According to a document with the catchy title "Directions for Development and Use of Open Source Code Computer Programmes in Bodies and Institutions of State Administration" the [Croatian] Government says it needs to develop, prepare and procure open-source software.

Basically it feels that proprietary software leads to too much dependence on suppliers, which can damage the market competition.

In its fourth year, the Information and Communication Technologies Task Force, through its core activities, working groups and regional nodes, made a substantive contribution to the preparations for the Tunis phase of the World Summit on the Information Society by sponsoring several regional meetings, organizing a series of global forums, producing several publications and participating actively in events organized by other stakeholders; organized three high-level round tables linking inform ...

The cost of going online with the country's main service provider is prohibitively expensive - about $1.30 an hour for a dial-up connection, a substantial sum in villages like this one, where workers earn an average of $150 a month, mainly through agriculture. The cost of a broadband connection is beyond most people's dreams at $45 a month for the most basic service. The source of the problem, representatives of service providers and technology-based businesses said, is that access to the In ...

Hundreds of thousands of businesses raced to snap up ".eu" internet domain names, with "sex.eu" taking the prize for the most sought-after address on the first day companies could apply.

A tiny Baltic nation last week became what appears to be the first country to open its its local elections to Internet voting on a nationwide level--although only about 1 percent of the votes were cast online.

Since the goal of integrating technology into society in effective and sustainable ways remains "a work in progress," strong political will is necessary to ensure that people can use the information revolution to improve their lives, a key United Nations task force on technology and development says in a new report.

A second analysis of eGovernment in Belarus conducted by of e-Belarus.org has shown that little progress has been indicated in comparison with the previous year. The review of 2004 was based on standard ideal e-government criteria and showed that the majority of governmental agencies websites gave thematically organized content that duplicated offline information. Only 6 percent of websites presented some specific information accessible only online. 56 percent gave only minimal information m ...

Bulgaria has launched a three-year project that will set the stage for the transition to a knowledge-based economy and help the country catch up with Western Europe in terms of modern information and communication technologies. The objective is to ensure that all students have the chance to master digital skills and knowledge, enabling them to search for and find the information they need and use it in the process of education, making them more competitive when they enter the labour market.

The European Union (EU) can now make a name for itself on the Internet, following this week's approval to include .eu as a country code top-level domain (ccTLD).

Directors at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approved the new name space at a meeting Monday. Officials at EURid, who will take over registry management of the ccTLD, expect final approval from the U.S. Department of Commerce within the next week.

Authorities in the Belarus town of Grodno have closed down a popular internet forum in which visitors regularly criticised the country's president.

The forum was hosted by a server belonging at a Beltelecom local branch. Aleksei Rads, a Beltelecom employee at the branch, administered the forum, Forum.grodno.by, and has now been sacked.

The Grodno authorities said that they have closed down the site because forum visitors criticised President Alexander Lukashenko and his policies as wel ...

The present book is issued in two languages and includes analysis of situation in eight CIS countries – Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan from the viewpoint of their readiness for the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society. It also includes materials of discussion that took place during the working meeting of the UN ICT Task Force Regional Network for Europe and Central Asia on 13 October 2004 in Moscow. This publication ...