Pardus will be popularized in the Directorate of Religious Affairs; The most prevalent Utility Agreement in Public Services was Signed.
“Cooperation Protocol for PARDUS and Open Resource Transformation” was signed by Directorate of Religious Affairs (DİB) and TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM. The ceremony was held with the participation of The Minister of Industry and Technology Mustafa Varank, The Director of Religious Affairs Prof. Dr. Ali Erbaş, The Chairman of the Presidential Digital Transformation Office Ali Taha Koç, The Deputy Minister Mehmet Fatih Kacır and The President of TÜBİTAK Prof. Dr. Hasan Mandal.
The Directorate of Religious Affairs has decided to move to the domestic and national operating system PARDUS last year, which will set an example for all state institutions and organizations. Due to the importance of Open Source and PARDUS transformation, a contract was signed between the Directorate of Religious Affairs and TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM last October, which includes analysis, training, proof of concept and pilot transformation studies. Withing the scope of this agreement, a deep analysis has been performed for introducing PARDUS and Open Source technologies developed by TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM to Directorate of Religious Affairs personnel, compatibility of the utilized softwares with PARDUS and determining the equivalent softwares which can replace these is necessary. Under the light of this analysis, various customizations have been made in the PARDUS interface in order to realize the habits of the users and the required functions in the most efficient way.
Within the scope of the path this analysis revealed, “Cooperation Protocol for PARDUS and Open Source Transformation” was signed with the aim to popularize PARDUS in 10 thousand computers used in the central and provincial organizations of the Directorate of Religious Affairs.
The Minister of Industry and Technology Mustafa Varank has stated that, within the scope of the protocol signed with the Directorate of Religious Affairs, the Open Source PARDUS will be popularized in 10 thousand computers used in the central and provincial organizations of the Directorate of Religious Affairs, and said: “This situation points to the most prevalent utility agreement ever made in the field of domestic and national softwares”.
Minister Varank stated that the Directorate of Religious Affairs gets the most out of the opportunities that technology offers and said: “Using technology very effectively, our institution has made a decision last year, which will set an example for all state institutions. By implementing the National Software action, our institution focused on the nationalization of the data processing infrastructure in all central, provincial and abroad organizations.”
Minister Varank stated that so far, 872 users in the Directorate of National Affairs has transferred to the domestic and national software PARDUS developed by TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM, and said: “Also, the open source Jitsi video conference system, for which an installation guide has been issued by TÜBİTAK, has been installed on the servers of the Directorate of National Affairs. Thus, our Directorate became one of the institutions that quickly put into use a safe and cost-effective system during the pandemic period.”
Minister Varank stated that approximately a hundred thousand people are currently using the PARDUS operating system, and that institutions such as the Ministries of Health, Environment and Urbanization, Agriculture and Forestry, National Defense and the Strategy and Budget Directorate are currently in the process of analysis and transformation. Minister Varank stated that they wish to introduce PARDUS to the students at early ages and said: “For this aim, we are popularizing a special PARDUS version for Smart Boards in classrooms with the Ministry of National Education. If PARDUS quickly becomes popular, its deficiencies will be identified and reported earlier and thus, development processes will speed up.”
Minister Varank stated that they continue to prepare PARDUS versions for new technologies and said: “We will soon release a version for mini-computers based on ARM-processors that are most widely used in the Internet of Things. Thus, PARDUS will take its place among smart devices as well as desktop solutions.”
Director of the Religious Affairs Prof. Dr. Ali Erbaş said in his speech: “As the Directorate, our collaboration since 2019 with TÜBİTAK, which continues its activities under the responsibility of our Ministry of Industry and Technology, is beginning to bear fruit. For more than a month, the domestic and national operating system PARDUS, developed by TÜBİTAK, has been used in 502 computers in our presidential central organization.”
Within the scope of the contract, LiderAhenk will be established to centrally manage the clients, and the Engerek product will be operationalized for identity management of nearly 1 million users. Also, training, introduction and support activities will continue as a way to cover the rest of the institution.
TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM will provide services for developing new applications as well as transformation activities, sustaining and maintenance of server systems, and general support activities for end users.
Why PARDUS?
Open Source technologies offer an important opportunity for our country to have an independent and secure information infrastructure. There are future uncertainties about the terms and costs of using licensed softwares which connect users to a specific brand eco-system.
Transition to alternative products is becoming hard as we depend on these technologies, and the commercial future of companies, pricing and licensing policies can bring significant risks for our information systems.
Open Source Softwares have been widely and successfully used in critical applications for a long time. Also, many institutions in our country have been successfully using the Open Source technologies, and working to transform their licensed and platform-dependent systems.
PARDUS is an Independent and Open Source coded operating system that is based on Debian GNU/Linux. It can be downloaded and installed for free over the Internet. Development and maintenance actions have been carried out under TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM to make PARDUS a competitive and sustainable operating system for personal or corporate uses.
In addition to the operating system formed according to the conditions in Turkey, the PARDUS team that exists under TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM provide institutional applications with the potential of widespread use, some of which have been founded on other Open Source projects. PARDUS, which is developed by this team, remote management system LiderAhenk, identity management system Engerek, integrated cyber security system Ahtapot, and products like TaliaDomain, SambaBox, Liman, Gardiyan have been successfully used in various ministries, state hospitals, municipalities, Strategy and Budget Directorate, institutions like AFAD and in the private sector.