UK Sets Open Source Procurement Policy

An anonymous submitter notes a story in the Register about the UK publishing their policy on the use of Open Source software. (Or skip straight to the policy itself.) The UK has been moving towards this for a while, and while they don't rule out using proprietary code, the policy definitely recognizes the benefits of OSS.

Comments

Re:wait a second.....

[Anonymous Coward]

I just clicked through that link in the Queen running linux, and not to be a troll but she switched back to IIS running on 2000

Uh oh.

[Dthoma]

Nowhere in that policy did I see them mentioning that they were going to go through the code to make sure that it hasn't been tampered with or changed in some bad way. That's as ridiculous as if I just download some source code from a dodgy website and run it without examining it first. If the government just picks up any old code and uses it, then all sorts of stuff could happen.

GOVERNMENT: "We are now using GPL'd software for our banking systems."
1337 H4X0R: "LOL! They don't even know I've h4x0r3d it so I can steal everyone's card numbers! LOL!!11!!"

Of course, if you think I'm just being excessively paranoid, ignore me.

Re:awesome!

[David Gerard]

Blunkett is bloody scary, though. RIPA? Removing double jeopardy? ("We'll keep dragging you back into court until you give in.")

Re:Guess the clue stick hit the right head.

[Anonymous Coward]

I sound like a broken record here, but Open Standards should have the weight of Law in IT. If you extened a Standard, you should either open the code for the extention or have it clearly labelled as a proprietary extention.

Either the standard itself or the standards body which maintains it usually determines the rules governing extensions to a standard. For instance, a standard may specifically allow extensions, but only if the implementation either states that it uses an extension or does not use the name of the standard in reference to the implementation. On the flip side of the coin we find another two sides: either you can not extend the standard at all (if you use the standard as the reference for your implementation you may not extend it), or you can extend it all you like without limitation.

Personally, I think it's best that this is left to the people creating/maintaining the standards, so long as the stated limitations of the standard are followed and/or enforcable. If the creator of something states 'anyone can use this however they like', then that should be the case, there shouldn't be an international standards police saying 'no, you cant write extensions because that has become the standard implementation', unless, of course, the creator(s) submitted it to those standards police knowing that it was a possibility.

Us Brit's love Open Source

[xA40D]

Given that us Brits have the habit of making technological leaps forward - and then handing the specs to someone else to embrace and extend and finaly profit from - I suppose it could be said that we invented Open Source.

I had an interview at a UK university a couple of years back. My final interview was with the Professor who was academic head of the IT services department. During this interview he told me that virtually every technology in the computing industry had it roots in the UK. I challenged him on this with a couple of "but what about" questions. Each time he countered with names, dates, and places.

Now, just imagine how much the US Economy would be worth if we'd locked these ideas away with OTT patent laws.

So it's about time we got back to doing things our way rather than trying to do everything the same as the US. Now, about those "fat-cat" salaries...

Re:TCO

[Jord]

The three steps you described above are extraordinarily in software available for Linux. Having used MS Office and Linux Office applications I can tell you that any competent secretary will take a very short amount of time to make the switch. While it is true that the majority of people who use computers are not experts or advanced users, most of the people who use a computer in an office enviroment will be able to make the switch with little to no help. BTW Most office software for Linux reads MS documents just fine.

Re:TCO

[swillden]

This has to do with my secretary, who knows how to email Word documents and web pages to me by going to the ``File'' menu and selecting ``Send To Mail Recipient'' (or whatever it is). Up pops an email message with the file attached, and she just types my name and clicks ``Send.''

She would do exactly the same thing using OpenOffice. File->Send->Document as e-mail.

1. Open the Excel file containing such-and-such vendor's price list. (We get these from our vendors, so we don't get a say in their format. They come as Excel files.)

Click on the file. OpenOffice starts up and displays it.

2. Open the word processing document that I just emailed you and find the table cell marked, ``paste description here.'' (I create that document, so it can be in any format, as long as it supports in-line tables.) Paste the description of part so-n-so from the price list into the table cell.

Click on the word processing document, OpenOffice opens it. Click on the already-open spreadsheet, find the data, select it, hit Ctrl-C (or, if you prefer, use the menus: Edit->Copy). Click back over to the word processing document, click in the cell, hit Ctrl-V (or Edit->Paste).

3. Turn the word processing document into a PDF, and mail it back to me for approval.

This is the only one that is even the slightest bit different. Click File->Print, select Print to PDF, choose a file name, click OK. Click back to your e-mail message, click reply, drag the new PDF document over and drop it on the message, click send.

Now, how painful was that, exactly?

The fact is, that you're making arguments based on the "blinding obviousness" of baseless and uneducated suppositions (that just happen to be wrong).