Slashdot Mirror
UK Government Boosts Open Source Adoption
Cameron Logie writes "The UK Government has today announced full backing for greater adoption of Open Source solutions in the public sector. According to the article at the BBC News site, 'Government departments will be required to adopt open source software when "there is no significant overall cost difference between open and non-open source products" because of its "inherent flexibility."'"
Finally is someone opening their eyes? Cheers,
So that they can give it to the poor destitute W^HBankers.
Deleted
I meant "Is someone opening the eyes of the people which run this country"... Cheers again,
The benefits of open source over closed source are obvious!
We can now look forward to a more community driven approach to oppression.
>>>"if there is no significant overall cost difference between open and non-open source products"
So does that mean if MS Office costs $200, but OpenOffice costs $0, then the government employees can't adopt OpenOffice because there's a cost difference?
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
FTA:
The problem is that the "overall cost" depends on how much marketing $$$ is thrown in.
Every software sales goon is busy fabricating reports which show significant cost difference between using their products and using Free products.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Spin... tell me when a viable open-source project actually makes a big *official* splash into anything approaching a UK government system. Various schools have been trying it for years on their own and never got anywhere because it's always seen as "nice" but then nothing ever happens further and money is still poured into Microsoft's wallet every day. The other IT projects run the UK government are a farce - starting with the NHS computerisation, through to the systems used for the police national computer and similar systems.
I *want* to see it. I am so pleased when I hear of countries trying it, but I know that in my own country this is nothing but spin. I would seriously consider emigrating to a country that treated its IT systems correctly and did things like this when they were needed. I haven't seen it happen yet, though.
Sounds like decision-making will become less questionable by the openness OSS introduces at several levels: source, formats and price (not necessarily zero, but leaving little room for overspending to factor in kickbacks), to name a few.
In a perfect world, politicians would now start campaigning and competing to advocate and introduce whatever affordable and sufficiently functional software keeps existing hardware usable even longer, minimizes public spending and allows for the biggest tax cut.;-)
It would have been terrible for future generations' access to public records if further decades of material had to be stored in proprietary, DRM-encumbered crypto bottles on closed-source systems which can't be kept alive without the consent of their corporate overlords, and if these could get schools to indoctrinate kids to obey them.
Now all they have to make clear (to prevent monopolies from being built by other means) is that there should be no such thing as software patents...
Todays headlines are the result of *years* of work behind the scenes.
The UK Opposition party, the Conservatives, are absolutely serious about implementing an Open Source, Open Standards, Open Procurement policy should they win the next election.
Government departments are increasingly talking about sustainability (ie "we've run out of money") with Becta being the first to actually do something about it (appoint Sirius as the first and only Open Source company on a Government procurement list).
There is at least one National Open Source infrastructure project just about to come out of stealth mode, and politicians are smelling some positive press commentary for once.
This may be an essentially defensive move in the light of George Osborne's recent pronouncements, but it will inevitably lead to real progress in the historically extremely difficult (for Free Software) political scene in the UK.
Coming soon:
UK government suspects bears s**t in the woods.
I recall, just a few years ago, the state of Massachusetts announcing it would consider switching over to Linux. Microsoft quickly deployed the flying corporate propaganda monkeys to spread doubt and mistrust over "untested" software. Britain's a lot bigger than Massachusetts.
Should be interesting, in any case.
I've looked into Microsoft licensing for a number of things in the past and a few of the clauses make for interesting reading.
Let me preface this by saying I'm in the UK, I've been speaking to MS UK and it's them this information comes from. I have no idea how well these terms would stand up in a court of law or how flexible they are if you've got government-sized budgets but.... if you want an educational license - or, for that matter, one of the more flexible enterprise license schemes, one of the terms of the license is you MUST buy a license for every computer that's physically capable of running the software.
Every PC, every laptop, even every x86-based Mac.
Of course you can go down the "Open" licensing route which (AFAIK) has no such rule but while I haven't priced it up, I bet it quickly becomes drastically cheaper not to.
Suddenly, OpenOffice doesn't look like such a cost saver unless you roll it out to everyone. Nor does Ubuntu.
Yeah, just "retraining" is pretty much enough to stall the whole thing. Still, I'm VERY glad to see this move. It's a huge step up from the widely ignored bill that was enacted back in 2002/3 or so.
I wonder if they will consider the case where an open-source solution does not completely cover the requirements, but the cost of hiring a developer to make it meet those requirements is still less than the cost of the proprietary solution?
Will they be willing to hire developers to create required features if it is still within the cost limits? Because that would be win-win for everyone.
(They should consider long-term licensing costs for the proprietary software of course, since in the OSS solution once the feature is implemented there are no continuing costs thereafter.)
As a citizen, I don't really care whether my gov (US) uses Microsoft, Mac, Solaris, Linux, or AmigaOS. I *do* care when they publish documents I need to work with in an undocumented proprietary format. And no, OOXML doesn't fix that (it only pretends to). Yes, I can get by with Open Office DOC importer for the time being.
This is just a press release, it's intended to neutralise the Conservatives open source policy announcements. Nothing is actually going to happen.
Is that where you get the full DNA of a child prior to adoption?
they intend to use it to keep track of all their surveillance activities.
The UK government may have the cohesion of slush, but at least they can do one sensible thing...
Excuse for why is your room always messy?
Speaking as a former typist trainer for the UK government I can tell you that the retraining costs of moving to Office 2007 will dwarf those of any move to OOo. Writer may not be exactly like Word 97-2003 but it's a whole lot less unfamiliar than the ribbon will be.
Oh, but now they have forgotten every non-Ribbon interface, and migrating back to the otherwise familiar Writer will be just as hard as it was to migrate to Ribbon.
The interface is the Ribbon. The interface has always been the Ribbon. The lie became truth.
Sam ty sig.
This is a good strategy because all these days Closed source proponents have been advocating there is NO significant overall cost difference between open and non-open source products.
Open source is about transparency and Governments must accommodate and appreciate transparency wherever possible.
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
I'm pretty sure I can take a photo of a policeman in England. In the US however I'm pretty sure I'd be beaten.
Lots of shit about the CCTV camera's however the US police force of laughable in comparison.
Very happy! We need to see more governments and businesses see the benefits of Open Source!
Open Source: Eroding the Digital Divide
I think this is a good idea. It's true that we need to see more governments and businesses see the benefits of Open Source.