Extremadura: Introduction to the Place and its Peopleii
Extremadura is one of Spain's 17 autonomous regions and is located in
the west of the country. It has three sizeable urban centres: Mérida,
which is its capital, Cáceres, also known as
The Happy City
and
Badajoz, which lies much closer to Lisbon than Madrid. Spain's high
speed train network has not yet crossed the Extremaduran frontier,
leaving this sparsely populated region somewhat isolated. Extremadura is
roughly half the size of the island of Ireland with less than a fifth
of its population at around 1.1 million inhabitants.
Cervantes name-checked the region in his short story,
The Jealous Extremenian
,
many of the conquerors of the Americas came from here and the
acorn-eating pigs are a source of great pride and wealth. These clichés
do not do the region justice, however. The cities are rich with
UNESCO-protected Roman ruins and meticulously preserved, sandy-coloured
old buildings on whose precipices storks abound. There are also several
national parks with an impressive range of flora and fauna. Portugal is
close by and Extremadura's cosmopolitan, pluralistic-minded people are
regular visitors. It may not be the number one spot on the average
Viking's tourist map, as there is no coastal means of egress, but if you
are searching for the
real
Spain (or, indeed, any one of the
many), perhaps you will find what you are looking for pulsating in this
heartland. Neither will you have too much trouble finding an Internet
connection or public ICT access.
The Technological Age, unlike its industrial predecessor, has not
bypassed this region and instead was captured and put to use for its
citizens from 1998. Its public administration now has one of the world's
widest deployment of desktops run with free and open source software.
Over 70,000 desktop computers are in use in the secondary schools and a
further 15,000 PCs running a local GNU/Linux distribution, Linex, are
being used in the health service. So far only a few of the region's
public authorities have switched over to free software but the current
regional government plans for a migration of up to 40,000 computers in
the public sector. This would make it Europe's second largest open
source desktop migration after the French Gendarmerie's adoption on
90,000 desktops and topping that of Munich, which has switched almost
14,000 to date.
This study focuses on the region's Digital Literacy Plan and an
emerging struggle between advocates of technological literacy and
proponents of the Age of Austerity.
1. Introduction
This case study seeks to evaluate critically the current state of
free and open source software in public administration in Extremadura
from its inception at the turn of the twenty-first century to the
present day. The purpose of this study is to offer a reflective tract
for public administrations considering free software migrations or
implementations across a range of public services. It is structured
around a broad-ranging questionnaire which was sent to a selection of
people who are and/or have been involved in free and open source
development in the region, during different political regimes. All
responses are assessed critically against available literature and
information. The selection criteria for the interviews was to seek
varied viewpoints from different disciplines and affiliations, bearing
in mind the limited scope of the study. Not all of those invited to
participate did so. The fate of various free software projects initiated
from 1999 will be clarified, as there currently is some contention over
this and recommendations on how best to proceed will be offered.
2. Lay-out of case study
This case study focuses on the Digital or Technological Literacy Plan
(these terms are used interchangeably by different interviewees and
writers from the region, so the author follows suit), initiated by the
Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) in 1999. Projects under this
plan are assessed on a case-by-case basis and explained in so far as
possible, with viewpoints from all parties included, where appropriate.
Of note is the issue of political change and whether this has affected
free software policy, implementation or promotion. The reader should be
aware of three distinct political micro-eras: (1) Juan Carlos Rodríguez
Ibarra's PSOE Administration up to 2008; (2) the PSOE period after his
resignation, 2008 to 2012, and; (3) The Partido Popular's (PP) election
in 2012.
The text of the circulated questionnaire is to be found in the
appendix and the following alphabetically listed individuals agreed to
go on record:
-
Luis Casas Luengo, former Managing Director of Fundecyt.
-
Teodomiro Cayetano López, The Director-General of Electronic
Administration and Information Technologies and the CIO of the Regional
Government of Extremadura.
-
César Ramos Esteban, PSOE Deputy in the Regional Parliament.
-
Manuel Velardo, the Director of Cenatic.
-
Jorge Villar Guijarro, former International Representative of the New Knowledge Centres of the Junta de Extremadura.
