.gov.au Guide to Open Source Software

kieronb writes "The Australian Government Information Management Office has recently released "A Guide to Open Source Software for Australian Government Agencies". Surprisingly, it actually appears to have been written by someone with a clue, and provides quite a balanced overview of what F/OSS is and how it differs to proprietary software. Choice quotes: "Sourcing OSS solutions is a new and less understood area for Government Agencies. As a recult, it often seems to involve higher risk. As open source solutions become more mainstream and agencies gain expertise in evaluating and deploying them, this perception of risk should subside."; "Access to source code is, however, valuable to agencies by virtue of the economic flow-on effects that accrue when multiple vendors offer competing products based on the same technology. Access to source code also reduces the risk of vendor lock-in.""

Comments

Government views on F/OSS

[nhnfreespirit]

It is good to se that some governemts are actually begining to consider the potential benefits of using F/OSS software. I susspect that this is a trend that will increase dramatically over the next few years. As a few govnernments sets sucessful examples of F/OSS deplyment others will follow!

Luckily not everybody buys into the FUD.

- nhnFreespirit

Hang on a sec..

[Anonymous Coward]

They approved a licence that is not open source and branded it as "open source". Read the following:

http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/0,2000061733 ,39190311,00.htm

Someone please clue in the rest of the gov'ts

[El Cubano]

Access to source code also reduces the risk of vendor lock-in.

MS bashing aside, this is the real issue. If you like MS software and it does the job for you, then go ahead and use it if that is what you want. The problem I have is when some government agency makes their public record information available only in Word or Publisher format. (I know OOo does word, but that is not the point). Once governments push for truly open data interchange standards, industry will follow and the sky is the limit.

Simply look at the history of telecommunications and the early years of the automotive industry before things like ITU and SAE standards were around. It was a dismal place for consumers and businesses. That is the current state of the IT industry. It is a patchwork of incompatible and proprietary lock in devices.

Been there... done that...

[msm30670]

Brazil has done this a while ago already. Nobody never mentioned anything !!!!
you can find a lot of stuff in http://www.softwarelivre.gov.br/documentos/
Several documents go way back to 2003 !!!!

The U.S. government has been using & making OS

[HamOpMW]

I'm sure everyone knows who developed SELinux? Surpise... NSA! The FCC as well has been using at least 4 distos of linux for quite a few years, and not just for their severs either.
I also know that my local city govenment (Bakersfield, CA) is using Firefox. (although they still leave shortcuts for IE). To further make my point... quit assuming that US govenment agencies are not considering OSS. Even Redmond,WA (until recently) was using linux servers. I would love to know how many MS employees have Firefox on their desktops.
What other TLA's are using OSS/Linux?

State Governments Still Lagging Behind

[__aawfbm2023]

Particularly in the education sector. As a student at a Queensland State School, I have no other choice than to use Windows boxes, with Word and Internet Explorer. Not because it's easier for the admin to set up (and let's face it, most school admins are a bit dim), but because Education Queensland has a contract with Microsoft to teach me about Microsoft products. We get advertisements about special deals on Office, frequent assignments (in the junior school) centred around PowerPoint and our ANZAC day ceremony was nothing more than two "Presentations" and a trumpeteer. Why is it that the Liberal (not actual liberals) government is buying into Open Source, while Labor is siding with Microsoft?

Re:State Governments Still Lagging Behind

[dangitman]

Why is it that the Liberal (not actual liberals) government is buying into Open Source, while Labor is siding with Microsoft?

Because these kinds of reports are prepared by Public Servant underlings (who are often liberal) not the Liberal (conservative) political powers at the top of the government. If any high-ranking Liberal politician got wind of this, it would be killed in an instant, at the insistence of Microsoft.

Headache

[eric.t.f.bat]

Bloody hell. The day I skip work with the flu and a kitchen-shelf-related near-concussion, the agency gets slashdotted. I'm glad I'm not looking after that site -- just four or five other ones run by AGIMO. I wonder if they're still up... yep. Phew!

I can report that I've been using PHP, Perl, the Sablotron XSLT parser and other FOSS tools in the service of AGIMO for the last couple of years. I even develop in Emacs. AGIMO and the AusGov in general are quite amenable to open source s/w. They even have no particular objection to me open-sourcing the tools I've produced at work, like the XBlurb text parser and the Xenolith site engine -- not that I have, since neither of them is particularly interesting, but the willingness is there.

Meanwhile, AGIMO is getting in bed an awful, awful content mismanagement system, which I'm doing my best to avoid. It's not all good news. But it's a long way from a single vendor, thank the gods.