UK Government Reports Linux is 'Viable'

CProgrammer98 writes "The Beeb is reporting that The UK Office of Government Commerce has published their final results following trials on the use of OSS and especially Linux and they conclude that Linux is a viable option for government use. From their summary: 'The report shows that Open Source software is rapidly maturing, offers significant potential benefits to government and should be actively considered alongside proprietary alternatives. It concludes that decisions should be based on a holistic assessment of future needs, taking into account total cost of ownership, with proper consideration of both proprietary and open source solutions.'"

Comments

Lowest bidder, anyone?

[drlake]

If the Brit government is anything like the US government, dealing with open source software may cause a cognitive short-circuit when they try to figure out how to handle bids on something that's essentially free...

Re:Lowest bidder, anyone?

[iBod]

The OS may be free but complete solutions aren't.
Organizations (govt. or private) invite bids for Solutions, not operating systems. An OS is only a small part of the solution.

The current UK govt. has a terrible track record on It projects. The go back time and time again to the same suppliers that failed them and overran their budget to alarming proportions (notable names here include: EDS, C(r)AP Gemini, Arthur Anderson - the usual suspects...).

The cost of a desktop/small-server OS is almost incidental to the cost of a major IT project.

Re:Lowest bidder, anyone?

[RocketRainbow]

...how to handle bids on something that's essentially free..

I guess that's why there's now such a market for packaging linux and asking for a small fee for the pretty picture or even a nice cardboard box. SuSE, Redhat, etc are trying to be "enterprise" versions of linux where you get the same stuff but someone actually bothers to put in a bid and gets maybe $50-$100 for their trouble when it hits the buyer that this is a great idea.

Wishful Thinking I Fear :(

[cheezemonkhai]

It's not like the British Government listens to anybody anyway (Well except for Dubayew), so why will they listen to this.

I am personally sick of windows worms and viri. Even will a fully updates system with the latest AV definitions you still have the hastle of sorting it out when the AV finds one that it has pulled down.

My Point - Love to see it happen, but not holding my breath

Re:Wishful Thinking I Fear :(

[mirko]

I agree : in the few cases where I can see my employer using Linux, it'll only be in order to deploy SuSe or RedHat distroes because they are officially supporting Oracle so it's not that they are endorsing the Open movement but rather that they are just deploying gratis certified software onto cheap hardware.

Not exactly tricky!

[Anonymous Coward]

How much of our tax payers money was needed to come to this astonishing conclusion?

How about just picking the best for the job?

[Neil Watson]

Why are we always breaking software into open and proprietary? Why can't people just create a prioritized list of requirements and then use it to pick the software that fits the best for them?

Re:How about just picking the best for the job?

[Gopal.V]

Hmmm.. what does mine include (if I was a non-US government).

• Being a government I want to be socially responsible and spend taxes as locally as possible (or outsource your OS needs to Redmond ?.)
• I don't want FBI to put backdoors in my apps
• So I need a good security audit to be done by my technical people
• I don't want to depend on a single country/company for all my software
• So I need to pick and choose who can modify it
• And change it after I've bought the software

So what all fits this cloth is only Free Software. The same amount paid to Alan Cox's hardware might be a LOT better for Britain than paying that to Microsoft's (or SCO Unixware's) learjet budget.

Hear all those who clamour about outsourcing, why don't you see that Britain can do local spending of taxes this way . The only viable OS right now for that task is GNU/Linux.

Surely the most important thing is......

[cheezemonkhai]

Can the OSS movement afford the backhanders needed to get governments to use their software ;)

Re:Surely the most important thing is......

[cheezemonkhai]

Insightful?

Guys it was a joke.

Re:whats being bid on?

[iBod]

>>While most government contracts do go to the lowest bidder

I respectfully disagree. Contracts rarely go to the lowest bidder, govt. ones especially.

Most govt. contracts go to outfits that the purchasing agency feel most comfortable with, totally *regardless* of cost.

You know. Those firms where the head of said department (or indeed the minister) can look forward to a lucrative, stress-free, post-political career as a non-exec director on (or 'special advisor' to) the board.

One or two of the current UK ministers in charge of these things are actually former execs of Andersons etc. and will probably return to the bosom of their alma mater, at some hugely elevated rank, when they are political dead meat.

What's the problem?

[RAMMS EIN]

If I read your post correctly, you have a problem with OSS in government because it means many people get the benefits of open source, without consciously chosing for it and without paying for it.

I don't get the problem here. Isn't it good if everyone benefits? And isn't it even better if it doesn't cost them anything?

As for the programmers not getting compensated (and assuming they indeed don't get compensated - i.e. they are not hired to improve and maintain the software) - it was their own choice to make the software available without demanding compensation.

And your TANSTAAFL remark, what does that relate to? Are you afraid that the software won't really live up to the expectations? Or that it's not actually free to use? Or are you saying that governments _should_ pay for it, even though it's offered to them for free?

The British Public Sector is Suicidal

[turgid]

That's just British state-controlled business for you. I used to work for BNFL Magnox Generation. They were just as resistant to change and just as backward looking. They did a complete company-wide roll-out to NT4 on all the servers and PCs just as Microsoft was withdrawing support for it. Despite my deputations and protestations and business cases for using UNIX, Linux, Open Source etc. I was ignored or given a patronising pat on the head and labelled a lunatic. Now I have a much better paid job outside of the Public Sector and I never have to touch a Winows box ever.

Rumour has it they're now considering alternatives to help get M$ to lower prices.

The British Public Sector goes out of its way to procure the most expensive, unreliable, unwieldy, complicated and unsuitable solutions to its problems. It's hard to explain. It's kind of a mind-set that it has. It's pointy-hairedness taken to the extreme.

I could go on, but I'm just making myself depressed. It's my tax money too...

Re:Comparing Windows with Linux and UNIX

[ajs318]

Ever heard of a circular argument, or a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Any line of questioning that begins with "Why don't men wear skirts?" is going to come around to an answer which can best be paraphrased as "Because men don't wear skirts". Similarly any line of questioning that starts "Why are recreational drugs illegal?" will be answered with "Because recreational drugs are illegal" although probably not in those exact words.

It's the same with Linux. Ask "Why do so few people use Linux?" and the answer will boil down to "Because hardly anybody uses Linux".

From: The OSS Movement

[maxchaote]

To: Microsoft
Re: Linux

"Nothing else in the world ...
not all the armies ... is so
powerful as an idea whose time
has come."

-- Victor Hugo