New national center to assist governments with open source applications (NewsForge) [LWN.net]

NewsForge covers the launch of the National Center for Open Source Policy and Research (NCOSPR). "The mission of the NCOSPR will be to guide government agencies through the array of open source software available, as well as to develop specific solutions for individual agencies with its resource center. The center is also behind Government Forge, a portal to host and maintain open source software relevant to government agencies and other public entities."

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Name and work in the context of the USA only (NewsForge)

Posted Oct 14, 2005 22:54 UTC (Fri) by atai (subscriber, #10977) [Link]

Perhaps the aticle should have made clear the center and related activities are only in the context of the USA. Other countries may have an organization with the same name doing different things within their national contexts.

Name and work in the context of the USA only (NewsForge)

Posted Oct 15, 2005 13:21 UTC (Sat) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link]

It will be helpful to see follow-ups for governments world-wide who do use Open Source.
My feeling in the US case is that the discussion is only occasionally technical: the contents of the stock portfolios of the decision makers is where the real interests lie.
The rate of change may be enhanced through budget cuts. If you don't give bureucracies money to spend, the dialogue can return to issues of technical merit, and suddenly an Open Source solution is practical.

Lack of budget not good (NewsForge)

Posted Oct 16, 2005 23:24 UTC (Sun) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

If you don't give bureucracies money to spend, the dialogue can return to issues of technical merit, and suddenly an Open Source solution is practical.

Interesting approach. I would have said the opposite: if you don't give your government any money, things will not get done. Machines will fall apart before their software is updated; IT workers will become slaves of proprietary vendors, lacking the expertise to upgrade. Witness what happens in many third world governments; how many have switched to free software?

It takes some investment to make the switch, if only to acquire technical knowledge and retrain employees; once done, it will pay off in a very short time.