3. Extremadura's Digital Literacy Plan
For many years, Extremadura was one of Europe's poorest regions, with
low literacy rates. In 1998, the European telecoms market was
liberalised and the then President of the Junta of Extremadura, Juan
Carlos Rodríguez Ibarra was determined that the technological revolution
would not pass Extremadura by. He describes his conceptualisation of
digital literacy in The Best Practice Guidelines for Technological
Literacy in Extremadura
iii
- a bilingual manual, in Spanish and English. Ibarra and Luis-Millán
Vázquez de Miguel, the then Regional Minister for Education, Science and
Technology articulate a clear vision of bringing the Information
Society to Extremadura through the medium of New Centres of Knowledge
(NCKs) — a kind of Internet café where free digital literacy training
was provided. Each centre had two employees: a technical person and an
outreach person, both of whom designed both programmes and programs for
the community attached to the NCK. The mission was to train the
population in the use of new technologies, promote local culture,
provide a meeting place for Extremadurans and to assist local people to
find employment. Many projects were initiated on demand by the NCK
attendees themselves. This accorded with the Junta's understanding of
the Information Society as a two way street where information would not
just be handed out to passive recipients: instead, knowledge would be
acquired through vibrant interactive practices
iv.
Several NCK-based projects were initiated, including an online
newspaper and a digital photograph archive. Plans were also made to
create an Intranet which would interconnect
administrative centres, schools, health centres, outpatient clinics and hospitals, New Centres of Knowledge, public libraries
v
and 1,500 Intranet access points were set up throughout the region.
Ibarra is no techno-neophyte. In his autobiography, he gives examples of
how experimenting with different technologies helped him learn from
experience
vi in order to devise the Plan.
The Digital Literacy Plan was commenced in 1999. A pilot project of six NCKs was expanded to 32 by 2001
vii. The number of centres peaked at 45 and participation data and targets were available from the outset
viii. The cost of setting up the NCKs is detailed in the Digital Literacy Manual
ix.
At the initiation of the Plan there was no precedent and so no
experience on which to draw either in the schools,
electronic-administration or the technological projects
x.
The architects were, effectively, pioneers. It was therefore deemed
important to document the processes due to interest shown by governments
and other organisations
xi.
A wealth of high quality, sometimes bilingual books on each discrete
area of the Digital Literacy Plan was published by the Junta during the
mandate of the PSOE (there are 21 titles on file with the author).
The Junta had a keen grasp of the importance of its mission, saying:
Technological
illiteracy is as real a phenomenon and equally as harmful as written
illiteracy. The most developed societies have sufficient resources for
updating almost spontaneously, just because of the interest of the
citizens themselves and the initiative of businessmen and educators. But
in the case of societies far from the main focus of innovation, the
role of political authorities is crucial in mobilizing energies that
would not be set in motion without an outside boost
.
xii
This sentiment has also been echoed by Sérgio Amadeu da Silveira, the
former Head of the Brazilian National Institute of Information
Technology, who published a book on a related area of the misery of
digital exclusion in 2001
xiii.
The Schools
The Administration also implemented a plan to put a computer per
every two students in all public secondary schools with a ratio of five
pupils per computer in primary schools and this was complete by 2002.
This amounted to over 70,000 computers in the secondary schools. Had
proprietary software been used, this would have been unaffordable so a
version of Debian dubbed GNU/Linex was developed. Each teacher also had a
computer and could simultaneously observe all the screens while at
his/her desk. There was only one keyboard per two students, the
rationale being that rather than facilitating plagiarism, this
encouraged students to negotiate with each other. In any case, homework
was not done collaboratively
xiv, so education was occurring at several different layers and phases, in a kind of tiered approach.
The schools project was a substantial success and is widely fêted. It
has also significantly democratised the classroom because students can
show teachers how to carry out a task, in cases where the former are
more digitally adept than the latter. This also tapped into an
appreciation of the citizen's right to interact with and question those
in authority. By embedding this practice early, there will be much wider
social ramifications that may help protect children's safety and
welfare in the future by giving them a voice which they are not afraid
to exercise and by recognising them as citizens from an early age. The
literature regularly refers to democratic values, in particular
participatory democracy. In this context, it is useful for the reader to
bear in mind that Spanish democracy is not yet 40 years old and
Extremadura's regional government turns 30 in 2013. The citizen's
interaction with the state is still an issue which evokes great passion
among Spaniards.
