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Should All Government IT Systems Be Using Open Source Software? (linuxjournal.com)
Writing at Linux Journal, Glyn Moody reports that dozens of government IT systems are switching to open source software.
"The fact that this approach is not already the norm is something of a failure on the part of the Free Software community..." One factor driving this uptake by innovative government departments is the potential to cut costs by avoiding constant upgrade fees. But it's important not to overstate the "free as in beer" element here. All major software projects have associated costs of implementation and support. Departments choosing free software simply because they believe it will save lots of money in obvious ways are likely to be disappointed, and that will be bad for open source's reputation and future projects.
Arguably as important as any cost savings is the use of open standards. This ensures that there is no lock-in to a proprietary solution, and it makes the long-term access and preservation of files much easier. For governments with a broader responsibility to society than simply saving money, that should be a key consideration, even if it hasn't been in the past.... Another is transparency. Recently it emerged that Microsoft has been gathering personal information from 300,000 government users of Microsoft Office ProPlus in the Netherlands, without permission and without documentation.
He includes an inspiring quote from the Free Software Foundation Europe about code produced by the government: "If it is public money, it should be public code as well. But when it comes to the larger issue about the general usage of proprietary vs. non-proprietary software -- what do Slashdot's readers think?
Should all government IT systems be using open source software?
"The fact that this approach is not already the norm is something of a failure on the part of the Free Software community..." One factor driving this uptake by innovative government departments is the potential to cut costs by avoiding constant upgrade fees. But it's important not to overstate the "free as in beer" element here. All major software projects have associated costs of implementation and support. Departments choosing free software simply because they believe it will save lots of money in obvious ways are likely to be disappointed, and that will be bad for open source's reputation and future projects.
Arguably as important as any cost savings is the use of open standards. This ensures that there is no lock-in to a proprietary solution, and it makes the long-term access and preservation of files much easier. For governments with a broader responsibility to society than simply saving money, that should be a key consideration, even if it hasn't been in the past.... Another is transparency. Recently it emerged that Microsoft has been gathering personal information from 300,000 government users of Microsoft Office ProPlus in the Netherlands, without permission and without documentation.
He includes an inspiring quote from the Free Software Foundation Europe about code produced by the government: "If it is public money, it should be public code as well. But when it comes to the larger issue about the general usage of proprietary vs. non-proprietary software -- what do Slashdot's readers think?
Should all government IT systems be using open source software?
Recently a Gartner report on open source in The Netherlands made an interesting case why with the current legislation the Dutch (and likely European) governments could not contribute to open source software. Governments may use it, but a software developer disguised as civil servant must never be provide patches or features back to the open source project, nor is the government allowed to publish their work in public, publication should be strictly limited to other governments. This would be prohibited due to unfair competition with software suppliers that build closed source software not having the advantage of government support. Now the case of no-vender-lockin still remains, but unless we first change these kind of laws, harnessing the true power of open source: collaboration, is legally not possible.
Support Eachother, Copy Dutch Property!
..."If it is public money, it should be public code as well..."
No, dude...
"If it is public money, it should be public code as well only if it works and does work well..."
But I am almost embarrassed to say that in my little world, apart from the browser, open source desktop software sucks big-time. It just does not cut it.
One has to "fight" with a situation where you have the same library named differently, installed in different locations, installed with older versions of the same depending on distribution...The arrogance in the open source world simply makes matters worse. Who has the time for all this nonsense?
Yeah, the commercial offers sucked. And the market decided. For a better product and a better deal. Made by the "corporation" called "government", which is the "corporation" that we're all shareholders, employers and employees of.
The commercial suppliers simply hated an actual free market (and especially it balancing itself out). Like apparently all corporations and businesses without exception always do. Because they prefer unfair competition, but only if it's them doing it, e.g. in the form of a monopoly (even imaginary ones on imaginary property).
I think in the long run, FLOSS will win over all closed-source software. As an egoistical sole company simply cannot compete with everyone teaming up to make something free and libre. It's why social species succeed over everyone-for-himself species. And the imaginary property delusion won't last forever. People are gonna want to only pay for actual work, not for mere copies or mere profit, since they had to actually work for their money too. They only don't right now, because they have no choice, and because those who steal their money wrote laws and propaganda that became the cultural norm in some sad parts of this planet.
And this "unfair competition" doctrine is the result of years (decennia!) of neoliberal lobbying. Why should be a government be prohibited to do what's best for its citizens and cater first to corporations which, in return try to avoid taxes as "cleverly" as they can?
I mean: corporations /can/ be the government's allies in fostering the citizen's well-being, but they can be also its enemies. It should be up to the government to decide when and how.
Lobbyists should be scrutinized much more closely. IMO half of them should be in jail, along with the politicians listening to them (the latter are worse).
Honestly, I've come to think that's a bit of a cop-out. If the government can't use FOSS, then I think they should fund the software they need, which should then also be open source.
That may sound excessive, but it's an investment. It accomplishes a bunch of stuff. First, over the long term, it does away with licensing costs. It also allows them to access the source code and verify its security, and then make modifications as needed. Also very importantly, it frees them from proprietary interests. They're not beholden to do things the way their vendor wants and serving their vendor's interests.
Also, whatever improvements they make to the FOSS are likely to be needed somewhere else. Improving public software serves the public interest.
The reality is, buying proprietary software may be "efficient" when looking at the short-term immediate cost, but it's much harder to say what will be efficient and cheap when viewed over the next several decades. I suspect that investing in public software now will pay off several times over in the next 50 years, and that's the sort of timeline the government should be considering.
Yes, universities need student worker jobs for experience, research grant funding to try out new ideas in support software, longer term planning which requires investing instead of short term cloud fees.
But governments which exist as a representation of the collective... is deeply aligned with the shared public work that open source is; with the biggest difference being it has an organized management with funding, power and the overhead of safe guards. That power and funding are what brings about most it's political problems... Sadly, the corruption and failing to fight against marketing/lobbying but in the USA, the increasingly anti-social culture is the main reason we do not collectively take on any new pubic works.
Open source projects are so unorganized, volatile, unpredictable it deters adoption and isn't enough to counter the close-minded thinking it is wrong for collective works to replace privatized services.
I do not think a national highway system could be built today. Obvious new public work projects that in the past would have easily been done have had trouble getting serious consideration. Such as, an information super highway... public health insurance, public healthcare, public car insurance, legalized co-operative insurance (illegal in some places...like public ISP are illegal too,) free college (high school wasn't free either until everybody needed it.) public recycling, trash, electricity.... or what everybody would lke: automatic TAX preparation by the IRS... which was proven cheaper but lobbyists killed that off.
I've worked with local governments. They do have plenty of lazy workers. I've worked consulting too; they have just as many lazy workers but those are forced a bit more in my view. It comes down to management in each. The main difference is that the public employees care MORE than the private employee (especially now with the lack of loyalty to workers.) Public workers have at least tiny bit more loyalty to their community/country if not a lot more. Many of the poor ones I run into and explore out of curiosity actually cared too much and the dysfunction of the system crushed their spirit too much. This one is most easy to see in the ones who quit their careers as cops/teachers etc. and the ones who are still plugging along are in the middle ground. If we stopped hating on our public institutions (like Russia wants and has been doing since the cold war... you ignorant Americans haven't got a clue! ) these people would be far more productive and happy.