UK Gov't Solicits Comments On OSS Policy

sufehmi writes "The UK government is asking for comments on its Open Source Software (OSS) policy document. This may have a great effect on OSS usage in UK gov, so don't miss this - get your voice heard. Also what would you say to your government about this topic ? Let's share your thoughts with others here."

Comments

My comment

[Anonymous Coward]

Open source software supports terrorism.

Re:My comment

[Anonymous Coward]

Open source software supports terrorism.

Not only that, apparently it gets hacked all the time...

HTML version of policy document

[Anonymous Coward]

thanks to the Google Cache

The policy

[Anonymous Coward]

The key decisions of this policy are as follows: - UK Government will consider OSS solutions alongside proprietary ones in IT procurements. Contracts will be awarded on a value for money basis. - UK Government will only use products for interoperability that support open standards and specifications in all future IT developments. - UK Government will seek to avoid lock-in to proprietary IT products and services. - UK Government will consider obtaining full rights to bespoke software code or customisations of COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) software it procures wherever this achieves best value for money. - If no commercial or community shared exploitation route is used for publicly funded R&D software, an OSS default will apply. Licences compliant with the OSI definition will be used. There's more, but that's the meat of it.

Available in MSWord format...

[sepluv]

Seriously though, I have contacted polticians to try and get them to get a policy on this and it sounds like they are starting to listen, so I'll be sending them lots of comments on this.

For a start, as an FSF member and given that this is in relation to government, I really think it should be called "free software" or "software libre" to emphasise the freedom aspects -- for most government apps they couldn't care less about the source but freedom and data protection is very imprtant.

The Policy (this time with proper formatting)

[Anonymous Coward]

(oops... here we go again, this time properly formatted)

The key decisions of this policy are as follows:

- UK Government will consider OSS solutions alongside proprietary ones in
IT procurements. Contracts will be awarded on a value for money basis.

- UK Government will only use products for interoperability that support
open standards and specifications in all future IT developments.

- UK Government will seek to avoid lock-in to proprietary IT products and
services.

- UK Government will consider obtaining full rights to bespoke software
code or customisations of COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) software it procures wherever this achieves best value for money.

- If no commercial or community shared exploitation route is used for publicly funded R&D software, an OSS default will apply. Licences compliant with the OSI definition will be used.

There's more, but that's the meat of it.

Sign-in...grrr

[sepluv]

Have to sign up to make comments....

Comments on Document Intro.

[sepluv]

Here's my quicky-written in-depth textual analysis of page 1 (the intro.). I'm glad they are taking notice of the pressure us, UK free-software users are putting on them, but, let's say, it doesn't look as great as it could be though. Disclaimer: maybe I'm very cynical and I am in a pissed off mood about just talking to the powers at be at my central-government-funded college who think that free software "is evil hacking [sic] tools like Kazaa" and who worships MS -- only using MS software were possible.

"Open Source Software (OSS) is software whose source code is openly published"

This is exactly why (as I said in my last post) it should be about free software. They obviously think they any software with source is open source as opposed to only stuff that fits the Debian Free Software Guidelines, OSI open source definition or the FSF free software definition.

"is usually available at no charge"

But they still seem to think that it is about cost not freedom (even though they use the term, open source, which was apparently designed to remove perceived ambiguity with the term free software -- I personally think free software is a clearer term). Cost hardly matters to governments anyway -- they get very good deals -- the fact that MS has control over the government's computer systems and all the personal data of UK citzens, and that no one can see what the software is doing is *far* more important.

"under a licence defined by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) which prevents it from being redistributed under a more restrictive licence."

AFAIK the OSI have not made under any software licenses. Also, I believe, at least three-quaters of software is licesed under the FSF's GNU GPL. If the are talking about the GNU GPL, the GPL does not "[prevent] it from being redistributed under a more restrictive licence" -- the author can distribute it under any license -- it does prevent a *derivative* work from being licensed under a more restrictive license (unless all the orignal authors have seperately licensed the software under a more restrictive license).

