Public Policy for the Use and Development of Free Software in

the National Public Administration

On February 28, 2004, the President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez Frías, made official the use
of Free Software in Venezuela, through Presidential Decree 3390, published in Official
Gazette No. 38,095 dated 12/28/2004. Where it is stated that "The National Public
Administration will primarily use Free Software developed with Open Standards."
 To begin the development of this
article, it is convenient to define What is Free
Software?
Free software
It is a computer program whose license
guarantees the user access to the source code
of the program and authorizes them to run it for
any purpose, modify it and redistribute both the
original program and its modifications under the
same licensing conditions agreed to the original
program, without having to pay royalties to
previous developers. Even going beyond this
technical definition, Free Software is, above all,
an ethical way of understanding software,
where collaborative work and the freedom of
users (the people) constitute the main
objectives of this free software philosophy. .
Interest of the Venezuelan
Government in free software
In principle because the
philosophy and
freedoms present in
Free Software are in line
with guiding principles
expressed in the
Constitution of the
Bolivarian Republic of
Venezuela, among
which we can mention: Social inclusion,
solidarity and cooperation, appropriation of
knowledge, Technological independence.
But in addition, Free Software allows
the Venezuelan state the following:
Guarantee the security of information and
its processes.
Guarantee the Interoperability of systems.
Reduce application acquisition and
replication costs.
Promote investment in the development,
support and national service component.
Guarantee technology transfer.
Role of the CNTI in the use of Free
Software
After decree 3,390, the
Ministry of Science and
Technology (MCT) took on the role of training
and educating public officials in the migration
process. In this sense, the National Center for
Information Technologies (CNTI), attached to
the MCT, plays an important role in the
development of the phases contemplated in
Decree No. 3,390, where it guides government
agencies in their migration process. This
support consists of training and technical
advice, certification of products and services,
support for communities, providing the public
official and the user with the necessary
knowledge to achieve mastery of this type of
tools. Currently the CNTI carries out different
Free Software projects such as:
Canaima: Venezuelan GNU/Linix
metadistribution based on Debian.
Altagracia: Code generator from design
diagrams similar to Microsoft's Genexus.
Ideven: Platform that integrates and allows
the interoperability of geospatial
information, together with the Simón Bolívar
Geographic Institute of Venezuela.
Telehealth: Computer tool for non-face-to-
face consultation and interconsultation, to
be offered to the medical staff of primary
health care centers, without the need to
transfer the patient.
RNA: National Repository of Applications,
aimed at the National Public Administration,
its purpose is to organize, manage,
preserve and offer access to Free Software
computer solutions developed with open
standards.
Migration in the National Public
Administration (APN)
Although the two-year period to comply
with Decree 3,390 has ended, a large part of
the public administration has installed
proprietary software. Because at first the
migration to free software began quite
disorganized, with an incipient migration, most
noticeable at the server level.
In 2010, the CNTI celebrated 10 years of
promoting free information technologies.
Among its achievements, it announced the
status of migration to free software in central
bodies of the national public administration.
According to the CNTI, it is in the next phase. :
Participant: Jairo J. Carballo
Servers migrated by 90% Curricular Unit: Critical Training
Basic services migrated by 67% PNFI - IUT of the Llanos
Workstations migrated by 25%
Training completed by 59%
25 migration plans reported to the CNTI by
different APN institutions.

Although there are cases of successful

migration such as the Ministry of Popular Power
for Commerce that migrated 100% of its
platform and workstations, there is still much to
do, but projects, plans, programs are being
articulated between the CNTI, public institutions
and the community. of Venezuelan free
software, and there is a track record in terms of
adaptation in free technologies, something that
did not exist before in our country.

Likewise, the Bolivarian Government

does not stop and in an effort to create a
regulatory framework for the use of Free
Software in the National Public Administration
(APN), created in 2009 the Technical Standards
for Open Document Format ODF PDF and APN
web portals (Official Gazette 39,109), with the
purpose of preserving the contents of
documents generated electronically, are
promoted to faithfully comply with Decree
3,390.

Migration in the IUT of the Llanos

The University Institute of Technology
of the Llanos (IUTLL), abiding by the guidelines
of the National Government, began in 2005 the
migration to free software of the Web, DNS,
Proxy and DHCP servers, except for the
administrative, study control and library system.
Workstations that only use office tools were
also migrated, thus in the academic area the
programming, architecture and networks,
multimedia, and Internet laboratories were
migrated to GNU/Linux Canaima.

Currently, an online study control

system and own income system are being
developed; In addition to the acquisition and
future implementation of the SIGESP
administrative system under Free Software, in
this way more than 90% of the entire computer
platform of our institution would be migrated.