At the end of August I wrote a short post about an important reform that modified the rules for software adoption within the Italian public administration.

This morning a new law (commonly known as "Agenda digitale italiana") has been approved and it adds a further amendment to Article 68 of the Codice dell'amministrazione digitale. Now Italian public administrations could select between six options (and not five, as it was in the previous version):

develop a solution internally

reuse a solution developed internally or by another public administration

adopt an free/open source solution

use a cloud computing service

obtain a proprietary license of use

a combination of the above.

Now cloud computing is a new feature. And it takes priority over the proprietary solution.

By the way, also the rest of the article is quite different and more detailed. Paragraph 1bis and 1ter has been added. Paragraph 1bis describes the principles governing the comparative analysis that every public administration has to do before choosing one of these 6 options. And paragraph 1ter has modified the most interesting part of the previous version of Article 68. Now it says:

In the event that the comparative analysis of technical and economic aspects, according to the criteria described in paragraph 1-bis, demonstrates the impossibility to adopt an already available solution [option B], or a free/open source solution [option C] (adapted to the needs to be met) the acquisition of proprietary software products is allowed.

Originally posted on Simone Aliprandi's personal blog. Reposted under Creative Commons.