With reference to current debate as to the fate of this project under
the new PP Administration, Teodomiro Cayetano, current CIO of the Junta
says:
The IT environment at school in Extremadura will remain as it
is now and its future evolution will be considered depending on the
evolution of Linex, which is deployed in the desktops and laptops for
the pupils. Any consideration about this point will be always taking
into account the use of free software
.
The Health Service Deployment
Free software was also deployed in the health service with a
diagnostic program known as JARA. The deficiency which JARA sought to
address was that information storage was previously not confined to one
medium, but scattered: on paper and in multiple applications, leading to
information overload or, indeed, under-load. SES, the Extremaduran
Health Service employed an integrated program
xv whose implementation to date has been partial
xvi
though it is in use. The migration of software in the health service is
quite a different enterprise to the deployment in schools. First of
all, there are legal concerns relating to security, privacy, data
protection and licences. Moreover, there were pre-existing proprietary
programs in place and resistance is often experienced where change is
being enacted either from managers or staff, or both. Villar also
identifies cultural factors where colleagues are not accustomed to
cooperation and where doctors have two computers: one running GNU/Linex
and the other running proprietary software.
Other programs included Vivernet which was developed to create a
space in which businesses could be fostered, featuring physical, mobile
and virtual locations. By 2001, 45 direct jobs had been created through
this scheme
xvii.
The Software
A local version of the GNU/Linux operating system known by a witty moniker
GNU/LinEx
was developed for use initially in the schools project, the NCKs and
the Technological Literacy Plan. Only later were other potential uses,
such as public administration explored, once its feasibility had been
established. There is much impassioned debate in blogs as to whether a
local distribution of GNU/Linux should have been made at all —
discussions which may make the reader think about
The Spains
-
but the principal reason was on the basis of cost and also of
user-friendliness. Seeing as standard graphical user interfaces use
anglicised terminology and imagery, local icons would facilitate
learning, especially among those who had not travelled. The inclusive
ethos of the Junta's plan was evident: most end users in 1999 were not
digitally literate.
Inclusion
meant not ignoring those normally
excluded: rural dwellers, the elderly, women, immigrants and the
disabled, to name but a few. In terms of cost effectiveness, the
development of GNU/Linex cost €300,000 up to 2003 but €1,000 was
reportedly saved on licensing fees for each of the computers used in
schools
xviii. An overall saving of €18 million was made when comparing this choice with one based on proprietary software
xix.
It is noteworthy, according to Echeverría
xx,
that eighty percent of public administration employees have come to
know of free software through GNU/Linex and this distribution of
GNU/Linux has served as an entry point to public consciousness of these
technologies. Moreover, the dominance of the English language in the
realm of technology and its omnipresence in a world of more than 400
million Spanish speakers should not be ignored when endeavouring to
evaluate such decisions from the outside. In the author's many
discussions with a variety of people involved in all aspects of the
Extremaduran plan for the Information Society over the last decade, the
keenness to build bridges to avoid isolation is palpable. This is a
country which still converts euros back into pesetas on many retail
products so, as the saying goes,
they know their own
and the regional government were undoubtedly well placed to make this judgement as to
who needed what
.
In an endeavour to assess the extent of digital literacy in
Extremadura today, Cayetano pledged to enquire of the Director-General
of Technological Innovation. Manuel Velardo, the Director of Cenatic,
has confirmed that this matter is being studied at present and
information will be available shortly.
Winds of Change
The GNU/Linex development team together with associated workers were
all fired in December 2011, under the mandate of the PP. It is reported
that these numbered 620 in total
xxi. The distribution has not been abandoned for now but has been taken over by the management of Cenatic
xxii, the National Reference Centre for the Application of ICTs based on open source
xxiii
and a 2013 version of Linex has recently been released. It has been
downloaded approximately 10,000 times to date. When the author asked
Cayetano about the job losses, he said:
The job losses were actually
artificial jobs, only supported by public funds. For example, Linex is
now a project shared by Cenatic, with a cost of 90% less than it used to
be. Inside this crisis, the regional Government cannot pay for
artificial jobs which provide absolutely nothing to the civil society
.
Statistics on costs or how these may have been calculated do not
appear to be available. Work on improving various aspects of GNU/Linex
is continuing at present, at no cost to the state and with community
collaboration
xxiv.
