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Canadian Federal Government Mulling Open Source?
An anonymous reader points out a CBC report discussing a request from the Canadian government for information about open source software and free proprietary software. Evan Leibovitch, an advocate for open source, says the government's interest was spurred by a desire to reduce expenditures during the recession.
"...Leibovitch said he hopes the request will lead to government policies that give 'a level playing field' to vendors of open-source software services, who provide technical and administrative support to companies that use open-source programs. He alleges these service providers currently face barriers when competing with proprietary software vendors in the government procurement process. ... When the government purchases software, it often assumes that it will have to pay for a licence and asks software vendors to bid for the contract, McOrmond said. Vendors of open source software services don't respond to that initial call for tender because they have no licences to sell. But then, the government might ask for a separate round of bids for providing support services for the software, which open-source vendors could provide."
It may not be PC, and I reckon I'll be labelled a troll, but the word on the streets is the Canadians use more common sense than us.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
Most likely, it'll just end up with them getting better offers from Microsoft and other companies - but a policy of promoting open source as a preferred quality in software is still at least a good philosophy to promote.
There's likely still too much of a practical dependence on folks who will only be comfortable with the idea of using Windows to just do any major switch - but the change in policy to demand a more even playing field will likely reap great rewards, as it has with many other nations making similar decisions.
Ryan Fenton
Mulling simply indicates the early stages of contract renewals, not necessarily a tug on the tiller.
SameOldSameol...unless they wake up before signing day and understand that it actually takes money to renew a contract, in which case, given the times, 'free' has a nice ring to it.
I just do not understand why a government "just mulling Open Source" as the headline says, is news worthy. It's just a gimmick. For this to even have a chance, Open Source Software would be alive and well in Canadian schools but this isn't the case.
Rem,ember this is one country without a domestic car concern...the only such country in the entire so called G8! Canada? Give me a break!
If it's Debian-based: Ehbuntu
If it's RPM-based: Toque
Anybody want my mod points?
Give it time, they may be "mulling it over", but by the time Microsoft spreads a bit of cash and fud they'll be back in the fold... The more things change, the more the corruption remains the same...
Elegy For *BSD
I am a *BSD user
and I try hard to be brave
That is a tall order
*BSD's foot is in the grave.
I tap at my toy keyboard
and whistle a happy tune
but keeping happy's so hard,
*BSD died so soon.
Each day I wake and softly sob
Nightfall finds me crying
Not only am I a zit faced slob
but *BSD is dying.
sp. Eric Leibovitch should be Evan Leibovitch, I know him and think he'd appreciate the correction ;-)
They're going to get a visit from the chair throwing monkey dancing CEO in the MS corporate jet. Probably playing Flight of the Valkyries as they swoop in from the south.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Growing up in southern California, there were a lot of Mormons in the neighborhood and at school. I always wondered at the need for validation as they would trot up and say, "Did you know the guy that created 'Battlestar Galatica' is a Mormon, and the guy that plays the boss on 'WKRP' is one, and guess who else is...?" and so it went. There were rumors that Bill Cosby was secretly baptized and that Michael Jackson was "taking the discussion" (bet you they are glad they dodge that bullet and he went JW).
It seemed every new rumor provided further vindication that they were right.
Off topic? No, completely on topic.
It seems that at least once a week, someone trots out the breathless news that government agency X from country Y is looking at Open Source/*nix/or is taking the RMS Holy Discussions of Conversion.
Face it, it's as obnoxious as all those little Mormon Missionary Wannabes.
Find your validation from within.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
It is Evan Leibovitch, not Eric!
Fix the typo in the summary.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Canada is primarily a Windows shop, but there are many Solaris, BSD and Linux server machines all over the place. Desktop use is very limited, but there are some. The primary problem with desktop use is Active Directory and Exchange. Lately, MS Outlook works fine on Crossover and Active Directory is handled well by Samba Winbind, so the barriers are falling.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Proselytizing is always annoying only if you don't agree with the subject matter.
Disagreed. I like Open Source. It could be said that I am idealistic left wing CS student and would love a world with much wider OS adaptation. So I agree with the subject matter. That doesn't mean that bringing it up constantly wouldn't begin to annoy me.
