Bulgaria's Parliament recently passed legislation mandating open source software to bolster security, as well as to increase competition with commercially coded software.
Amendments to the Electronic Governance Act require that all software written for the government be Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)-compliant. The new provisions reportedly took effect this week.
Software developer Bozhidar Bozhanov, advisor to one of Bulgaria's four deputy prime ministers, orchestrated the new law.
It requires that contracts to create software for the government be developed publicly, meet stated open source definitions, and be provided free for use without limitations. The law affects government-commissioned software only. Existing license agreements are still intact.
The Bulgarian government will continue to buy proprietary software.
"The likely reasons for adoption are to increase transparency and reduce corruption," said Rudolf Olah, a software developer at NeverFriday.com.
"Proprietary vendors use trade secrets to keep