"It has leapt to prominence by starting to take a significant market share in some specific parts of the software infrastructure market."

So, they are saying that they now like FOSS because it may have a monopoly in some areas -- I'm not sure which ones they are refering to -- servers?

OK, fine they actually think the government should go out of their way to support monopolies and lack of freedom, then? I can see why most desktop PC's in the UK gov. run MSW then, if they have that attitude.

"to live up to their initial press hype. OSS is indeed the start of a fundamental change in the software infrastructure marketplace, but it
is not a hype bubble that will burst and UK Government must take cognisance of that fact."

Do they have a guilty concious about being a gov. who are very into creating and blindly following hype bubbles or sthg? Seriously though, it seems they have (after the years of campaigning that free-software advocates by those at the UK AFFS, FSF, &c.) finally realised that free software is an important and fundamental change (or actually return to the old days) in the way we look at software (esp. in gov.).

"The Action Plan (June 2002) for the European Commission's initiative
eEurope 2005: An Information Society for all builds on the previous Action
Plan (June 2000) which set the target "to promote the use of open source
software in the public sector and e-Government best practice through
exchange of experiences across the Union"."

So it seems that they are making another action plan as part of their previous action plan on which they haven't done anything yet but produce another action plan. Oh, and they are only doing it because the EU (who I think are more free-software friendly thanks to FSF Europe bringing them over) forced them. My experience is that the only way to get the UK government to do anything for their citizens (as oppose

Re:Comments on Document Intro.

[Bazzargh]

Disclaimer: maybe I'm very cynical and I am in a pissed off mood
No kidding...

also, I believe, at least three-quaters of software is licesed under the FSF's GNU GPL.
Figures?

If the are talking about the GNU GPL, the GPL does not "[prevent] it from being redistributed under a more restrictive licence" -- the author can distribute it under any license

Legally, thats distribution not redistribution as the author originates the material, and they are in fact correct as regards the GPL. But point taken, their executive-level introduction of what open source is is a bit inaccurate. But its just an introduction and not the policy.

So it seems that they are making another action plan as part of their previous action plan on which they haven't done anything yet but produce another action plan.

Bollocks. In fact, the 2005 plan was produced because it was felt many of the goals of the 2002 plan had been achieved.

Oh, and they are only doing it because the EU (who I think are more free-software friendly thanks to FSF Europe bringing them over) forced them.

Government depts are well aware that having access to the source prevents them being held to ransom by companies who need a big license payoff to stay afloat. At least 2 of the Pathfinder projects (50 x 1m local govt projects funded by central govt to kickstart development of online services) were fully open source. I say 'were' because AFAIK all the Pathfinders are now completed, they started back in 2000/2001.

Something I have been campagning for the UK government to do is to release all their laws[..]on request to citizens gratis. They do, at least, have some online now under a restrictive license that requires paying so much per click-through for some uses of the laws."

Eh??? Have you looked at HMSO recently? All the acts since 1991 are there, online, for free, and can be reproduced for free. The only clickthroughs the HMSO uses are for supplementary material, not the laws themselves.

My own complaint about those is that they only go back 'selectively' beyond 1991. That's a problem, because eg the laws relating to pollution since then (which it sounds like you're interested in) have been supplementary to the previous Acts. HMSO say the selection of pre-91 laws is just those that they had available already in some electronic form, but we live in a world of OCR, what's the problem?

Re:Comments on Document Intro.

[sepluv]

>>No kidding>Figures?>thats distribution not redistribution>their executive-level introduction of what open source is is a bit inaccurate. But its just an introduction and not the policy.>Bollocks. In fact, the 2005 plan was produced because it was felt many of the goals of the 2002 plan>Government depts are well aware that having access to the source prevents them being held to ransom by companies who need a big license payoff to stay afloat.>Eh??? Have you looked at HMSO [hmso.gov.uk] recently?>All the acts since 1991 are there, online, for free, and can be reproduced for free.>My own complaint about those is that they only go back 'selectively' beyond 1991.>That's a problem, because eg the laws relating to pollution since then (which it sounds like you're interested in) have been supplementary to the previous Acts.

