Members of the open-source community have welcomed new legislation from Bulgaria that says software written for the country’s public sector should be open source. They argue that the amendment its parliament passed in early July will trigger better software, lower costs, and greater transparency.
Bulgaria could be a testbed for other European countries interested in the idea of going open source, they say; other governments might watch what proves effective in this central-European country and learn from any mistakes.
Bozhidar Bozhanov, adviser to Bulgaria’s deputy prime minister, says local software companies could also export the resulting products and services and earn some money in return.