Casas is somewhat more circumspect in his assessment, saying that
GNU/Linex development was frozen in 2007 as it was considered by the new
Ministry of Innovation, under the second PSOE Administration, to be a
mature project not in need of any further support. A cluster strategy
was set up in order to boost innovation, which led to the closure of
Vivernet. The change in government signalled a slowing down in the
technological focus of the previous administration of Ibarra. Regarding
the agreement with Cenatic to proceed with GNU/Linex development, Casas
also says that on the face of it, it may at first appear to be a logical
choice, considering the Extremaduran Government's membership of
Cenatic.
The problem is that the link between the distribution and
the Extremaduran public administration is broken and the new Government
is not promoting its use any more. Besides, this means that the
Government has lost its independence and now depends on reaching
agreements with Cenatic to update or modify the distribution
.
Clearly, there is a strong difference of opinion on the role of
GNU/Linex in digital literacy. Its founders often describe it almost as
the lifeblood of the entire Digital Literacy Plan and as its brand,
whereas the new Administration perceive the matter quite differently. To
that end, the Digital Agenda for Extremadura project allows for public
input.
xxv It would be most informative to know what the
non-techie
local population think.
Ownership of the domain name
linex.org
has been allowed to lapse.
GNU/Linex in Public Administration
Plans to put free software on the desktop in the Administration were
repeatedly reported but adoption has not yet become widespread. Several
reasons for this include the fact that there has been a gap between
decision and implementation. Echeverría carried out an extensive study
of free software in public administration in Extremadura in 2007
xxvi
and observes that there was a shortage of trained personnel. Moreover,
the schools project was much easier to implement as the needs were
relatively homogeneous, whereas public administration migration is much
more complex, given that proprietary systems are being replaced and more
customisation may be necessary. One of GNU/Linex's technical team,
Daniel Campos, was interviewed by The Linuxologist in 2008 and he
explained that in the case of the schools, unlike in public
administration, no critical data already existed in this environment so
it was a better place to start
xxvii. The roll out of the Technological Literacy Plan had always been on a phased basis, in any case.
It would appear that relative harmony was achieved between the
community of developers and Ibarra's government in relation to speed of
implementation and there was an understanding that the latter would
often be obliged to proceed more cautiously than the former might
desire, both for political and legal reasons. Furthermore, given that
Extremadura was the first European region to opt for free software so
decisively, the government exercised care when considering new
migrations. As it was transparent in relation to its goals, the
development community were largely on board on this issue
xxviii.
Cayetano has affirmed his Government's commitment to free and open
source software, stating that the regional Minister of Public
Administration had made an official declaration in the course of a
formal session in the regional Parliament to this effect. The PP have
implemented a new scheme as part of its LinGobEx project to deploy a
suitable adaptation of Debian to 40,000 civil servants' computers in
Extremadura by December 2013 and several key performance indicators can
be found in this project. It may be that the PP achieve in public
administration that which the PSOE never managed to do. Velardo
acknowledges that this task is huge.
It is generally agreed that free software deployments per se do not
tend in Spain to be made on a party political basis. The PP
administration in Valencia, for instance, developed Lliurex during its
time in office.
4. Extraordinary Extremadura
xxix, awards, recognition and consciousness
The Washington Post published an article on Extremadura's Digital Literacy Plan in 2002
xxx and the project won the European Regional Innovation Award in 2004 for the Information Society
xxxi.
There were numerous other international reports on the project. Rishab
Ayer Ghosh of the United Nations University, UNU-Merit, conducted
several studies in which Extremadura has always featured as an example
of good or best practice
xxxii.
Many other elegiac academic references abound, including one from
Marcelo Thompson, the former Attorney General of the National Institute
of Information Technology in Brazil and a DPhil candidate at Oxford
University. He cites Castells as saying that open source is a social,
political and economic phenomenon
xxxiii
and further adds that it is also cultural. These four pillars are
fundamental to the principle of democracy, in Thompson's view
xxxiv. In the same article, Thompson describes Spain's technological leader alliteratively as
Extraordinary Extremadura
for its embrace of the Information Society through the use of free software.
The phenomenon of free and open source software in Spain has
generated some literature outside of the press of the Junta and includes
La Pastilla Roja, or the Red Pill, the idea of which is taken from the
film, The Matrix. It is claimed by its authors to be the first Spanish
book on this topic
xxxv.
