Open Source Software in Serbian

17 January 2008

Serbian Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Society organized the work on localization of several well-known open source packages � Linux operating system, OpenOffice package, Mozilla Firefox web-browser and Mozilla Thunderbird e-mail client.

The localization task was given to the experts from Belgrade University�s Faculty of Electrical Engineering, the School of Organization Sciences and Faculty of Mathematics, and the School of Electrical Engineering in Nis.

At this moment, localization teams work on two versions of Linux � Fedora and Ubuntu, and the first versions in Serbian language will be available in March 2008. They will be followed by the applications in the Open Office package.

The said programmes are compatible to the programmes offered in Microsoft Office package and satisfy all the needs of individual citizens and small enterprises, in terms of text processing, table calculations and presentations. The use of OSS can lead to significant savings in terms of reduced cots of software procurement.

Representatives of the Ministry say that Serbian state bodies will continue to promote legalization of software, not just in terms of the fight against software piracy, but also to protect he intellectual property of national software industry.

They announce that, in the beginning of 2009, a new tender for localization of other important OSS packages will open.