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UK government backs open source (BBC)
The BBC
reports that the UK government is planning a shift towards open-source
software.
"The UK government has said it will accelerate the use of open source software in public services.
Tom Watson MP, minister for digital engagement, said open source software would be on a level playing field with proprietary software such as Windows.
Open source software will be adopted "when it delivers best value for money", the government said.
It added that public services should where possible avoid being "locked into proprietary software"."
(Thanks to Pavel Roskin).
(Log in to post comments)
The new LWN site layout Posted Feb 26, 2009 17:26 UTC (Thu) by cgorac (guest, #35767) [Link]
I know it's unrelated to the above article and apologize for this, but don't know where else to ask: how to revert (if possible) to the old LWN home page layout?
The new LWN site layout Posted Feb 26, 2009 17:40 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] If you like the old, ugly front page, you can still find it at http://lwn.net/Articles/OldFrontPage.
lwn @ lwn.net Posted Feb 26, 2009 17:48 UTC (Thu) by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054) [Link] Jon & co. ask us to use lwn @ lwn.net for general and more-or-less off-topic questions (typos, subscription info, praise, ...). They respond quickly, given the effort needed to frame a response, to say nothing of the massive spam trap the address must be.Works for me.
Value for money Posted Feb 26, 2009 17:57 UTC (Thu) by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054) [Link] Open source software will be adopted "when it delivers best value for money", the government said.Hmmm. If value is v > 0, then value for money is v/0 = ... you figure it out. [Sorry, couldn't resist.]
Value for money Posted Feb 26, 2009 18:25 UTC (Thu) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] Of course, support and training are not free.
Value for money Posted Feb 28, 2009 1:22 UTC (Sat) by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054) [Link] Picky, picky, picky ...
UK government backs open source (BBC) Posted Feb 26, 2009 18:23 UTC (Thu) by nhasan (guest, #1699) [Link]
I think OSS should not be treated on a "level" playing field. OSS should always have an extra weight to tilt the balance towards it. Why you ask? If both proprietary and OSS solutions provide the exact same feature set, ease of use and somewhat similar cost then OSS should always trump proprietary on account of being "open" and without the lock-in.
UK government backs open source (BBC) Posted Feb 26, 2009 18:59 UTC (Thu) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link] No real need for "tilting the scale", just have whoever is doing the evaluation quantify how much the openness is worth for them. Sure, there will be cases where it does barely matter, others where it is overriding. The crucial point is that the government must avoid trapping end users into closed options.
UK government backs open source (BBC) Posted Feb 26, 2009 21:38 UTC (Thu) by wookey (subscriber, #5501) [Link]
The article is referring to (but does not link to) this document ("Open Source, Open Standards and Re-Use: Government Action Plan"):
http://www.cio.gov.uk/transformational_government/open_so...
The start contains a lot of the usual shiny platitudes of Govt policy documents but once you get o the meat, this document represents a really encouraging shift for a govt. that (apart from a few pockets of competence) has been hopelessly in Microsoft's pocket for many years, and has utterly failed to appreciate that Open Standards and Free Software ought to matter to it.
Better late than never.
It mandates open standards (although also falls into the trap of including ISO29500 OOXML in the list - I'm not sure we can blame the govt much for that - it's ISO's fault). It doesn't go very far on making govt-developed software Free: "Where appropriate, general purpose software developed by or for government will be released on an open source basis.", but I guess that's better than nothing. Probably most importantly it says a lot of sensible things about considering lock-in and exit costs when determining software value, and defaulting to Free Software due to its intrinsic flexibility, when the costs of the Free and propriatary solutions are otherwise similar.
They have even supplied a place for feedback, which is also a good sign.
It was noted some years ago that Tom Watson was one of the very few MPs with tech clue. He (or someone) appears to have done some very fine work here.
Having also spent the last two days talking to lawyers and corporate types I think it's fair to say that a major shift is underway. They have stopped thinking of us as wierdos, hippies and nutters and are realising that they need to take this stuff seriously. Many, especially the lawyers, are scrambling to understand this strange new world.
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