Clearly, free software is present in the collective consciousness, in
both national and regional media. At the level of the virtual collective
consciousness, Teilhard de Chardin's conceptualisation of the noosphere
as an evolutionary sphere of simultaneous consciousness
xxxvi
would appear to be manifest both in the NCKs and in the schools. Andoni
Alonso, a doctor of Philosophy at the University of Extremadura forms a
writing collective with Iñaki Arzoz, an artist with whom he regularly
collaborates on works to do with new technologies, including free
software and GNU/Linex. They often speak of free software in a
metaphysical sense, suggesting to the outsider that in Extremadura, free
software may also have permeated the Jungian collective unconscious.
Further philosophical perambulations of this nature are, however, beyond
the scope of this article.
Extremadura was duly recognised by Bill Gates as one of the world leaders in new technologies and free software
xxxvii in 2009.
5. International outreach: a non-partisan approach
The author conducted a semi-structured interview with Luis Casas
Luengo, the then Managing Director of Fundecyt in 2006 in which he
clarified that the Junta did not specifically seek to work with
governments in other countries as there was a profound belief throughout
the Administration that free software went much deeper than politics.
However, it could, through means of its distributions serve as a
technical solution for a given problem. Of course, the Junta's teams did
work with several governments, such as the Colombian, Brazilian and
Andalucían but they did not initiate this collaboration. The latter was
the most productive with the creation of Guadalinex.
There seemed to be a widespread de facto recognition of a human right
to digital literacy in Extremadura, perhaps as a sub-section of a
modern right to education, and that it was the government's duty to
facilitate this. By way of contrast, in other jurisdictions, there is no
public discussion of free and open source software and little, if any
presence on the desktop. Nor are there similar levels of computer access
xxxviii.
Elsewhere, Casas et. al. have said that the adoption of any technology is a political decision
xxxix.
To untangle this seeming contradiction, when digital literacy is
conceptualised under a broader umbrella of the right to education, we
find ourselves in the terrain of human or natural rights, with which the
state cannot really interfere. In fact, it may have a duty to
facilitate such rights, depending on their legal grounding: whether it
be constitutional or under international law. Therefore, any subsequent
checks and balances in relation to costs may be ultra vires the state's
power if assessment is solely utilitarian and not human
rights-orientated - unless put to a referendum. In Professor Tierney's
view
xl, some issues are of such importance that they cannot be decided by government alone
xli
and must be put to a vote. Moreover, if a constitutional or European
Convention test case were to be brought, for instance, against any
radical change in policy, it may end up costing the state dearly, both
monetarily and in terms of reputation. Whilst political decisions may
have to be made to kick-start the recognition of a right when new
technologies manifest themselves, once recognised and acted upon, such
rights cannot simply be rescinded on a whim. Having engaged with the
community and benefited from their support at so many levels, government
may not be legally free to disentangle itself abruptly.
On the question of engagement, however, Cayetano assures that the
principal issues about free and open source software are proposals at
the regional Parliament,
where the civil society and the political
parties are represented. And there is a state commission for the IT
coordination of the regional governments, in the Ministry of Finances
and Public Administration, where all the regional strategies and
experiences are shown and shared
.
6. The PP's plan: A Shift from Citizen-Centred to Cost-Centred?
Cristina Teniente, Vice President of the Junta of Extremadura was
reported in El Mundo in 2011 as having said that the Administration
would move away from a focus on open code to models of open knowledge,
that these could equally be proprietary and that assessments would be
based on cost
xlii. Cenatic has just published a report on the cost effectiveness of free software reuse
xliii, which quantifies the associated savings to be in the region of €114,000 million a year
xliv.
Cayetano has firmly denied that the change of government signifies any
change in policy regarding free software and referred the author to the
PP's Strategic Plan
xlv.
Cayetano assures that technical prescriptions for each public contract
for new IT systems value free software implementation. Casas states,
however, that under both Spanish and European law, whilst a public call
for free and open source solutions is possible, what normally happens is
that public administrations do not express a preference for either free
or proprietary software but, rather, describe the services they want.
The Court of Auditors concludes that public procurement in Spain always benefits a group of big enterprises
xlvi.
The New Strategic Plan
The PP's Information Systems Strategic Plan (2011-2015) is a 100 page
document in Spanish outlining the current Regional Government's roadmap
xlvii.
