The debate about the increased application of Open Source Software within government functions has intensified lately, including in Malta. The government recently began to explore further opportunities for the wider implementation of OSS in state ICT systems. This has created a fresh wave of interest in OSS in Malta.

To some, open source is free software that provides the same levels of functionality as other software that has to be purchased. Others see OSS as an opportunity to scrutinise the source code, tweak it to their particular requirements, and make the best use of it.

“The definition of open source merits a discussion in its own right,” Godwin Caruana, chief technology officer at the Malta Information Technology Agency, explained. “Very simplistically, it can perhaps be described as a type of computer software that is developed with the intention of making varying degrees of the underlying source code available for scrutiny and, possibly, re-use. In the context of the Malta government, the adopted characterisation for OSS is based on the definition provided by the Open Source Initiative.”

Listening to Mr Caruana explaining why MITA is more actively judging the increased merits of OSS in national systems, one gets the impression that the top priority is integrating OSS with the current governmental systems without any hiccups – not necessarily financial considerations, even though OSS has to be cost-effective. It is not always a question of saving money, especially in the immediate term. OSS is a change in culture from a social, educational and business aspect.

The buzzword here is “non-intrusive introduction” and not necessarily “saving money”.

An exploratory Open Source Software policy has been published on the government ICT policies website http://ictpolicies.gov.mt/ . The policy suggests the “non-intrusive consideration” of OSS. It also provides a number of guidelines to ensure a degree of quality with respect to OSS that is adopted within government.

“OSS has been in use for a number of critical, back-office types of services within MITA and government. The challenges of implementing similar OSS within the wider government vary, depending on the specific solutions being considered. Challenges from a client desktop perspective are perhaps more amplified. MITA will strive to identify respective opportunity areas while ensuring the necessary degree of continuity and non-intrusiveness,” explained Mr Caruana.

MITA has been using OSS software for its organisational ICT needs for years, and this includes e-mail and other back-office systems. Now it is time to consider OSS for national ICT systems. Reference to this is also made within the MITA Strategic Plan.

Once the OSS Policy is adopted, MITA will more formally look into areas where OSS can be implemented with benefits.

“The approach is to ensure that we identify the prospective areas as we go along. A number of prototypes have shown that the maturity and quality levels of some OSS tools have the potential to address the immediate and short-term government business requirements.”

One point Mr Caruana makes very clear is that the adoption of OSS does not mean that established vendors with their proprietary software will be put aside.

“Any relationship between government and vendors will not be affected by the consideration of OSS. Larger vendors are also actively, directly or otherwise, participating and contributing to OSS projects and communities. The ‘mix-and-match’ approach in software is popular right now. One does not expect to see a plain ‘either/or’ scenario here,” he insisted.

One may ask why MITA has still not decided whether to update the thousands of computers in government offices and entities running on Microsoft’s ageing Windows XP and Office 2003 with respective latest versions, i.e. Windows 7 and Office 2010. The reason is not that there are OSS alternatives ready to go but Windows 7 and Office 2010 are considered relatively ‘novel’ in large enterprise contexts and a careful assessment of their possible impact has to be made.

Such a refresh would not only involve the purchasing of licences but also needs to take into consideration respective integration within current eco-systems, retraining of relevant MITA staff, as well as the re-training of thousands of public service employees in the use of the new operating system and software.

One of the first associated initiatives was the launch of the Government of Malta Open Source End User Group earlier this year.

“We were very surprised to learn about all the different perceptions and misconceptions regarding OSS. The aim of the end user group is to act as a catalyst to create the appropriate awareness of OSS within government, through the participation of key stakeholders including public, private and educational sectors” said Mr Caruana.

There are considerations to offer a Maltese national Open Source Observatory and Repository to serve as the national OSS forum and provide an eco-system for the development of government OSS solutions intended for re-use within government and potentially with other European Union member states.

However MITA’s executive insisted that the adoption of OSS would have to adhere to relevant rules and regulations within government, including procurement processes.

“Any OSS procurement has and will follow applicable national and EU procurement regulations and procedures,” Mr Caruana pointed out.