I also am atheist and occasionally proselytize too, but seeing so many atheists bringing the subject up constantly on the internet annoys me (and not only because it gives the rest of us a bad reputation). There are several political issues that I agree with but I still hate people bringing them up at every possible occasion.
So... Yeah.
Open Source software was part of the Green Party's very thorough and thoughtful election campaign. Too bad most Canadians never bothered to read it.
I see it still features on their web site as a current issue. With a minority government in power and the threat of a coalition or vote of non-confidence always looming, it's hard to say how much pull the Greens really have, having failed yet again to win a seat in parliament.
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
I am only responding to your last statement. As a Canadian who has visited many areas of both the US and Europe, I can tell you that Americans are the only people who DON'T respect Canadians. You are AC, so I don't know what nationality you are, but if you are American, believe me, you guys are some of the LEAST respected people in the world.
Yes, I have some Karma to burn!
Americans are the only people who DON'T respect Canadians.
If this is because of manipulation by the fourth estate, then I can say that several countries may still be practising this today.
Here in little Sg, my country's newspaper used to skew towards bad news for other countries, and good news for the home country.
you guys are some of the LEAST respected people in the world.
Similarly, when we Sg'reans travel overseas, some of us are well-behaved, but some of us display downright ugly behavior. Yes, some of us are downright arrogant due to our status as compared to our neighboring countries, forgetting that credit goes to our grandparents' (and not us) for building up the nation.
In the one game, that you would absolutely and totally win every time, you don't play, because of such a silly problem?
You have licenses to sell. Licenses for $0.00! Is that so hard? And if they are not accepting that, then give them some fantasy value, that is much lower that everyone else, but still above their bullshit limit. After all, it's not illegal to sell open source. No matter how you turn it... There is a way to always win this thing, but you do take it? Come on!
Some people just have to be hit with a cluestick... many times... ;)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
As a techy canadian this news is wonderful! I am so VERY happy to hear this!
Now all they have to do is mandate all contract work for the gov't is done under GPL (or equivalent).
I would love to see canada develop infrastucture that can be developed in concert with other nations ... and support developing countries that need help doing this work.
Bravo!
I worked for the IS department at Revenue Canada and I can tell you that this will never happen. Their requirements are more demanding than most large corporations. Their is no way they will put something out to tender without someone who will back the product. Being able to 'go on the web and use a community website' won't cut it. They have a lot of specialized software that they developed 'in house' and they won't be sharing that with anyone. Before anything was loaded, including patches and updates, onto a server or laptop it was tested to see how it would 'react' with some of our software. What we really should be campaigning for is real product liability laws that negate EULA's and demand real capabilities from software companies. Yes, it can be done. We have better development environments and testing methods than ever. This would benefit ALL of us, not just government and industry.
Here's the direct link for any of you wanting to provide information:
Merx Letter of Interest: RFI - NO CHARGE LICENSED SOFTWARE
And the search: (one hit)
Merx Opportunities (search)
Caveat: I'm a developer for the Government of Canada. I'm using open source tools (eclipse/java/jboss), but I currently have no power to release any of what I've developed as open source. I'm working on it, but progress is bureaucratically slow. (I'd have said glacially, but these days that's actually in reverse).
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Unless you're talking to Europeans who are knowledgeable about our enormous carbon emissions
Linux is used all over the Government. As are lots of other open source pieces of software. This study is primaraly to get it moved toward the desktop. That is to make the PHB more confortable with it.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Even though they shell out a lot of money for these contracts, we almost never actually get to use them. As a developer, when I've had DB2 problems and tried to get assistance, even though my area has bought the requisite contract, when we try and pursue getting some assistance, we get stonewalled within the agency. We can never actually get back to the vendor to get the support we need. The one time I have heard of an area managing to get support, a contractor was hired and brought in (not the vendor). So we have these massive support contracts that aren't used.
I work for them too, previously IT, now development.
Heavier liability laws won't do much for us. However being able to take responsibility for things within the government would go a long way. The biggest problem I've seen with our hierarchy is that no one, not one soul, is willing to stand up and take responsibility for anything. As a result of that, nothing gets done. If a vendor can't or won't fix something, the solution isn't to shrug and say it can't be done, but to work around the problem.
We have better development environments and testing methods than ever.
And this is _not_ the result of strong-arm legislation, it's the result of completely open development processes and personal responsibility.
Being able to 'go on the web and use a community website' won't cut it.
