[ILUG] FLOSS in Irish National ICT Policy and in R & D

[Kuda Dube]

Gareth,

Thanks for the offer to meet. I will contact you off list for this
purpose.

I wanted to peach the discussion at a policy level hence why the
question sounds general.

One of the things my research aims at is to learn, to gather gather
knowledge and to determine what could be included in national ICT
framework and policy that are based on FLOSS. I am thinking of a policy
that could be adaptable to the context of a developing country. I would
like such a policy to promote and support adoption and use of FLOSS at a
national level (public sector, health and education as well as SMEs). I
would also like such a national policy to help develop skills and local
expertise for use and for contribution to the development of FLOSS.
Ideally such a policy could also incorporate the idea of a national
standard PC that is affordable in every household (similar to the idea
of a generally affordable national standard radio receiver that was
characteristic of the 1970s in some developing countries). I would like
such a national policy to be comprehensive and ideal for what I may call
"a FLOSS country or republic".

I am looking at various efforts mainly at EU and government policy
level. I know a number of municipalities in German, France, Spain, UK
and some Indian states have formulated such policies. It would be quite
interesting for me to look closely at what is happening in Ireland since
I am here.

I hope this sets the context, in a way.

Regards
---
Kuda


On Tue, 2009-04-21 at 00:36 +0100, Gareth Eason wrote:
> Kuda Dube wrote:
> > On Sun, 2009-04-19 at 17:22 +0100, Lisa Muir wrote:
> >> On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 4:46 PM, Kuda Dube <kd.gnu.linux at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> Hi all,
> >>>
> >>> I am working on establishing the role of FLOSS in Irish National ICT
> >>> Policy as well as in Research & Development (at national policy level).
> [snip]
> 
> 	Hi,
> 
> 	I think you've found the right list to ask this question, and indeed
> further to that, I'd be happy to meet up with you and perhaps have a
> discussion and share my knowledge and experiences of FLOSS within
> industry in Ireland and otherwise with you.
> 
> 	What you ask is a tremendously broad question though - could you frame
> the context of what you actually want to know, please? I'm sure people
> would be very happy to also share their experiences with you, but would
> appreciate knowing whether you are interested in SMEs, a particular
> business sector, large industry, FLOSS interoperating with commercial
> systems, FLOSS only deployments, commercially supported FLOSS packages,
> or something else entirely. Are you interested in the technical merit,
> or the financial savings, or the hidden costs, or the availability of
> support, or all of the above?
> 
> 	As you can see, if you can clarify what you would like to know, perhaps
> we can provide some more focussed and useful answers.
> 
> 	Best regards,
> 	-->Gar
>