Open Source 'Wasn't Available' Two Years Ago, Says UK Gov't IT Project Chief

An anonymous reader writes "The head of delivery for the UK's Department for Work and Pensions' flagship welfare reform project, Universal Credit, has said that the department didn't adopt open source and web-based technologies at the beginning of the project because 'such things weren't available' two and a half years ago. Howard Shiplee told the Work and Pensions Committee this week that the department is now using open source technologies in its enhanced version of Universal Credit, which was initially developed by the Government Digital Service (GDS) and will be rolled out nationally by 2017 for most claimants. The existing system being used in pathfinder pilots and developed by the likes of IBM, HP and Accenture will be largely be replaced by the digital version."

Comments

WTF?

[gstoddart]

The head of delivery for the UK's Department for Work and Pensions' flagship welfare reform project, Universal Credit, has said that the department didn't adopt open source and web-based technologies at the beginning of the project because 'such things weren't available' two and a half years ago.

Then either they needed something highly specific, or this guy isn't qualified to evaluate technology.

Re:WTF?

[Nerdfest]

I was wondering myself, incompetent or corrupt? I do see IBM involved, so it could be both.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

You gotta understand, to a lot of stuffed shirt types Microsoft *is* (or at least was) all of I.T. It's because there idiots listen to the loudest marketing department, and FOSS doesn't really have one by design.

Where I work we're dealing with same thing because of our MBA shit leadership. They firmly believe that the more money paid the better the software, meaning our "enterprise" labors under super-expensive and horrible software.

Re:WTF?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Or it was a terrible misquote of him in the slashdot summary.

His real quote was

“The current system for Universal Credit is a conventional system being developed on a waterfall approach. When you look at digital [the enhanced system], it’s very different – it relies not on large amounts of tin, black boxes, but uses open source and mechanisms on the web to store and access data,” Shiplee told MPs.

When asked why he didn’t adopt this approach two and a half years ago at the start of the project, Shiplee said: “Technology is moving very rapidly, such things weren’t available as they are today.”

So he might not have meant that opensource wasn't availible, but that the" mechanisims on the web to store and access data" weren't *as* available as they are today. Without knowing what technologies he's using, he could be right. They might not have existed, or have been as mature as they are now.

Re:WTF?

[compro01]

And closed source stuff only costs the price they quote if your time has no value.

Re:WTF?

[exomondo]

I was wondering myself, incompetent or corrupt?

You mean the author of the article right?

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was in a meeting recently where an IBM engineer assured us that we shouldn't use an open source solution because it would "lock us into one technology". Then in the very next sentence he described the IBM product that would do essentially the same thing as the open source software. Everyone in the room had that WTF? expression.

Re:WTF?

[jedidiah]

> It reminds me of what ESR said in his magnum opus, The Cathedral and the Bizarre: Linux is only free if your time has no value.

Clearly someone that's never used Oracle or SAP.

Summary trolling

[ugen]

Even though the article is also lean on the details, at least it provides the actual quote, which is:

"It relies not on large amounts of tin, black boxes, but uses open source and mechanisms on the web to store and access data,” Shiplee told MPs. When asked why he didn’t adopt this approach two and a half years ago at the start of the project, Shiplee said: “Technology is moving very rapidly, such things weren’t available as they are today.”

Ok, so "such things" - does not necessarily refer to "open source". It may (and probably does) refer to "mechanisms on the web to store and access data". Perhaps something "in the cloud", given that article does not provide sufficient detail - hard to say.

"Not available" == not permitted at the time

[g0tai]

Before people blow up :-) - This usually means that the department wasn't permitted to use 'un-vetted/approved/etc' software at that time (it may have been that they actually /wanted/ to use something open source 2 years ago, but various bits of bureaucracy didn't allow for it) This is government after all :-)

Before you feed the article troll

[Cryacin]

Shiplee said: “Technology is moving very rapidly, such things weren’t available as they are today.”

If you actually read the contents of the article, it seems that Howard Shiplee was taken out of context. (Say it aint so)

It seems to me that lots and lots of small components were available for the final software product, but due to the complexities of navigating a large bureaucracy, larger systems that closely fit the requirements were needed. At the end of the day, it's just boxes on a piece of paper to an architectural "expert" somewhere. At the end of the day, it's all about risk, and how that risk is managed. The usual trick for middle management to keep their jobs, is to get the risk exported.

“You would find it very hard to find vendors in the market place to do this work at full risk. So the department took up the risk.”

Anyone who understands the concept that an entity, both corporate or government can't export risk is deserving of respect. Sure, you can have contracts with vendors that give guaranteed SLA's, but at the end of the day, if a government service goes down, and there's a 100% risk export, for sure when the media gets to it, "IBM messed up, it's not our fault!" simply doesn't cut it. A ton of mud will still stick to those who are beholden to the responsibility of a service that they provide.

Even financially, the risk that is exported is only ever as good as the other companies working capital and professional indemnity insurance.

Re:Before you feed the article troll

[g0bshiTe]

Yep, I admit when I read the summary headline I about ROFL'd and had to check my calendar to make sure I didn't hibernate and wake up on 1 April.

FTFA it appears to be a specific mechanism for pooling their data, not OpenSource itself just there was no opensource solution at the time.

Re:On inappropriate expectations

[sd4f]

Probably not far off the mark. I'm noticing it in Australia, and not just in the public service, that hardware like tablets, don't appear to be solving anything or improving productivity, it mostly appears like as if they're shoehorning them in because people want them or they want to appear like they're keeping up with the times.

Re:And Earth is only about 8,000 years old?

[sribe]

Some of these people literally believe that the Internet is a corporate creation that was spearheaded by Bill Gates... so you can see how solidly they understand the history of networking.

A buddy of mine was once consulting for a firm whose new "CTO" argued with him, vehemently insisting that Bill Gates invented TCP/IP...

Re:Asleep at the switch

[GodfatherofSoul]

Pretty funny coming from a guy who didn't bother reading the article.

Re:On inappropriate expectations

[Bert64]

It's not just tablets, organisations everywhere have for years been deploying new technology that brings with it the promise of improved productivity. In reality it often does not... You take old hardware and old software that works just fine, and spend a fortune replacing it with new faster hardware running new slower software. The end result often isn't any faster, and users have to take time getting used to it while not using any of the new features. Often the new version is much worse than what it replaced, and instead of the software supporting the business, the business has to adapt to the way the software works.