In fact i originally compalined about the lack of freeness a few years beack when researching pollution law (in order to look at possible introduction of regs or laws on light pollution).

I'll check up on the click-through thing tomorrow. I think, they do sell licenses for some purposes that arent covered by the "free-use" license.

I've gotta go now so won't rant about the policy too ;-), but briefly I have some problems with the policy being ambiguous/vague and the stress on cost not freedom.

Re:Comments on Document Intro.

[sepluv]

Woops!

>>No kidding<<
There was a disclaimer, OK?

I've just discovered that /. is brilliant for rants (when one is pissed off) especially in threads like this were no one seems to be commenting (or reading) ;-) .

Hmm...ye...I wrote the grandparent post very quickly when the article first came out. I must stress that I think it really is great that they have a policy on FOSS and I really hope the action plan will trickle down to some action on the ground. As an example of why I was being cynical though, in my experience, ATM many parts of the government only produce documents in proprietary Microsoft formats (and even worse expect others to be able to read and send documents to them in the same formats) -- also, although this is now a lot better, some Government websites used to be made seemmingly purposely to only work with MSIE -- funny enough I believe the search function on the *EC* website for anti-monopoly legilsation requires MSIE -- I went on there to search for info in relation to the EC v. MS case a while back.

I will definitely be commenting on this document (which is after all only a draft) and making suggestions (including, ahem, some of the same ones I made here but in a more polite less ranting way). I don't think this has been discussed on the FSF Europe mailing lists yet either, so I'll pass it on to them (and other relevant lists) when I can.

I think the policy ATM is better than no policy and I am sure they will be open to suggestions for improvements. Definitely, if as many of us tell them as possble about how their policy may be a good start but needs improving, they should get the message.

>>Figures?<<

Well, that was something I remember seeing somewhere a while back (so may not be statistically accurate and it is really impossible to know what software exists in the world, what counts as software and whether it has to be publically available). I cannot find the source ATM -- the point I was making is that I'm sure most FOSS is not released under an license written by the OSI (and that the most popular licenses are actually made by the FSF). Probably shouldn't bandy around stats without a source, but then the Government don't give any justification or sources for any of their claims (many of which are innacurate) in their OSS policy on which we are commenting.

Actually, I had a look at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/ and I found it says there that "more than half of free software packages" use the GNU GPL.

>>thats distribution not redistribution<<

OK I see there is a difference between the two, but I doubt anyone reading it will notice that subtlety -- that bit is possibly not technically untrue but it clearly gives a wrong impression of how GPL works if the popular the license they claim is prduced by the OSI really is the GNU GPL.

>>their executive-level introduction of what open source is is a bit inaccurate. But its just an introduction and not the policy.<<

I commented on the intro because I hadn't read the policy at the time. I've now read the whole thing and, to be honest, I think the policy is also in real need of some imprvement too.

>>Bollocks. In fact, the 2005 plan was produced because it was felt many of the goals of the 2002 plan<<

I was just drawing from my previous experience of how anything called an "action plan" works in government (i.e.: the words "action plan" usually imply that anything contained threin is unlikely to happen and that the only action this commonly occurs is the prduction of more action plans ;-) ) and I did not read the previous action plan -- there isn't a link to it. Now you have given me the link the previous one, I've looked at it and it doesnt seem to be about software (or for that matter freedom) -- in fact there is no mention of the word software -- looks to me to be about Internet access and availability which i

Re:Comments on Document Intro.

[Bazzargh]

There was a disclaimer, OK?

I've just discovered that /. is brilliant for rants (when one is pissed off) especially in threads like this were no one seems to be commenting (or reading) ;-) .

No worries, I do the same. I'm not trying to flame you, just comment from the point of view of someone who works on gov't contracts (as I do).

ATM many parts of the government only produce documents in proprietary Microsoft formats (and even worse expect others to be able to read and send documents to them in the same formats)

Govtalk has a list of 'blessed' formats. Documents filed in "public records office"-compliant systems have to be available in their original (possibly proprietary) format, and a 'rendered' format which hopefully will make the documents visible to future generations/platforms.

