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Released free-gov module for Municipal Complaints Management

With this module, municipalities are able to manage citizens complaints originated through self-service terminals or Internet. Citizens select the location of the complaint on a digital map, then coordinates are stored in the record for further usage.

Officials access this module from the intranet, and geo-location helps grouping multiple issues of the same complaint on a single record, simplifying later processes.

Records are showed on screen or are printed including a map with complaints location, QR code for interaction with GPS units, and bar-code to help the manage of printed service orders.

Once incoming complaints are verified and grouped, any one are converted to regular records, following the usual administrative paths until complaints resolution. However, when these records are created grouping several citizens complaints, each time an administrative action is taken, all involved citizens are informed about complaint administrative status.

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Iris Rapid Internationalization System

"Iris" is the name of our static translation system. Despite this is a free-gov's module, we are developing bundled versions (containing pre-configured free-gov + iris systems) ready to be used in other software projects collaborative translation.

This software was conceived to solve two problems: a) the need of a static internationalization engine capable of perform text localization at installation time without the performance cost of dynamic localization; and b) the need of an easy-to-learn online tool to allow hundreds of potencial translator volunteers who aren't trained on complex translation softwares and catalogs manipulation.

Iris software will be under GNU AGPL License. This is the tool we are developing to make free-gov's own translations, and will be available soon for download at free-gov downloads page.

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 News picks about free software in e-Government

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Vladimir Putin Orders Russian Government to Switch to Free Software by 2015

Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin instructed the federal government agencies to switch to free and open source software by 2015. He signed a plan "for the transition of federal executive bodies and agencies to free software" on 17 December.

The transition will start this year with a federal support centre. After the summer the first collection of free and open source software applications will be used on servers and on desktop systems. First to start using this will be the ministry of Communications. Other federal government institutes are invited to participate in this first phase.

Half a year later, the plan foresees a repository for free and open source applications used by federal public administrations. According to Putin's executive order all federal institutions will start using free and open source software in late 2014. In the third quarter, data from the "previously used IT systems will be transferred".

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Governments must abandon proprietary software: Stallman

Governments should be required to abandon proprietary software if they are to properly serve their citizens, according to Free Software Movement advocate and GNU Free Software operating system developer, Richard Stallman.

Speaking to Computerworld Australia ahead of a speech to the Australian National University on the Free Software Movement, Stallman said free software - in the context of the ability to run, study, change and redistribute at the user's discretion - was essential to governments retaining control over their computing.

"Government agencies must be required to use exclusively free software - with a transition period," he said. "The reason for this is that using free software means having control of your computing. Using proprietary software is losing control over your computing."

"If you or I lose control over our computing, that is a misfortune. If a government loses control over its computing, then that is much worse than a misfortune; that is a dereliction".

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