By: Arianit Dobroshi, FLOSSK, Kosovo

Policies of choosing software in public administration are costing Kosovo more than just their price.The Ministry of Public Administration announced a vacancy for a software analyst. Duties and technologies that this person would deal with were SQL Server, Oracle Database Server 10g/11i, Adobe LiveCycle, ASP.NET  C#, VB.Net, all software or technologies that are closed and costly for developing technologies on the web.

Salary? 400 EUR. On the other hand, Kosovo’s government spends about 2 million a year in licenses only for Microsoft software products.

Before proceeding further, for those of you who know these products, what is your reflexive reaction to these requests?

Do you see the irony? Are you shocked? The poorest country in Europe uses the most expensive and closed technologies possible. Oracle Corporation, whose expensive products for databases the Kosovo government uses, has recently become the owner of the alternative free and open source product, MySQL. MySQL is the most used database on the market. It is used from household applications to Internet companies like Yahoo. One of my international friends tells a fascinating story of how he managed to organize all the informational systems of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo around this product, before the previous owner of MySQL employed him. They still work as I left them, he says proudly. Why is MySQL not suitable for Kosovo’s administration, but it is for the OSCE and the majority of websites in the world? Is it because of the fact that it is free? Why should students, prospective employees of the MPA learn with pirated software? What official put in place such policies? What benefits have these officials received to make these choices? Would they have made the same choices if they paid from their own pockets? This is misuse of the taxes of the poorest citizens in Europe, citizens of a republic with 40% unemployment. This is a crime.

But you probably haven’t noticed the irony. Because this was done just like boiling a frog. The frog is put in a pot of cold water on the fire and doesn’t notice at all that it is being boiled. That’s how the poor frog ends, by noticing too late the epilogue of her fate.

Free software is everywhere and you are probably already using it without knowing it. Starting from the internet infrastructure and web browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, databases and website servers, Android phones, Linux operating systems to critical military or scientific systems, free software makes all that possible.

Do you know where is the other irony? I shared the above requirements with an American investor/professor, who helps entrepreneurial Austrian students to start their companies. He spent only a few days in Kosovo. I also told him about the already failed bid, worth tens of millions, for licenses for Kosovo’s schools. The Austro-American reacted with indignation, the kind that I’m unfortunately afraid we’ve lost the ability to feel years ago. How is it possible that unemployment is 40%, we haven’t seen farmed land anywhere, while the government spends 700 million in highway construction?

Similarly, while governments like that of the Canton of Geneva or the City of Munich, among the richest on the planet, transfer their information systems to the free GNU/Linux software, impoverished Kosovo buys Oracle licenses and creates closed ecosystems, the price of which taxpayers of Kosovo will pay for a long time.

I fear that the wave is boiling us like frogs.