Estonian Government publishes open source policy

The lesser coat of arms of the independent Republic of Estonia. According to a report on osor.eu, the Open Source Observatory, the government of Estonia has published its policy on open source software. Estonia plans to recommend use of the EUPL for code developed or funded by Estonian public administrations and plans to create a software forge for this software.

The open source policy is a component in the country's IT Interoperability Framework which also sets out principles such as support of open standards for all new IT systems and an avoidance of dependency on "certain brand-based products and services". However, the policy isn't an open source mandate. Uuno Vallner, head of e-government at Estonia's Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, said "in some cases it is better to choose proprietary and in other cases open-source software" and that the policy was aimed at creating "common mechanisms and methods" for the public sector.

See also:

• Estonia to open source security tools
• Malta: Open source preferred
  

(djwm)