Open Source in Government

A reader writes: "There is a feature running on NF about a conference this October. More information can be found on the conference website." It's worth pointing that despite the fact that the conference is two days long, the organizers have asked for material submissions to be included in the conference handbook. So, if you've got some materials/thoughts, start polishing them up.

Comments

Ho-Hum

[gerf]

Ok, Linux, despite what M$ may claim, has a place in today's post-pets.com/IPO/stupid-investing economy. As such, it's not as visible anymore. Think of it this way: when cell phones first came out, you knew who had one. They were different, elitist. Now, hilljacks from BFE Arkansas have cell phones, and no one notices. Once a Product becomes a standard part of everyday life, it just blends into the background.

This conference wants to 'Raise Awareness' and such and such. I think that, for the most part, people are aware of Open-Source. There are few markets, such as the lucrative US gov't market, that have yet to fully embrace it, but that's only a matter of time.

As of today, there are quite a few open-source companies, who unfortunately compete against each other, more often than not. This, IMHO, is the only reason that OSS is not as widely used as of yet. Yes, blame M$. But, that's just marketing. Marketing does wonders, but it's not everything. What is needed to overtake their monopolistic standing is another strong (not as big perhaps, but strong), company, with a very stable business behind it.

When i first heard of United Linux, my thought was, "Finally." But, no, it's simply a loose conglomerate of some lesser distros. What is needed to finally grab hold of these markets that seem so out of reach, is a single entity. If I'm a businessman, and wish to use Linux, I ask, ok, show me linux. What happens? I'm asked, "What do you want? Suse, Lindows, Mandrake, Debian, United, RedHat, ect.?" This does not work. If a businessman were instead told, "Here is Gerf Linux, the best supported and used Linux distro out there. It's the de facto Linux for all users. And, it's parent company, Gerf Inc. is making money, and will be around to support it too." THAT my friends, is what would finally make Linux, or any software in general, look more appealing to a company/government/user/organization. So, who can do that, and how? Sadly, no one. Unless standards were set for every miniscule detail, this system is not going to prosper in the way we wish it to.

OSS in the third world

[bigjocker]

I live in a third world country, and our government is pushing towards creating standards for the the development of government software. One of the points is to require all software developed for any government instance to be Open Source, they are even considering to create a sourceforge-like repository to handle all the projects.

Why is this? well, I can see one obvious reason: all the local governments, central government instances, institutes, dependencies, etc have in one point of time developed software systems. One of the first dreams about the internet was to make all the government information available for the public, but in a disordered environment where everyone creates their own solution, using their own contractors, using their own tools and methos, you end up with a mess.

I have seen a LOT of goverment software made in tools like FoxPro, VB, Pascal, etc by people who just had little knowledge in the field (mostly just-graduated people who had a "contact" with somebody making the desicions). The issue is that if you make standards and force the solutions to be Open Source (so anybody can audit your code) you gain a lot.

I have always put the peruvian case as an example, the problem is that they got too much publicity and the big boys pushed back. Here everything is being done a lot quieter, but the end goal is almost the same.

I have grat hopes in this kind initiatives.