ParTecs, Participatory Technologies, was an international software company specialized in

Open Source Software Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Op ...

and

Free Software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, ...

solutions based in Rome, Italy. ParTecs maintained administrative offices in Rome and Brussels and a research and development center in

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

, India with over 20 people. All ParTecs activities and areas of expertise have been incorporated by the

Telematics Freedom Foundation Telematics Freedom Foundation is a non-profit organization which aims to bring citizens, in the age of telematics, Internet, mobile phones and the web, all those freedoms and rights that the Free Software Movement has already brought to PC users wor ...

since January 2007.

Products

ParTecs' flagship product was the PARTECS Platform from 2001 to 2006, basically a Political

Social Networking A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for a ...

platform for 2-way communication that enabled members or officials of large multi-language organizations to complement their regular face-to-face meetings, with effective participation in formal and informal deliberative processes via

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists ...

Email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" mean ...

Mail The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letter (message), letters, and parcel (package), parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid ...

-in and

Fax Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (the latter short for telefacsimile), is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a printer o ...

-in forms. Several pieces and documentation of the platform are still accessible on the web. The PARTECS platform was presented at the

World Summit on the Information Society The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was a two-phase United Nations-sponsored summit on information, communication and, in broad terms, the information society that took place in 2003 in Geneva and in 2005 in Tunis. WSIS Forums hav ...

in 2005, as a result of a partnership with

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. I ...

. It has also released many Open Source components for

Content Management System A content management system (CMS) is computer software used to manage the creation and modification of digital content ( content management).''Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy''. Ann Rockley, Pamela Kostur, Steve Manning. New ...

(CMS) webmasters to best manage and integrate their sites: *PloneSkype: Provides Skype presence information inside a Plone portal. *PloneCaptcha: Helps prevent plone web sites from being abused by spam robots. *PloneInvite: A tool for plone portal members to invite new users to register into the portal. *TestableEmailer: Enables you to write automated tests for emailing functionality. *DateBox: Widget that will allow users to enter dates in a variety of different ways. *MultiFile: Widget that will allow users to upload multiple files from the same screen. It was forked and is currently available in the

Python Package Index The Python Package Index, abbreviated as PyPI () and also known as the Cheese Shop (a reference to the ''Monty Python's Flying Circus'' sketch " Cheese Shop"), is the official third-party software repository for Python. It is analogous to the C ...

(PyPI).

Licensing

ParTecs also tried to promote the PPL Partecs Public License (ParTecs Public License), an

Open source license An open-source license is a type of license for computer software and other products that allows the source code, blueprint or design to be used, modified and/or shared under defined terms and conditions. This allows end users and commercial compa ...

which introduced a "delay" period of 12 months before the code becoming fully

GPL The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general us ...

'ed, as a way to incentive businesses to invest capital in development of new open source software without the risk of having their competition offering the same code the day after the first public release.

Notes

{{Reflist Software companies of Italy