Press release from Slovenian government

Background information on Slovenian Freedom of Information

"Adopted document specifies fundamental policy of the Government of Slovenia towards development, implementation and usage of open source software code and solutions. Its primary audience are government institutions and governmental bodies, another public sector and finally the whole Slovenian audience (both profit and non-profit). The direction outlined in the document is development of information society and accessibility of IT technologies and services.

"Document is trying to have an equal stand towards open source and proprietary software and solutions. It supports open source initiatives, usage of open standards and protocols, higher transparency and confidence into security and privacy of bought or developed IT solutions. It represents the starting point for executing actions, which are already carried out by some governmental bodies, mostly in the face of the economic pressures, but which must be better coordinated particularly in the sense of sharing the best practices, knowledge transfer and re-use of experiences. The document does not have the inclination nor the intent to discredit or neglect proprietary solutions, but to develop rational and technologically neutral attitude towards different programming solutions.

"With the adoption of a policy document by Slovenian Government, Slovenia has formalised its standpoints in this matter and by it joined several other countries that have already adopted similar documents."

Slovenia is nestled among Austria, Hungary, Italy, and Croatia. Depending on where you are in the world, here's a quick size reference: it's about 75% of the area of Belgium or Massachusetts, with 1/5 and 1/3 of their respective populations (2 million); or 2/3 the area of Taiwan with 1/11th of the population. The language is Slovenian, which is a Slavic language. I was trying to find out what Slovenia is known for, and found this page of famous Slovenians, but the most interesting thing was about the discovery of the use of leeches for modern plastic and reconstructive surgery by two Slovenian surgeons. You might be able to tell that I am a big fan of "appropriate technology".

Anyway, Slovenia is on the short list for entry in the EU. It had been severly criticized earlier this year for signing a deal with Microsoft, so this is evidence of a growing awareness about FLOSS.

It seems that Slovenia puts a heavy emphasis on information technology in their educational system, although these are probably Windows boxes. Here is the Slovenian LUG homepage. Slovenia may be just starting to get Linux and FLOSS in the public eye, but it is obvious from visiting some sites that there is a hard-core gourp of Linux enthusiasts who are working there.

Willy Smith reporting from Costa Rica, with thanks to Novica Nakov of Free Software Macedonia for bringing this to my attention.