Vietnam Implements 100% Change To Open Source Software

The government of Vietnam has long been openly considering the blanket implementation of free software and now it has turned words to action. According to an instruction issued by the Ministry of Information and Communications, 100% of government IT departments must be installed with open source software by the end of June 2009.

Software favored by the Ministry include OpenOffice.org, Thunderbird, Firefox and the Vietnamese typing software Unikey. The measure would appear to target OSS applications rather than server operating systems.

The Ministry has also called for all employees of its IT divisions to be trained in the use of the software, 50% to an adept level, although it's unclear what this actually means. By December 2009, all other ministries and local government agencies are to follow, with 70% of IT workers undergoing training, resulting in 40% becoming capable of using the software in their daily work.

The Ministry forecasts that by 2010, all of its employees will be familiar with open source software and requests also that computer traders no longer sell PCs with cracked software, only open source.