Hanoi Times – The Ministry of Information and Communications has recommended that state agencies use four open source software products – Open Office, Thunderbird, Firefox and Unikey.

Dang Duc Mai, Head of the Information Technology Department under the Ministry of Finance, said the Information and Communication Ministry’s recommendation was critical but lacked a solid implementation plan.

“My point of view is that decisions are not enough; we need clear policies and plans. I think we need at least three years for users to acclimatize themselves with open source software,” Mai said.

Open Office and Unikey seem to be popular among State employees while Thunderbird and Firefox are still unfamiliar.

“It’s good to encourage State employees to use open source software. It’s also good to have a list of recommended software. It’s much better to recommend and educate people about various operating systems because certain software works best with different o­nes,” said Nguyen Quang A, former chairman of the Vietnam Information Processing Association.

It was not clear whether the Ministry of Information and Communications introduced the software list to cut down o­n copyright infringement in Vietnam or to increase the demand for open source software, but regardless, it was a step in the right direction, said Mr. A.