Tax Evasion? Greeks protests banning of open source in hospitals

Gijs Hillenius | Joinup | July 31, 2013

Eel/lak, a Greek network of academic proponents of open source, is asking a hospital in Thessaloniki to reconsider its banning of software solutions based on free and open source software. The hospital is misreading last year's government inventory of public administration's software licences, the group says.

"This ban has no legal basis, is not based on any government decision and creates unnecessary costs for the Greek taxpayer in a particularly difficult period for the entire Greek community."

The group writes that the hospital is misreading a request from the government's Financial and Economic Crime Unit.Last year, this unit began approaching companies and public administrations, asking for an inventory of their software licences along with the corresponding invoices.

The aim of the economic crime unit is to combat tax evasion...

Open Health News' Take: 

This story provides an interesting twist. Tax evasion! Are hospitals and companies using free & open source software (FOSS) evading tax laws? They're using something of tremendous value that is available for free. That's got to be unacceptable to many cash strapped governments. The solution - let's start taxing free and open access text books, open data, open source software, open knowledge, open science, open...  Makes tremendous sense, or does it. What do you think?  -  Peter Groen, Senior Editor, Open Health News