It outlines its goals as including more effective responses to public
needs and expectations, cost efficiency, improving public services and
establishing short, medium and long term plans to achieve these. The
language of cost efficiency and the market dominates but it is not clear
what factors will be taken into consideration in the calculation of
these costs. Throughout the document, an emphasis is placed on
conformity with European Directives and European, national and regional
strategies. A strong interest in cloud computing is professed.
One of the principal cost inefficiencies identified is in the use of electricity
xlviii and the need to save costs on licensing is also mentioned
xlix.
No mention is made of the New Centres of Knowledge. The electronic
administration platform is to be totally redesigned, promising a better
delivery of public services
l. New forms of participation and accessibility will be explored
li, although it is not clear who the target audience is.
The Plan goes on to talk about the Open Government Law
lii.
When asked to comment on the PP's approach to participatory democracy
in the original Digital Literacy Plan and the centrality of free
software, the author was directed to this law by Cayetano who agreed
that participatory democracy was most important to him, as constituted
in the original plan. This law was a parliamentary initiative of
Izquierda Únida which gained cross-party support to encourage
transparency, collaboration and participation: a sign of great political
maturity on the part of all politicians involved.
The Plan says that information has been dispersed in a very
decentralised way to the citizens and through different media and now
all information will be delivered from a single point. The original
reason for decentralisation was that the authors of Ibarra's digital
literacy plan saw Extremaduran citizens and their region as very
diverse, having three main urban centres, with different social issues,
varied ethnic makeups, scattered populations and hence different
informational requirements. A young North-African female Muslim
immigrant in Badajoz will not have the same needs as an elderly olive
farmer in a far-flung corner of the region. This diversity is not
mentioned in the 100 page plan and it may be that financial constraints
prevent such consideration. This is not clear. There is also a plan to
create a paperless Public Administration
liii in line with practice in Europe.
Some problems with the Plan
The very first page of the Prologue asserts that this is the first
plan of this type published and does not acknowledge any of the
aforementioned literature published by the Junta of Extremadura press,
which is puzzling. The document is peppered with repeated negative
references to the previous regime's handling of this area. It gives only
one nod to past projects which have permitted the evolution of
information systems and services such as education or health but these
are also criticised for having been independent and excessively costly —
although how these cost claims are calculated is not clear. Elsewhere
the PP are on record as questioning the cost effectiveness of the
computers in schools, saying that where funds are not spent on licences,
they go on training teachers
liv but these costs are unlikely to equate.
The Plan claims that other projects of the Junta have been a total failure
lv,
refers to its vices and bad habits and the decentralisation of the
delivery of ICTs is also criticised. It is most unfortunate that this
plan was not more rigorously edited. The author sought to compare a
selection of similar plans and studies on related areas, such as free
software public administration migration plans from Zaragoza's city
council span style="font-size:8pt;"" title="From the Ayuntamiento de
Zaragoza
lvi and for Spain
lvii
and found the writing style to be, putting it very mildly indeed,
somewhat unconventional. This serves to undermine profoundly the value
of the Plan as a roadmap for digital literacy.
7. Recommendations
-
Given the heated debate over Extremadura's digital literacy agenda, a
new Plan should be devised on a cross-party basis where a full revision
and robust critique is made of the region's current ICT needs. Ibarra
states in his autobiography that it is now possible to design a single
programme based on the proposals of different parties and that this will
affect politics in a radical way lviii. A precedent already exists in the Open Government Law legislation. This should be put to the test.
-
Such agreement should then be put to a public vote. This would
actualise Professor Tierney's aforementioned claim that some matters are
of such social import that they cannot be limited to parliamentary
debate and decision alone — and digital literacy is surely such an
issue.
-
This following quotation is taken from an OECD report on Spain's Plan
Avanza in relation to information society strategies in 2009 and really
speaks for itself about the need to capacitate the uptake of ICT by
making it accessible, comprehensible and also, of course, affordable.
[E]xperience in OECD countries has shown that the availability of
ICTs does not necessarily translate into economic growth, efficiency,
innovation or improved quality of life; other key catalysts are
essential to capitalise on the potential benefits of ICTs such as:
training and capacity building, organisational change, technical
support, interoperability, security, affordability, communication and
awareness, and knowledge-sharing. For instance, despite growing
availability of public services online, take-up has plateaued in recent
years, and some ICT tools have remained under-appreciated and under-used
due to a lack of a combination of the aforementioned factors lix.