Unfortunately the office formats are allowed; pdf, ps, tiff too (adobe-proprietary) but at least with them the specs are readily available. My beef with this isn't quite the F/OSS one: render formats should have an open spec and no plugin architecture - so the spec /fully/ specs the doc - which is clearly not the case for the OLE containers used in office.

Now you have given me the link the previous one, I've looked at it and it doesnt seem to be about software (or for that matter freedom) -- in fact there is no mention of the word software

Indeed, software per se isn't the EC's priority, its the needs of the populace. However, universal online access to services /is/ a priority for them (no inequality of opportunity). This meant, in the first round, targets for ADSL deployment and unbundling the local loop, the setting up of the pathfinder projects, UKOnline, NHS direct, and the original office of the e-envoy.

As time has gone on they felt it necessary to say something about the software that was being developed to meet these needs, so they could avoid being used as a cash cow by the software companies. There's also a pressing need to share software developed in-house; at the moment there's a crazy situtation where some depts will have their budgets /cut/ if they sell software they've developed to other depts, so wheels are continually being reinvented. OSI-compliant licensing is seen as a way out.

I'm sure that *some* departments are aware of this -- many (probably most) really don't seem to be (even) aware of these issues, which is actually why we need a document like the one produced by e-Envoy

Well yes, but my point was really that these things have been in the tenders for the last 3 years. That's where it really bites: you have to be able to answer the questions on support costs and source availability before selling software.

e-Envoy (that name really annoys me ;-) )

Yeah. Well it could have been 'geek czar', count yourself lucky. I have to say it does represent a major step forward in 'joined up government' as regards IT. However, IIRC a year ago their budget was cut and they were pulled in underneath another dept (Cabinet Office? ODPM? Can't remember)

Only recently have they given permission to reproduce them/print them out/&c . I emailed them congratulating them on this decision. However, the sort-of license they give is too vague to being meaningful and I would not consider it to be free.

"It may be reproduced free of charge provided that it is reproduced accurately and that the source and copyright status of the material is made evident to users." - seems pretty unambiguous to me. This goes back to a 1999 instruction from the cabinet office to waive copyright on the text and typography of Acts (among other things).

I suspect they're not doing older acts purely because they have no financial incentive to do so; thats piss-poor. We're only talking about OCRing something like 2500 documents (to get the acts back to 1940 or so), which is a drop in the ocean when you consider that most forms submitted to councils are OCRd these days.

With the exception of FreeBSD

[Anonymous Coward]

Open Sores Software is pure shit shit shit. You get what you pay for. Nothing. Nothing! Support the free market and buy Microsoft products. It's the intelligent, responsible thing to do. And oh yeah, all you Linux zealots are a bunch of ass-pounding felch monkeys. Fuck you all, losers.

You'll be taken seriously.

[slavefishy]

A friend of mine has been doing some work for an MP and I heard that this was coming quite a way back. They're pretty pissed off with Microsoft's security track record and silly licenses.

There's a significant chance they can be persuaded to take OSS up.

Re:You'll be taken seriously.

[Anonymous Coward]

A friend of mine has been doing some work for an MP and I heard that this was coming quite a way back. They're pretty pissed off with Microsoft's security track record and silly licenses. There's a significant chance they can be persuaded to take OSS up.

Quite right they are.

Some examples:

• Certain departments were using IBM Websphere for their IT projects. Now that they're depending on it, IBM raised the license cost for the new version and cutting support for the old version.
  It was already expensive - but now we're talking about 800% increase !! The license cost for a server is enough to get 2 powerful Sun servers.
  Needless to say people are looking at Tomcat and JBoss as we speak.
• The silly Software Assurance licensing scheme from Microsoft was already ignored by Birmingham city council (I saw that on Computer weekly if I'm not mistaken).
  They fail to see the value on that - and quite rightly, many of those who fell for it are now getting nothing in return (when the expected upgrade are delayed outside of their licensing term).
• Worms/viruses - need I say more ? When Nimda broke out, I ended up working over the weekend to clean it.
• Here in my department, there's no way we'll use Microsoft product for production servers, especially the ones facing the Internet. We just can't afford the potential risks.
• Windows XP is a big no in our department - we totally fail to see the need to upgrade from Windows 2000 (and the associated cost).
  Many of our departments' servers are still running happily on NT4, and they're not happy to hear that Microsoft will cut its support soon.
• And I could go on, and on, and on.

