Cenatic, the Spanish government's resource centre for open source, became an affiliate of the Open Source Initiative (OSI) last month. It is the first organisation representing public administrations to affiliate with the OSI, confirms OSI director Simon Phipps. "Hopefully there's another one coming soon."
Cenatic's spokesperson says that there are three reasons for Cenatic to join OSI. "First, we want to stay in touch with open source communities, so that we can give back to them the value added by public administrations that develop open source."
Second, becoming an OSI affiliate allows Cenatic a way to influence open source development: "Spanish public administrations already send us suggestions for new functionalities, submit fixes for bugs and come up with innovative ideas. Joining OSI gives us a communication channel to the open source communities."
"Third, we work to increase the use of open source in Spain, but it would be foolish to try to do it all on our own. We provide our knowledge and expertise to others, but at the same time we can learn a lot from others. That is what working in a community is about. We find OSI is the best place for all this."
Workshop
The open source resource centre got in contact with OSI in January, at a workshop on public administrations and open source communities, organised by the European Commission's ISA program (Interoperability Solutions for European Public Administrations). The workshop was part of the Open Source World Conference in Granada, Spain, on 12 January.
Phipps, one of the speakers in Granada, had called on public administrations to join open source associations like the OSI: "It is nice to have a policy, but if you don't join the community, you don't have a vote."
More information:
Cenatic news item (in Spanish)
OSI statement
H-Online news item
Joinup news item
Joinup news item