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

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.")

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

[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).