It is always important to recognise and address weaknesses in public
policy where cost saving migrations have not occurred, for instance.
Equally, strengths should be built upon and not arbitrarily criticised
or ignored. All public bodies and servants have a duty not to waste
resources and should conserve and reutilise them, where possible, in an
e-ecological fashion. The best interests of the citizenry should also
always be at the forefront of policy-making and negotiation. With
cross-party agreement, this will be possible.
Endnotes
Maureen O'Sullivan, Lecturer in Law, School of Law, National University of Ireland, Galway,
maureen.osullivan@nuigalway.ie. The author would like to thank her colleague, Ian Ó Maolchraoibhe for his comments on this case study.
Aupex Technical Team, Best Practice Guidelines for Technological
iteracy in Extremadura,Mérida: Junta de Extremadura and Asociación
Regional de Universidades Populares de Extremadura, September, 2001,
(hereinafter Best Practice Guidelines).
Gómez Antúnez, A. M., Vivernet, Mérida: Junta de Extremadura, 2002, p. 111.
Best Practice Guidelines., 127.
Rodríguez Ibarra, J.C., Rompiendo Cristales, Barcelona: Editoriales Planeta, 2008, p. 240.
Best Practice Guidelines., 126.
Id., 228.
Id., 101.
Id., 128.
Id., 129.
Id., 131.
Amadeu da Silveira, S., Exclusão Digital, São Paulo: Editora Fundação Perseu Abramo, 2001.
Author's visit to the IES Hernández Pacheco school in Cáceres in 2004.
http://www.astic.es/sites/default/files/articulosboletic/tecno3.pdf">http://www.astic.es/sites/default/files/articulosboletic/tecno3.pdf.
The author has received conflicting evaluations of its success. It is,
however, acknowledged in the Strategic Plan of the Partido Popular
2011-2015, at
http://www.gobex.es/filescms/cons001/uploaded_files/DDGG_ADMON_ELECTRONICA/Plan_de_Sistemas_-_Proyecto_SysGobEx.pdf.
Best Practice Guidelines, 146.
http://www.elmundo.es/navegante/2005/08/12/softlibre/1123857715.html.
https://news.tehworld.com/operating-systems/6558/spanish-region-goes-entirely-open-source/.
https://observatorio.iti.upv.es/resources/report/145.
http://ramonramon.org/blog/administraciones-publicas/extremadura/.
http://www.cenatic.es.
http://www.cenatic.es/hemeroteca-de-cenatic/1-actualidad-cenatic/40140-el-gobierno-de-extremadura-pone-a-disposicion-de-los-ciudadanos-linex-2013.
http://globedia.com/gobierno-extremadura-accesible-software-libre-ciudadanos.
http://extremaduradigital.org/mediawiki/index.php/P%C3%A1gina_principal.
https://observatorio.iti.upv.es/resources/report/145.
http://linuxologist.com/01general/an-interview-with-an-extremadura-developer-bringing-linux-to-the-masses.
Id.
Thompson, M.,
The Democracy of FLOSS: Software Procurement Under the Democratic Principle
, >University of Ottawa Law and Technology Journal, (2008) 5:1&2 UOLTJ 79, 97,
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1825332
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/stjohns/micros_alt.html.
http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/archive/innovation/pdf/award/extremadura.pdf.
http://www.merit.unu.edu/publications/pub_search.php.
Innovation, Information Technology and the Culture of Freedom,
presentation at the World Social Forum Porto Alegre, 26–31 January
2005),
http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/2623.htm
Thompson, id. ,83
Romeo, A., Garcia, J. And Prieto, C., La Pastilla Roja, Edit-Lin S.L., 2003.
Teilhard de Chardin, P. The Phenomenon of Man, Harper Perennial, 2008.
http://ramonramon.org/blog/2009/06/03/bill-gates-reconoce-a-extremadura-en-el-liderazgo-mundial-de-las-tics/.
Irelands's record being rather dismal, in this regard, although there
is some collaboration between Limerick city council and the Ayuntamiento
de Zaragoza
Alonso, A., Casas, L., Castro, C. and Solís, F.,
Research, Development and Innovation in Extremadura: A GNU/LinEx Case Study
, Philosophy Today 48 (2004) 16-22.
Stephen Tierney is a Professor of Law at the University of Edinburgh.
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