Except that this is exactly how we got the better tools in the first place.
Before anything was loaded, including patches and updates, onto a server or laptop it was tested to see how it would 'react' with some of our software.
Actually, that's not precisely true. Yes we do 'certify' our hardware and software in house, however, it is largely not tested. It is just evaluated based on it's described merits against the requirements that need to be met. Thinking that it is tested is a misunderstanding common amongst the regional IT support teams. (One that I was subject to as well until I managed to corner a certifier one day and find out what the deal was).
-- AC
P.S. Yes I'm aware of the irony of talking about personal responsibility and posting AC <sigh>.
One more thing to add to the above, I'm working on getting into best practices. What I would like to see is the GoC follow the US Military's model and have an installation of sourceforge available for hosting in house software.
Beyond that I'm hoping to lobby the government to release it's software open source. All of it. Why? Eg: What's the point in being subject to tax laws, when you can't see how those tax laws are being implemented. The government is for the people and our tax software is not a national secret. It should be open available for review to every Canadian. Beyond that, in following with our peace-keeping history, we should be willing to stand up and share our software with the world. (This is not some egotistical rant about how great our software is, I know what problems it has. But by sharing we can get help improving it, and help others by sharing what we have.)
If the software isn't a required part of national secrets, why shouldn't we be willing to work with the rest of the world in developing a better automated bureaucracy?
Stage 1 complete.
I'd say Microsoft is well past ignoring Linux; at least well past completely ignoring Linux.
They're well into fighting it, and ridiculing it as part of the fight. And ignoring it in fewer and fewer places.
Stage 1 complete.
Doh! Parent was obviously talking about installing Gentoo ;-)
Let me start by observing that anyone who generalizes based upon nationality is falling into a trap. People are people; shaped by their environment, sure, but incredibly diverse in nature. I've met my share of people from all over the world. Some were asshats, some were kind and generous almost to a fault. Personally, I never noticed that any particular nation had a monopoly on one extreme or the other.
As to American attitudes towards Canadians? I can't speak to your personal experience. I can say that I grew up in northern Minnesota just 100 miles from the border. We used to have Canadians down for skiing trips all the time. When they came down, they were ready to party hard. The running joke was that only a Canuck could out drink a jackpine savage (our local version of a backwoods redneck, a community which I am still proud to consider myself a member). :)
Unfortunately, some Canadians gave the rest of you a bad name by being belligerent drunks. Should I have assumed that all Canadians were asshats because of that? Or would you rather that I just regard those individuals as jerks and not representative of Canadians as a whole?
To quote the punchline to a very old joke, "Can't we all just get along?!?" :)
Tell you what. In the words of Arlo Guthrie, let's start a movement. Instead of protesting war and stuff, we'll just aim at learning to respect and trust each other. I won't judge all Canadians by a small handful of drunks if you'll accept that not all Americans are rude jerks. Then all we have to do is find a Brit who isn't a soccer hooligan (should be pretty easy, actually) and we've got ourselves an honest to God English speaking love fest going. Add in a Quebecois or two, a Frenchman, a Spaniard, and a Mexican and we'll have the start of a North Atlantic love-in! Then we add a Brazilian and a Namibian and we've got the South Atlantic covered! W00t! Can you see how it could grow? :)
Hey, I can dream, can't I? :D
It will never ever happen in our lifetime and here is why.
The average Canadian Gov. employee is not choosen for brains.
a) They are chosen because they have an in.
b) They have a personality that will be submissive to the system.
Once in:
a) They don't rock the boat and never stand up for anything or anyone. Exception to find a way to help protect their boss by finding a blame path/tree
b) They look out for number one. Keep their head low mantra.
c) Get through their career never taking the blame for anything. As soon as they are in, they look for another under them or contract a fall guy. They actually plan projects based on someone else to take the fall from the beginning. Without this aspect factored in, the project is not desirable. Preferably a contractor as then they just replace them and away they go again. Picking another Gov employee may not work as easily, because they are the same as them, making sure they do the above ass covering. Extra work and risk if they use a fellow worker. Unless of course that person is competing for a promotion with them.
