UK Government Solicits Advice On Open Source

Imran Ghory writes: "The UK government has put out a consultation paper on the use of open source software in government,background research into OSS commisioned by the government is also available, including a comparision of OSS office suites." Check out the formats in which the document is available.

Comments

Re:On a lesser scale, I am also investigating this

[cscx]

I've used NDS before in a strictly Novell environment, and what it can do for system administration is amazing.

It is quite costly; however, if you can afford the liscensing costs, it is worth every damn penny.

Never write another shell script again. Just point, click, and bam!, you've just instituted a change in the tree!

Just make sure you run your DS Repairs frequently and keep the tree healthy, or else you're asking for trouble!

Govtalk, OSS et al

[tagishsimon]

I'd commend a read of the cited QinetiQ Report cited as background to the current consultation. In fact, I'm quite shocked at how well considered it is; I'm sure it will help readers seeking to convince their management to consider the adoption of OSS.

Its more than easy to diss Govtalk for its many failings - such as the failure to embrace text and RTF when it has the opportunity; hotchingly bad HTML on the website, &c.

But there's a great deal of good going on, too; not least the RFC process of which this consultation is a part; and the strong support for XML in the eGovernment Interoperability framework (itself a coherent position statement).

As food for further debate, here are the main recommendations under which the current consultation was predicated:

1. OSS is indeed the start of a fundamental change in the software infrastructure marketplace, and is not a hype bubble that will burst.
2. Within five years, 50% of the volume of the software infrastructure market could be taken by OSS.
3. OSS's position in large servers (e.g. those managing massive multi-user databases), such as those that underpin many large Government procurements, will grow from its current position of near zero penetration, to a position where OSS is a viable option, within 2 - 3 years.
4. Within the developed world, we as yet see no sign that OSS will become a viable alternative to Microsoft Windows, for user's (general purpose) desktop machines in the corporate or home PC markets. However, OSS on the desktop may soon become a significant player in the developing world. For these reasons we recommend against any preference for OSS on the desktop, but also recommend that this issue be reassessed by the end of 2002, by which time early trials of the use of OSS desktops may have generated sufficient evidence to warrant a reassessment.
5. We see no benefit that the Government would gain from expressing a general preference for OSS within server infrastructures.
6. The Government could clarify its position as to whether there are circumstances in which Microsoft products are to be preferred.
7. The Government could consider publishing policy as to how the risk of lock-in to proprietary protocols is to be managed.
8. As yet it is not possible to predict that OSS will make a major contribution to the software applications market.
9. Many of the Government's risks that arise from over-dependence on proprietary protocols and data formats for interoperability can be controlled by the selective use of open data standards.
10. The existence of an OSS reference implementation of a data standard has often accelerated the adoption of such standards, and we recommend that the Government consider selective sponsorship of OSS reference implementations.
11. The rise of OSS, offers the possibility that non-US players will find it easier to influence the future direction of IT infrastructure technology.
12. The Government should consider using OSS as the default exploitation route for UK Government funded software.
13. The differences between OSS and proprietary software are not a major factor in either improving or degrading the vulnerability of a nation's IT infrastructure.
14. We recommend that the Government obtain full rights to bespoke software that it procures - this includes any customisation of off-the-shelf software packages.
15. The Open Source model offers a new paradigm for funding software in communities-of-interest (e.g. Health and Education). The Government could consider running pilot projects to test the viability of the OSS approach to such software.
16. We recommend that the Medical Records data standard be examined by appropriate domain experts for possible inclusion in the e-GIF.

An HTML solution for PDF-haters

[cscx]

As I sort through the tons of posts that are screaming bloody murder about how PDF is a horrible fascist file format that takes away their civil liberties... there is a solution:

http://access.adobe.com/simple_form.html

will automagically translate any PDF document into HTML. It uses a perl engine, too! :)

PostScript format for download / printing

[MikeBabcock]

I have saved the PDF of the report as PostScript with xpdf for printing or download here (100k).

http://www.fibrespeed.net/~mbabcock/mirrors/ukgo vt oss.ps (300k) for people who don't have compressed file support.

http://www.fibrespeed.net/~mbabcock/mirrors/ukgovt oss.html (170k) for HTML converted by Star Office from the MS Word document.