UK Govt Warned: Don't Buy GPL

JPMH writes "ZDNet is reporting that a UK IT industry body backed by Microsoft, IBM, Intel, BAE Systems and other high-tech heavyweights has urged the UK government not to commission open-source software, and particularly not software covered by the General Public License. According to Intellect, which lobbies for about 1,000 UK IT companies, the requirement of open-source licences for software funded by the government could have a negative impact on competition for contracts, the quality of the resulting software and even the confidentiality of government departments. In particular, Intellect recommends that the government drop the GNU General Public License (GPL), the licence upon which the GNU/Linux operating system is based, from its list of acceptable default licences for government-funded software, and steer clear of the GPL generally."

Comments

Re:Hard to buy

[azzy]

The UK isn't part of the euro single-currency zone, so your 2 eurocents isn't worth anything ;)

No probs in T.O.

[mrobinso]

This is _so_ not an issue in Toronto.

If the City of Toronto bought $43Million worth of software from Bill, they would ignore the licensing altogether, only use $3Million worth, and send Bill a cheque for $85Million.

If you sent them a piece of software and say "Hey, this is free", they've have to hold a $12Million public enqiry to find out what the hell went wrong.

Notwithstanding the above, the City lacks the skill to alter any piece of gpl'ed software sifficiently to make the license an issue.