At the mid management level
a) They have learned and mastered all the above steps and are a leader in those techniques.
b) Never do the work yourself. Your job is to keep blame away from you or Dept.
c) Never make a decision they can't pin on someone else or another Dept., but take full credit if it works. Even though they did nothing.
d) Only sign off on anything once it looks to be a successful project. Always keep most responsibility below them. Find a reason to change the responsible signature to theirs once successfully complete. Never sign anything linking to failure. It's why things stall so often at this level.
e) Always look to busy to take on risk, unless that risk offers a bigger benefit ratio and they have their fall guy in place.
Note: Shifting work and any possible blame is how and why Gov. employees contract work out so much. The costs also comes out of project money. This way it looks like they do more work with fewer Gov. employees. Looks better to the public because where the money is spent is buried in paper.
Upper management, excluding Deputy ministers
a) All of the above. That's how they got where they are. It's certainly not based on actual ability beyond the politics of the positions they have held before.
b) Make sure it is a politician that takes the fall as they change often, your assistant, or a Dept manager (Of course shit runs down hill from there). At this level, project credit doesn't matter. Political optics does. At this level, they are only protecting the fat pay cheque, benefits, retirement plan and social status. It's all that matters.
Oh wait that describes all Gov employees that make it to retirement.
All the reasons above this is what spells doom for any open source software ever succeeding. There is no tangible blame tree and no legal course to offload blame. There is no benefit to them. Cost is not a factor and never is, the blame tree is all that matters. Paying for software license automatically gives you a blame tree by default. If there is a problem, you turn it over to the Gov. lawyers and out of your hands.
Last but not least. My contracting experience with Gov has shown me that change is the last thing anyone wants. Change means risk. On top of that, the people that are in Gov. are selected to specifically not be movers or shakers. That is the last thing a boss wants to hire and the last thing the underling wants to get involved in. The mentality of everything above I described is ingrained in the Gov. culture. Innovation is almost impossible. There is to much jeopardy to their job position and to a far lesser degree, their job security. Not likely to get fired, but it's a career ender for ever again moving up in pay or position beyond their inflation plus, adjusted salary. It's a dead horse in the gate.
Read the summary closely:
But then, the government might ask for a separate round of bids for providing support services for the software, which open-source vendors could provide.
Think about what this means. I may be reading too much into the word "separate" here, but hear me out.
If the government first buys software, then buys support, then the ability of open-source vendors to make a real bid is constrained by the choice of software made in round one.
If open-source vendors compete to support the same platform, then advocating the use of that platform in round one is basically being the pioneer with the arrows in the back: you bear the cost of enabling both your own business and the business of your competitors. I see some incentive problems lurking in the shadows there.
I think it would make more sense to have a single bidding round where every party offers solutions consisting of software and support. That's the thing the customer really wants, and that would make everyone compete without screwed up incentives.
Am I talking crack, or do you think I'm on to something?
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This seems like a good thing. I'm all for more open source software in government.
Our current government is however composed of half-wit partisan hacks. Genuinely bush-light.
"...government's interest was spurred by a desire to reduce expenditures during the recession."
They say and do mind-blowingly stupid things like that while presenting their spending stimulus bill.
They will look for ways to reduce government spending while looking for ways to increase government spending.
Heck of a job Harper.
God help us all.
Yeah, but it happens all over the world, every country has their little cousin that they look down on. Australians have New Zealand, England have Ireland, Germany has Poland...
I applaud the effort by government IT to have more in-house knowledge about open source software (and about what software offerings are available in general).
But I don't really understand what it is about the procurement process that is a barrier to open source software.
If the procurement process involves publishing an open request for proposals (RFP), and then accepting bids from interested parties, then presumably anyone can read the RFP, doesn't that mean that any interested member of the public can figure out how to accomplish that with open source software, and then put in an offer to license it to the government for whatever they want?
When dealing with the species known as the Canadian bureaucrat, my experience as a linux and OSS advocate have been predictable, uniform and unfortunate. Any mention of OSS of any kind, or even the merest mentioning of the word linux, causes immediate ridicule, followed quickly by vilefication, contempt, scorn, then dismissal.
To say they tend not to be open to the idea of OSS would be an understatement of the grandest proportions.
... but that's just my experience ... ymmv.
In B.C., our fascism is green.
Actually, most of us are belligerent drunks. The ones who aren't embarass us all.
Then all we have to do is find a Brit who isn't a soccer hooligan
Hi!
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
I knew it would be easy! :D