On 16 September 2008, the Chamber of Commerce in Ferrara hosted the launch of PloneGov (www.plonegov.org) in Italy. The success of the event, involving more than a hundred people representing more than forty different organizations, has been up to the high expectations created by the enthusiasm shown by every Public Organization grasping the sense of this international initiative for the reuse of free software and the circulation of free knowledge.
Among the speakers, all from Plonegov member organizations, the following should be cited:

• Claudio Forghieri, of the City of Modena, in his talk “What Plone is: technical overview, in the context of Retecivica Modena experience”, could clearly motivate the reasons of the technological choice for Plone, extensively describing the functionalities of that CMS.
• Francesco Margutti, Technical Manager of the portal of Ferrara University, who spoke about “The experience of Ferrara University  in the use of Plone”, illustrated in detail the almost 200 sites and the intranet that make Ferrara University the biggest Plone user in Italy. 
• Joel Lambillotte, IT Manager of the City of Sambreville, his talk was aptly entitled “The experience of Southern Belgium: how PloneGov conquered a fifth of Local Public Administrations”: it was possible to follow the unstoppable growth of CommunesPlone  (www.communesplone.org), an application suite that – going beyond the title’s promise – has  in the meantime reached a quarter of the communes of the Walloon region.

• Xavier Heymans, CEO at ZEA Partners, speaking about “The synergy behind PloneGov: Public Organizations, Open Source Community and Small and Medium Enterprises”, was able to clarify the reasons of a success unexpected by many, and fruit of a mix of competences and mindsets gaining ground also in Italy.

• Clémentine Valayer, consultant of the European Community OSOR (Open Source Observatory Repository) project, related about “OSOR: The platform and its services”, showing how PloneGov is the expression of a more general trend presently appearing at European Community level, characterized by the valorization of free software, of reuse, and by the cultural growth of the Organizations getting active in this respect.

• Flavia Marzano, General Secretary of Unarete, undoubtedly one of the most influential and well-heard voices among the supporters of free software in Public Organizations, spoke about  “Sharing open software and open knowledge among Public Administrations: from exception to rule”, retracing the history of laws and regulations enforcing, since 1941, sharing as a right/duty of Italian Organizations.

• Cristina Franceschi, IT Manager of Ferrara Province, in her talk “Virtual desktop, process management and the Intranet of the Province of Ferrara in Plone environment”, addressed effectively the challenges faced by an Organization who, having an outstanding software solution at disposal, faces the porting to the open source world.

• Maurizio Pirazzini, Vice Secretary, Chamber of Commerce of Ferrara,  in “The experience of Ferrara Chamber of Commerce and accessibility” has on its part also described a successful experience in implementing and putting at disposal of other Organizations a Plone solution, with particular reference to accessibility regulations.

The afternoon has seen a dialogue between, on one side, the speakers and the businesses of the ZEA Partners network (www.zeapartners.org), technical partner of PloneGov, on the other the audience. A presentation of the business model of the SMB in the open source world was followed by a fruitful question/answer exchange, that allowed a better clarification of the ways and the reasons of the success of PloneGov, an initiative that, after this meeting, can be expected to obtain even more success in Italy.

, where member Organizations and the free software SMB’s will be able to further propagate the message of free software reuse, also taking advantage of a specific conference taking place Tuesday, 21 October at 14.00 in the “Progetti & Soluzioni” area.