Was interviewed for Open Source on The Air. It's an online podcast from FOSS advocate James Purser from Australia who along with his wife run the LocalFOSS site that tries to highlight all the great FOSS efforts done around the region.

You can listen to the interview from the link below, I was interviewed on the state of OSS adoption in government recently, especially with regards to OpenOffice.org.

Open Source On The Air - 2008-08-14

It's coming together now. Having worked in this region for the past few years internationally, I've always felt that the efforts of Malaysians have not been recognised and that we're far ahead of other countries in terms of FOSS usage and adoption. Whether it's a guy using a bunch of FOSS applications to keep our weather monitoring stations going or our own City of Munich aka Melaka there are plenty more examples left to be discovered.

Maybe they're just being humble.

Some interesting gems from recent case studies I've received:

• UM makes extensive use of FOSS based applications, including centralised authentication with kerberos
• Kedah State Government is now at 2202 seats of OpenOffice.org
• More than a few universities are already using Linux to teach IT courses

If you have time, please do email, mail or fax letters of support and appreciation to these brave and hard working public servants. Their websites should have the names and contact details. Send it addressed to the head of the agency, CC the name/section who made it happen so that their efforts do not go unrecognised. If you're in Kedah, send it to the Menteri Besar, if you feel that the Housing Ministry did a good job migrating to OpenOffice.org, send it to their Chief Secretary and if it's an agency, send it to their Pengarah.

Let's keep this thing rolling..

OpenOffice.org Update

"It's not about choosing, it's about having choice" - Yasmeen Mahmood, Microsoft.

Whatever the hell that means, but Malaysian government agencies are smarter, they want choice, and have chosen to save taxpayers millions, choose open source, choose open standards and choose to stand up and say no to vendor lock-in.

http://knowledge.oscc.org.my/solution-areas/desktop/OpenOffice.org/openoffice-adoption

• Government Agency Open Source Adoption and Trends now public http://www.oscc.org.my/content/view/227/139/
• All Perak State agencies will be using OpenOffice.org from 2009. Currently in migration process. Track status here: http://knowledge.oscc.org.my/solution-areas/desktop/OpenOffice.org/openoffice-adoption
• Tired of IE only sites? Check the bottom of the Penang State Government website! http://www.penang.gov.my