India: free software mandatory for public offices

[David Gerard]

On 2 November 2015 at 20:53, Henning Jacobs <henning at jacobs1.de> wrote:

> This
> sounds great!
> Is there any site with a list of all government FOSS adoptions
> (policies and their implementation "level") around the world?


Don't know about that, but I suspect LibreOffice would be a useful
source on the topic. Collabora just did a deal with the UK government
purchasing agency to support a slightly customised build of
LibreOffice, which is *awesome* news:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/collabora-deal-will-provide-savings-on-open-source-office-software
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/21/government_signs_deal_with_libreoffice_open_sourcer/

The comments on the Reg story are apposite: government financial
controllers just got burnt *really badly* moving off Windows XP, and
are really not at all positive towards Microsoft. And with LO and the
forthcoming LO Online, they can stick it to Microsoft and not have to
answer sticky questions about their data and the US government.

It's probably on Windows for the time being, but I look at things like
LO as the gateway drug to more free software in the future.


- d.