Ministry encourages open source software

Hanoi Times – The Ministry of Information and Communications has recommended state agencies use four open source software products - Open Office, Thunderbird, Firefox and Unikey.

Dang Duc Mai, Head of the Information Technology Department under the Ministry of Finance, said the Information and Communication Ministry’s recommendation is critical but lacks an implementation plan.

“My point of view is that decisions are not enough; we need clear policies and plans. I think we need at least three years for users to acclimate themselves with open source software,” Mai added.

Open Office and Unikey seem to be popular among State employees while Thunderbird and Firefox are unfamiliar.

“It is good to encourage State employees to use open source software. It is also very good to have a list of recommended software. It is much better to recommend and educate people about various operating systems because certain software works best with different o­nes,” said Dr. Nguyen Quang A, former chairman of the Vietnam Information Processing Association.

It is not clear whether the Ministry of Information and Communications introduced this list of software to cut down o­n copyright infringement in Vietnam, or to increase the demand for open-source software, but regardless, this is a step in the right direction, said Dr. A.