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UK Gov't Says Open Standards Must Be Royalty Free

Posted by timothy on from the does-the-queen-still-use-red-hat? dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The H reports on an interesting development in the United Kingdom's procurement policy. From the article: 'New procurement guidance from the UK government has defined open standards as having "intellectual property made irrevocably available on a royalty free basis." The document, which has been published by the Cabinet Office, applies to all government departments and says that, when purchasing software, technology infrastructure, security or other goods and services, departments should "wherever possible deploy open standards."'"

3 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. Clue bat achievement unlocked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nice to see Govmnts getting a clue

  2. Glad they focussed on standards by MysteriousPreacher · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's a good decision. Open or closed source doesn't matter. What's important is interoperability. To give you an example, around eight years ago the local council website was unusable with anything except IE on Windows. It wasn't that the site was complicated. The issue was that they did a bad job of coding it, and only tested it with IE. That kind of thing shouldn't ever happen.

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  3. They get it at least. by unity100 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    some here still dont get it. something being made open, but owned by someone and can be reverted back is NOT open. it only means it is 'open to look inside',in manner of speaking.

    open should mean what u.k. govt., in an unexpected streak of common sense, explains above.

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