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http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/7632/5951

BG: Municipalities not interested in open source based e-government software; author puts it for free downloading

BG: Developer publishes e-Government services platform as Open Source

Open Source News - 13 May 2008 - Bulgaria - General

The Bulgarian software developer Daniel Denev has recently published his framework for electronic administrative services using the GNU General Public Open Source licence (GPL). Denev hopes that opening up his software will increase interest from small to medium sized public administrations. Denev says his software enables public administrations to easily create and offer electronic services to their citizens. The collection of applications include a content management system, a document management system and other functions. The software can be used for tenders, elections and other government services. The application is built on top of Microsoft webserver IIS and uses Microsoft tools such as ASP.Net and C#. The independent programmer began working on the application in 2003, after being contacted by a mayor of Lyaskovets, a small Bulgarian city. However, about a year later the city decided not to pursue the project. Denev's application, titled 'Municipality X' had meanwhile caught the attention of other developers. It was awarded the best e-government project at a national IT contest in 2004. Many other cities contacted Denev, but none adopted the project. The Bulgarian Open Source developer renewed his efforts on the project last year, being contracted by Veliko Tarnovo, the historical city and former capital of Bulgaria. Here too the city council soon lost interest and suspended the work. Denev has since then negotiated with a handful of other cities, he says, but eventually gave up, disillusioned: "Public administrations in Bulgaria underestimate the usefulness of such electronic applications." At the beginning of this year, he published the software on the Open Source software repository Sourceforge. "This is one of the few Open Source e-Government projects that can be run on Microsoft's platform. That should make some public administrations interested." © European Communities 2008 Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged. The views expressed are not an official position of the European Commission.

A unique system for electronic municipality, based on open source software, was designed and developed by Daniel Denev, Bulgarian expert in electronic interactive systems.

The system is constructed to provide electronic administrative services, electronic voting, electronic tenders etc. The platform uses technologies such as PHP, MySQL as a server for data bases, MS-technologies for corporate applications, also XML and desktop applications. ‘This is not just software but a whole conception, already adopted in the world’, says Denev. We can make sure of his words by comparing the number of downloads of his software with the number of the other similar products on SourceForge.net, world’s biggest open source software repository. There are many similar published programs but only three are really working. Main difference – Bulgarian software is the only one that uses Microsoft technology for business applications and services (C#.NET & XML).

The story

In 2003 was created the first prototype. Denev initiated negotiations with the mayor of a small Bulgarian municipality to introduce the software. ‘Except the mistrust and suspiciousness, the other thing I faced was disregard’, he remembers. Soon after this incident his work received the acknowledgement of the guild. In 2004 Denev’s software, named ‘Municipality X’, took the prize for best e-government application on the national ‘IT innovations’ competition. The prize was followed by a great number of conversations with mayors and ‘inveterate bureaucrats’, but all of them ended unsuccessfully. Meanwhile the archived software disappeared under vague circumstances.

In 2007 Denev started working again on a similar project for another Bulgarian municipality. Few months later the council members changed their mind and suspended the financial support. After the next unsuccessful circle of negotiations with local and national administration Denev finally came round to the opinion that ‘the state is not aware of the necessity of high-tech projects’. In the first months of 2008 he terminated once and for all the work on e-government/e-municipality project and published everything together with the code and the documentation on SourceForge.net.

LAST EDITED VERSION

The Bulgarian software developer Daniel Denev has recently published his framework for electronic administrative services using the GNU General Public Open Source licence (GPL). Denev hopes that opening up his software will increase interest from small to medium sized public administrations.

Denev says his software enables local administrations to easily create and offer electronic services to their citizens. The collection of applications include a content management system, a document management system and other functions, resulting in a system that can be used for tenders, elections and other government services. The application is built on top of Microsoft webserver IIS and uses Open Source tools such as PHP an MySQL.

The independent programmer began working on the application in 2003, after being contacted by the mayor of Lyaskovets, a small Bulgarian municipality. However, later the city decided not to pursue the project. Denev's application, titled 'Municipality X' had meanwhile caught the attention of other developers and in 2004 was awarded the best e-government project at a national IT contest. Many other cities contacted Denev, but none adopted the project.

The Bulgarian Open Source developer renewed his efforts on the project last year, being contracted by Veliko Tarnovo, the old Bulgarian capital. Here too the city council soon lost interest and suspended the work.

Denev has since then negotiated with a few other cities, he says, but eventually gave up, disillusioned: "Public administrations in Bulgaria underestimate the usefulness of such electronic applications."

At the beginning of this year, he published the software on the Open Source software repository Sourceforge. "This is one of the few Open Source e-Government projects that can be run on Microsoft's platform, so, that should make some public administrations interested."

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