Ministry for Information Technology has launched a pilot project worth Rs 37 million for training manpower on Open Source software.
Training would be imparted to 4000 employees in Linux operating system, Open Office & other application software, while 200 system administrators will also be trained on Linux", Ministry of Information Technology Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari said in a statement after chairing a high-level meeting.
He said training programme would be arranged in Islamabad, all provincial headquarters and Muzaffarabad (AKJ).
The duration of the course would be approximately five weeks for end-users and eight weeks for the system administrators. Half of the intake in these courses would be from private sector while the rest would be from government departments.
The Minister said government servants with pay scale BPS - 5 and above are eligible for the training to be provided free of charge. The participants from private sector will pay 10 percent of the fees while the rest to be paid by the government.
The only eligibility requirement for the participants is Matric level education. For system administrators, the minimum requirement is graduation with one to two years' experience of working on computers.
Awais Leghari stated that work relating to the pre-qualification/selection of partner training institutes for imparting training had already been completed while nominations of the trainees would be invited through newspapers and from government departments. The training is planned to commence at the end of April", he said.
The IT minister pledged that on successful implementation of this project and depending upon the response and interest of the government servants and public, a major follow-up project of training would also be launched.
Pakistan Computer Bureau (PCB), a subsidiary of the Ministry, will organise, arrange and monitor the training activities to ensure proper quality of training.
He observed that selling of software CDs without proper licensing was against copyright regulations but without a strict enforcement of copyright laws, there were almost no incentives for the software developers to develop new software. "This is one of the major reasons for low software development activity within the country", he said.
The Minister said that in 2005, WTO regulations were likely to be enforced and as a result, it would become mandatory for member country to use licensed software.
"This will exert a profound impact not only on the expenditure of the general software users but also incur a great burden on the national exchequer", he said.
The Open Source software has a large number of software authors and beta testers. This makes the software testing and refinement processes faster and better.
The Open Source software is "free" from two standpoints; Firstly, the consumer is free to modify the system and do anything he wishes with it. Secondly, acquiring Open Source Software does not necessarily require any cash outlay.
Linux-an open source operating system-comes with full networking capabilities, a large variety of programmes, utilities and development tool.
Moreover Linux is quite reliable; it is one of the most stable operating systems available today.