Atviri standartai ir atviro kodo programinė įranga elaktroninės valdžios plėtroje

Abstract

In the end of 2004 in Lithuania first big e-government projects financed by EU structural funds should start, and developing and implementation of software will constitute an integral part of these projects. Before starting the projects it must be determined how new and current information systems should be integrated and their interoperability ensured. Usage of commercial software system will lead to attachment to the sole producer, it will reduce competition and will deprive from choosing other software providers. Alternative solution would be to develop open source (OS) systems and as a consequence create better competition for the development of such systems. This work intends to analyze solutions for information system integration and interoperability through using open source software, open standards and their implementation for e-government services. Open source software and open standards are analyzed and major features defined to estimate their advantages for the usage at government institutions. Modern information system integration methods and open source realization possibilities overlooked. Lithuanian and foreign legislation on open source are reviewed. From research materials the analysis is given about the usage of the open source software, open standards at the governmental institutions, determining factors for the usage and opinion of institutions. As the review shows at the present time open source and commercial software have unequal positions with the priority for the commercial software. Usage of closed standards is dominating and migration to the open standards is possible only by coordinating public institutions and preferably at the same time. Trends in software development show that due to such features as interoperability, openness, reuse and redistribution possibilities lead to increasing interest for open source software, open standards and it’s usage. There are enough of open source applications for information systems integration and e-services realization at this time and still growing. It is purposeful to use open source and commercial software in Lithuania with equal rights. It would increase competition, reduce prices for commercial software licenses and lower total cost of ownership for application investments. It is recommended to apply open source solutions for e-government services. This would create conditions for Lithuanian and EU institutions to share applications and distribute them without additional charge. It is recommended to use web services and modern integration platforms for information systems integration and interoperability. This would reduce the cost and complexity of integrating applications and data and enable the rapid delivery of new composite e-government services. At the present time government lacks interest in conditioning usage of OS software and open standard policy. The priority must be given to create legislative basis to define usage of OS and open standards, also to create e-government IT architectural model to effectively and usefully implement e-government services. More attention also should be paid to the preparation of OS specialists.