Vietnam's Ministry of Information and Communications has reportedly issued instructions on using open source software products at its state agencies.

According to the issued instruction, by June 30, 2009, 100 percent of the servers for government IT divisions must be installed with open source software; 100 percent of the staffs in these IT divisions must be trained in the use of the open source software products and at least 50 percent of those must be able to use the open source software proficiently.

IT divisions at government agencies are comprised of the IT departments of ministries and government agencies, provincial and municipal Departments of Information and Communications. (Source: vietnamnet.vn)

The instruction also mandates that 70 percent of servers of ministries' agencies and local state agencies must be installed with open source software products by December 31, 2009 and that 70 percent of IT staff should be trained in using the open source software, and at least 40 percent of government workers should be able to use the open source software in their work. By December 31, 2010, all staff at these agencies must be able to use open source software in their jobs.

The instruction asks IT associations to assist state agencies with implementing this plan and requests that computer traders not sell PCs that come with cracked software, only open source software.

Open source software products listed are Open Office, email software for servers of Mozilla ThunderBird, Mozilla FireFox web browser and the Vietnamese typing software, Unikey.

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