UK Govt Warned: Don't Buy GPL

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday June 19, 2003 @07:26AM from the just-download-it-instead dept.

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."

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IBM too? by dfiguero · 2003-06-19 07:29 · Score: 1, Redundant

This is weird

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Re:Hard to buy by steve_l · 2003-06-19 10:02 · Score: 0, Redundant

That's the US; in the UK we are 'subjects of the crown'; the govenment reports to whoever is King or Queen at the time.

Yes, I know it makes as much sense as a 64-way NT server, but we blew our chance to be a republic back in the seventeeth century, after the English Civil War.