Vietnam to widely use open source software

The Ministry of Information and Communications has issued an instruction on using open source software products at state agencies.



Accordingly, by June 30, 2009, 100% of clients of IT divisions of government agencies must be installed with open source software; 100% of staffs at these IT divisions must be trained in the use of these software products and at least 50% use them proficiently.

IT divisions at government agencies comprise the IT departments of ministries and government agencies, provincial and municipal Departments of Information and Communications.

Open source software products are OpenOffice, email software for servers of Mozilla ThunderBird, Mozilla FireFox web browser and the Vietnamese typing software Unikey.

The instruction also said that by December 31, 2009, 70% of clients of ministries’ agencies and local state agencies must be installed with the above open source software products and 70% of IT staff trained in using this software; and at least 40% able to use the software in their work.

The above agencies are requested to increase the number of documents and information exchanged among them processed by the above software. By December 31, 2010, all staff at these agencies must be able to use open source software in their jobs.

The instruction asks IT associations to assist state agencies in the implementation of this plan.

The instruction also requests that computer traders not sell PCs installed with cracked software, but open source ones.

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