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Open Code in Public Procurement

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the golden-hammer dept.

mpawlo writes: "I wrote something on public procurement and open code that you might want to share with your readers. In my opinion, it is time that public bodies and governments look over their public procurement policies to warrant competition. I don't think free software or open source should be the only choice when it comes to public computer programs, but as of today, public bodies all over the world designs their requirements in a way that rules out all Free Software and Open Source alternatives already at the drawing table. May the best computer program and license win! That's the only way to get an effective allocation of public money when it comes to public computer programs. Maybe a good topic for discussion among Slashdotters?"

2 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. They Won't Change Soon by Rebel+Patriot · · Score: 3, Informative

    Government doesn't have a reason to change, therefor, they won't. One of our biggest clients is a government body. They've been ingrained for a long time with Microsoft and just aren't going to switch from MS Office to say, Staroffice. Reasons for this are actually valid.

    1) They are comfrotable and familiar with Word and Excell.
    2) Some of their Access documents would be hard to render properly in Staroffice.
    3) They've invested a ton of money into several Visual Basic programs that use Access as a back end.

    As long as government agencies, departments, etc need things like that (which they've spent alot of money on to impliment), they are loath to switch.

    --
    Slackware forever. Honestly, what else would you trust when it absolutely positively has to be stable, secure, and easy
  2. UK policy appears to be what you want. by Bazzargh · · Score: 3, Informative
    You can find the draft UK procurement policy on open source here: (all versions) (direct link to html version)

    This has been driven by the EU recommendation to consider open source mentioned in the past on Slashdot.

    Main body are these recommendations:

    • UK Government will consider OSS solutions alongside proprietary ones in IT procurements. Contracts will be awarded on a value for money basis.
    • UK Government will only use products for interoperability that support open standards and specifications in all future IT developments.
    • UK Government will seek to avoid lock-in to proprietary IT products and services.
    • UK Government will obtain full rights to bespoke software code that it procures and all customisations of COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) packages that it uses wherever this achieves value for money.
    • UK Government will explore further the possibilities of using OSS as the default exploitation route for Government funded R&D software by academic research institutes
    ... which all seems pretty laudable.

    BTW: PLEASE DON'T SEND COMMENTS TO GOVTALK if you are just going to say 'me too'. The 7 comments that are there are all pro-open source and we dont want to sound like fanatics, do we? Remember how a lot of the comments to the EU on patent law were essentially ignored for this reason - don't duplicate the arguments of others.

    Disclaimer: I don't work for the UK government, but I write software that gets sold to them. Which includes a lot of open source stuff. I just happened to be reading that policy today before I read /. ...

    Cheers, Baz