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The adventure of doing procedures with the public administration using free software
Doing procedures with free/libre software is not easy when the relevant administration has opted for proprietary solutions. Public administrations still have work to do in this area. Commissioned by the cooperative La Fàbric@, we have observed what happens when you have to make applications, present documentation and other procedures online using free software. For three months we have been observing it directly and we have collected the incidents that users sent us.
The report we publish is the result of this observation. The technologies used by the different public administrations create difficulties whether we use the Linux operating system, the LibreOffice editor, free PDF reading and editing programmes or the Firefox browser. The paradox is that the different administrations have solved several of these problems, so that together they probably already have the solutions. Therefore we should not be so far away from solving them. We hope that this report can contribute.
We have identified problems with both desktop technologies as well as with the procedural portals, indicating the technologies involved and the possible solutions. Currently, people and organisations using free software find themselves in a situation of discrimination in access to telematic procedures. The situations are diverse: applying for and justifying subsidies and grants, submitting tenders, entering documentation in the register, requesting certifications, previous appointments or processing the digital certificate. Often these difficulties are insurmountable, or require an unmanageable effort or advanced technical knowledge. Entities often have to have a computer “to carry out procedures” with a proprietary operating system and proprietary software, with a specific and different configuration for each administration or specific procedure.
The cooperative La Fàbric@ has been working for some time on behalf of public administrations to support social organisations in carrying out online procedures. Its long history of community action, combined with its knowledge of processing procedures, has led to a considerable increase in the percentage of procedures carried out online among the organisations they has accompanied. In doing this work, they realised that part of the difficulties were caused by the impediments to carrying out procedures with free software and decided to commission this report to us.
We have numbered the version of the report because updates are likely to be necessary, both because issues have been resolved (they should be!) and because new ones are identified. We will therefore continue to collect issues through a form and you can also write to us (transitant@femprocomuns.coop) to explain them.
Download the report (in Catalan) Fill the form
Being able to carry out telematic procedures with free technologies and standard formats is related to the right to the internet. See the report we did jointly with the Observadori DESC for the Taula del Tercer Sector Social of Catalonia on the Internet as a fundamental right.