They should choose the best solution for the job

[prostoalex]

How is the availability of source code going to matter the quality of work of government employees? There should be no open source policy as well as no closed source policy, there should be a single software requirements policy to be eligible for government tenders.

The government could specify for example, certain formats, protocols and standards that should be supported by a participating vendor. The rest is up to the vendor, which would most probably use already available open source codebase (faster development), unless the vendor happens to have large codebase repository already (Microsoft, Oracle, etc.) But that must be vendor's decision.

Think, for example, about a possibility of conflict where the government policy mandates use of open source tools only, but yet another policy specifies that all video files from the government servers should be distributed in MPEG, QuickTime and WMV formats. How are you going to accomplish the second task, if you're mandated to open your sources, but there's no open source version for your favorite codec?

Once again, the formats and standards should be defined by the government. The fact, whether source_code.zip is shipped with the CD, does not matter.

Re:They should choose the best solution for the jo

[Anonymous Coward]

How is the availability of source code going to matter the quality of work of government employees? There should be no open source policy as well as no closed source policy, there should be a single software requirements policy to be eligible for government tenders.

I work with UK government, and let me tell you that I've had enough with suppliers supplying us with amateurish-quality software; while charging us an arm and a leg for that.

Then many times we have to cover their shortfall, to save the project from failure.
While underpaid in order of several magnitudes compared to their "consultants".

Then quite some of them will throw the blame on us when something goes wrong anyway - after what we did to help them.
A bunch of thankless b*stards.

Then we have nobody except them (the technologically challenged) to turn for support when we found a bug - because only them have access to the source.

You can tell that I'm seriously pissed off here - seeing my tax money wasted on those lackeys.

I was pleasantly surprised when I found out the level of quality of various open-source software. I had to provide support for it though when it's deployed on our departments - but thankfully we have had pleasant experiences on support from the OSS community.

Think, for example, about a possibility of conflict where the government policy mandates use of open source tools only, but yet another policy specifies that all video files from the government servers should be distributed in MPEG, QuickTime and WMV formats. How are you going to accomplish the second task, if you're mandated to open your sources, but there's no open source version for your favorite codec?

Good point - we should remember that we should aim for freedom with both the source and the data (bye bye MS-Office lock-in).

I'll submit that as a comment to this policy document, thanks.

Re:They should choose the best solution for the jo

[hyc]

The Peruvian government seem to have a better understanding of the issues...

Peru and Microsoft

If a government policy specified that video files must be distributed in WMV, that policy needs to be revisited...

Re:They should choose the best solution for the jo

[mpe]

How is the availability of source code going to matter the quality of work of government employees? There should be no open source policy as well as no closed source policy, there should be a single software requirements policy to be eligible for government tenders.

Considering the length of time government, as opposed to commercial business, is often required to hold on to data it's possible that many closed source systems are inappropriate. Because the vendor is unwilling to support the same software for a long time.

Once again, the formats and standards should be defined by the government. The fact, whether source_code.zip is shipped with the CD, does not matter.

Actually it matters a lot. Since it places control with the government, preventing them being held to ransom by some company or other.

Re:They should choose the best solution for the jo

[mpe]

I work with UK government, and let me tell you that I've had enough with suppliers supplying us with amateurish-quality software; while charging us an arm and a leg for that.

The perception that "commercial" or "proprietary" equates to "quality" is one which needs close examination.
One possible reason for high cost is that competing for a "tender" can be expensive. Thus any business needs to make back the cost of any tenders they have been involved with (regardless of if they were sucessful or not) before they supply any software at all.