Open Source in Goverment: A Look at Open Source Adoption around the World
The U.S. government is pushing open source software more strongly than ever. But it's not the first government to adopt open source, and it's certainly not at the top of the list of countries whose authorities have embraced free and open source software.
![Open Source in Goverment: A Look at Open Source Adoption around the World Open Source in Goverment: A Look at Open Source Adoption around the World](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/blt77f417dc0c008565/652466485f47f85d915cadc3/Around_the_world_Thinkstock_0_0.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
Bulgaria is the most recent country to announce major open source migration plans. This month, it declared that all software written for government use would have to be free and open source. That sure beats the U.S. government's goal of migrating twenty percent of its operations to open source platforms.
The Chinese population at large is big on running pirated copies of Windows. But the Chinese government has long supported open source platforms like Kylin Linux, which is now an official variant of Ubuntu. And the Linux Foundation is optimistic that open source is about to "explode" in China.
North Korea is probably also not high on the list of governments that open source fans would like to cite when touting adoption of Linux and similar platforms. But the North Korean government for years has been using Red Star OS, a Linux distribution that in recent iterations looks a lot like Apple's OS X.
Various agencies of the French national government have adopted open source software in prominent ways. The French national police began migrating to Ubuntu in 2007. France's National Assembly did the same, although by 2012 members of the body were allowed to choose between Microsoft and open source products once again.
Say what you will about Vladimir Putin, but if you're a Linux fan, it's hard to criticize him on that front. He and his ministers have been pushing open source software for years, although the fact that they keep talking about Linux adoption suggests that they're not making as much headway as they would like in actually undertaking the change.
Open source advocates may also be disappointed to realize that Russia's plans to migrate to open source platforms, such as the Russian-built Alt Linux, appear to have much to do with declaring independence from American companies like Apple and Google, rather than embracing free software principles themselves.
Munich, Germany was one of the first large European cities to make headlines for open source adoption. Starting in the early 2000s the city government migrated some of its workstations to Linux, and installed OpenOffice and Firefox on others.
Open source adoption seems never to have gone quite as far in Munich as originally planned, but the city set important precedents in this regard.
Munich, Germany was one of the first large European cities to make headlines for open source adoption. Starting in the early 2000s the city government migrated some of its workstations to Linux, and installed OpenOffice and Firefox on others.
Open source adoption seems never to have gone quite as far in Munich as originally planned, but the city set important precedents in this regard.
The U.S. government is pushing open source software more strongly than ever. But it’s not the first government to adopt open source, and it’s certainly not at the top of the list of countries whose authorities have embraced free and open source software. Here’s a look at some of the major open source initiatives of other governments.
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