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UK Goverment IT Chief Backs Open Source Suppliers
Blacklaw writes "The UK government's deputy Chief Information Officer has outlined plans to hand public sector IT contracts over to small businesses and suppliers of open-source and cloud-based solutions in an attempt to balance the books. Speaking at the 360IT conference in London on Wednesday, Bill McCluggage also promised greater transparency over IT procurement, with tenders and contracts published online. Outlining a commitment to 'simplify, standardize and automate', McCluggage said the government would make it easier for open-source suppliers to compete for contracts, making the public sector less reliant on individual suppliers, or locked into proprietary systems."
hinting at a possible move towards cloud-based solutions to escape licensing restrictions
They should be careful not to let buzzwords govern their decision.
A lot of what passes as "the cloud" involves removing control from the user and moving that control to a centrally-managed proprietary virtual host.
If they happen to choose these sorts of "cloud" applications -- which are becoming increasingly common with the "SaaS" lock-em-in-and-rip-em-off crowd -- they're only going to multiply their licensing headaches.
Their advisors should make it a point to distinguish between open (commodity) computing platforms and centralized control platforms. Unfortunately, since this is a government body, their advisors are probably paid consultants from those same proprietary-platform companies.
And the date on that? February 25, 2009.
Yeah, I'll believe that when it happens. I'm sure there's a nice money-flow from the public purse to HP and then into the politician's campaign funds.
Still this seems to be a positive move, unusual for politics.
Usually courageous people like that get removed from office pretty quick. Also, his proprietary software opponents (vendors) will probably be very quick to pounce on any delays or missteps while systems transition to Open Source (while delays in proprietary software projects are quietly swept under the carpet due to 'commercial sensitivity'). I hope this guys pulls it off and levels the playing field - which should also save a lot of taxpayer pounds/dollars
Whether it's open source or closed source isn't the most important thing. Whether it's run locally or in the cloud doesn't make that much difference.
What really matters is whether the data is readily accessible in a known format. If you can get your data in some sane way that is independent of your current software, then you are in control. If you cannot, then you are not in control.
Of course, going OSS and going cloud-based each have their pros and cons as well, but IMHO they are secondary to controlling the data. For example, while OSS theoretically implies being able to access your data in a known format, I would still rather use a closed source solution with a cleaner known data format than an OSS solution where the code that manipulates the file format is difficult to understand and the format itself is more awkward.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
This seems to come hot on the heels of the end of the Microsoft licensing deal with the NHS.
One of the side effects of the "Age of Austerity" is that the Government really doesn't have the money to throw around anymore. Real savings are having to be made in the Public Sector.
A simple choice is: Do we really get sufficient added value from having all the pretty functionality from the Microsoft Office suite, or do we really just need the basics (i.e. from Open Office, which is being used in Bristol City Council to a large extent) to create documents which can be stored. They may not look quite as slick, but they do the job nicely at a fraction of the cost (including support).
As Open alternatives start to be used, companies are increasingly finding that the myth of "there are no readily available skillsets in them, unlike Microsoft applications" really is a myth, and that there are a good many highly skilled people available at prices largely in line with the Microsoft setup, but often with a broader skillset behind that. It just seems to be that this is filtering into the view of Government now..
I'll be watching this one with interest; when used correctly, Open Source can be a huge cost saver. It's not the panacea for all ills, but when used as the right tool for the right job, everything works far better.
the people running government IT seem to lack focus on what they want to have delivered
This happens in every area of the IT sector. I have seen million dollar projects run by corporations trundle on and on for years before eventual cancellation. Projects tend to only get canned when the manager of that project leaves the company, which often occurs at the same time as the company coming under severe financial pressure. As long as the company as a whole is profitable, individual projects are often given a lot of freedom.
The biggest problem (and I witnessed this 1st hand) is that the people running government IT seem to lack focus on what they want to have delivered, so projects run on and on.
Yes, but part of the problem here is what the other half of this is addressing: the fact that most government IT contracts go to one or two large companies (I'm primarily thinking Capita here), who don't really have to compete on quality because there's a minimum turnover requirement in the tender that eliminates almost all of the potential competition.
The primary focus is on awarding contracts to small businesses rather than a few behemoths. Whether they use open source or not does not really appear to be a consideration. And "open standards" will in practice just means "hide the actual data inside a pile of useless XML cruft and pass it around via SOAP".
By the way, most customers for this kind of software would rather eat their own heads than have to deal with multiple vendors for different parts of an integrated national system.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Campaign funds in the UK are capped, and none of the candidates from the major parties has any trouble reaching this cap - they don't need contributions from HP, and all other gifts must be declared on the Register of Members' Interests. We don't have the same system of institutionalised bribery as the USA. The closest thing that we get is Ministers being offered directorships once they leave government in exchange for services rendered while there, but this only really works for bribing the people at the top. The other 400 or so MPs don't tend to get offered this kind of thing.
The UK has a lot of small IT businesses, while HP has just reduced its UK workforce by around 2,000 and generally uses non-UK workers for these contracts. Employing British people to work on government projects makes financial sense for the government (they will be paying taxes and buying things in the UK), and is likely to be a vote winner.
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Never discount the UK mindset of stubborn resistance to change.
There is a school, not a half mile from where I sit right now, who have 1 Windows box for the school IMS and every other machine is either Mac or Linux. All the desktops for the pupils to use are Linux and most staff use Linux laptops.
They have had this system in place for at least the last 4 or 5 years.
Are they held up as an example? No.
Do other schools look to them? No.
Did the previous Government cite them as a brilliant example of cost saving and the freeing up of data from proprietary control? No, in fact they continued to sign the UK education sector up to illegal (by their own rules) "contracts" with MS and ignored the whole issue.
Our new Government has an even greater reputation for bending over for big business.
The headline sounds nice, but when it comes to actually carrying it out - I'm not holding my breath.
Will it be exactly the same project - in terms of scope, deliverables, team, tools, methodology...?
Unless it is I don't see why the premise leads to the conclusion at all.
Applying your logic, since Leonardo da Vinci failed at heavier than air flight it's clear that Wright brothers faked it.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
As long as they don't engage BT to deliver the g-Cloud. More than 40% of all of the funding for the NHS national program is sinking down that particular black hole, and wouldn't want to see any more KBEs being created on the back of providing overpriced services very slowly, and very, very poorly supported.