consultancy

SKOSI.org partnership events
SoftwareFreedomDay.org in Bratislava, together with Sun Microsystems. (next year we plan to encompass further three cities in Slovakia)
OpenOffice.org 2.0 press release, together with Sun Microsystems
LinuxWeekend Conference, together with SkLug
SKOSI.org attending events
i2s 2005 (Open Society)
ITAPA 2005 (Open Source and Open Standards hearing)
Open Knowledge Hearing at European Parliament in Strasbourg (Sun, IBM, MEPs)
SKOSI.org Foundation
We started as SKUUG (Slovak Unix User Group), and tried to improve the support provided by LUGs (Linux User Groups) in promoting FOSS and GNU/linux. Later, we became involved with the troubles with software patents, weird ‘informatisation’ and similar things. I tried to reform SKUUG into SKOSI which, first of all, will support all FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) and not solely Unix Systems. Further, we started to support Open Standards and Open Technology software such as Java, which also attracts more support from corporate members such as Sun or IBM. Right now, there is no legal base, but this will change at the end of this month. We did a lot of work despite lacking a legal foundation. We learned a lot from projects such as the Apache Foundation and the Eclipse Foundation.
SKOSI.org and Slovak press
So far, we have managed to provide two articles regarding ‘informatisation’ and the mishaps that happened in this respect.
SKOSI.org national Plans
Currently we are planning to improve support to our currently active projects (mainly OpenOffice.org support). Our top priority is OpenDocument information. At the end of the year, the Informatisation Committee will set the 'Electronic Standards in the Governmental Informatisation of Slovakia'. We must work hard or we will be stuck with Microsoft's "Open" XML and the like. There is a lot work to do in this respect. The next big step is to try to fuse our two localisation projects into one bigger SLT (Slovak Localization Team) which will have the task of localising smaller projects such as Ubuntu Linux, OpenOffice.org, and GNU tools, etc. We are able to involve more people and prove that we can do localisation extremely efficiently (such as releasing OpenOffice.org 2.0 as soon as 4 days after the stable English release). We wish to attract more localisation teams in Slovakia.
FOSS classroom (OpenSource for elementary and high schools project)
FOSS for local self-government of the city Martin
FOSS demo room


b) Example of national support 2. OSS Alliance (Czech) (OSS.cz)

information coming soon

c) Example of international support by OSS.cz and SKOSI.org

This month we joined a partnership with a similar Czech foundation, the OSS Alliance Czech Republic (www.oss.cz). They have cz.OpenOffice.org, Ubuntu Czech, a Mozilla team supported by the Czech Ministry of Informatics. We also have entered into a partnership with aaso.pl (Akademia Alternativnych systemow operacnych). Together we are planning to form V4 (Vysegrad Four) Alliance which will later on form the European Open Technology Alliance. Right now, we are in the planning stage.
projects with OSS.cz
FOSS repository for Government and Schools (Czech/Slovak)
FOSS success stories of implementation
help with FOSS demo room
help with FOSS classroom (OpenSource for basic and high schools project)
cooperation with FOSS for local self-government of the city Martin in Slovakia
FOSS software certification (localized and ready to use/deploy)






















d) Open Infrastructure list of supporters


Slovak Open Source Initiative (www.skosi.org)
FOSS Projects (localisation team of slovakia, http://sk.openoffice.org, ubuntu-sk.org, FOSS hotspot, goverment consultancy regarding openstandarts)
upcoming projects (linux.sk, SK Mozzila Team, SKLUG)
OSS Alliance (Czech Republic) (http://www.oss.cz), localization team, http://cz.openoffice.org, ubuntu-cz, KDE, SLAX, Blender3D
Czech Ministry of Informatics (http://www.micr.cz)
Akademia Alternatyvnych Systemow Operacjnych (http://www.AASO.pl)
University of Wroclaw (http://www.uni.wroc.pl/)
Sun Microsystems Slovakia (http://www.sun.sk)
Spanish province of Extremadura (http://www.extremaduraeuropa.org)
local self-goverment of province extremadura
running FOSS on local self-government level and in schools and providing terminals for the general public
cost-effectivness
Simon Phipps / Chief Open Source Officer at Sun Microsystems (http://www.webmink.net/)
committe of OpenOffice.org and OpenSolaris.org
IDABC EU (http://europa.eu.int/idabc/en/home)
OpenDocument Fellowship (http://opendocumentfellowship.org/Main/HomePage)
Charsles Schulz (http://www.openoffice.org/editorial/charles_schulz.html)
working for openoffice.org, opendocument fellowship and IDABC EU