Have you released this work under a Creative Commons license?

Bruce

We are giving some thought to this clause to see if it needs strengthening. i.e. if there is no/little evidence that suppliers have considered open source in their bid it will be seen as non compliant and rejected.

What license are you releasing this work under, so others can build on what you have done to date?

Bruce Bannerman
Australia

ISO now “owns” all of PDF!

you need to get some _really_ good people onto this to give you the best advice. consider contacting the FSF and also Eben Moglen for their advice on who best to speak to.

your words alone cannot be authoritative: they need to come from the authoritative voices with legal background in the free software community, and then you will need to consult legal counsel on what _they_ say, before releasing anything as “authoritative advice”.

“TCO” has specific meaning, now, in the public sector, thanks to microsoft it is actually a four letter word, not a three letter anagram.

“TCO” in most people’s minds certainly does NOT include the revolutionary commitment made by this policy document to include the “cost of conversion to open software and open standards”!

i absolutely _love_ that bit, it will prove to be key to the success of this policy initiative, and you should hammer it home forcefully.

the BSI was bullied into approving this dog-turd by microsoft’s failure to release the document, failure to address the 1,000 comments and queries, such that, in the horrendously limited amount of time afforded by the fast-track ISO standards process, which the document should NEVER have been allowed to go through, the committee members had to go “do we approve en-masse the block of comments 601 through 700, yes or no?” “do we approve 701 through 800, yes or no?”.

the members of the committee who approved the standard in the UK are entirely owned and/or funded by microsoft.

the one abstaining member was tricked into abstaining.

not only that, but microsoft itself admits that it cannot comply with the standard!

the standard is nothing more than “memory dumps” of internal data structures from specific versions of specific microsoft products. consequently, there is no way that even microsoft can get interoperability between products as they are upgraded!

the bottom line: you need to REMOVE ooxml from this document. URGENTLY. otherwise you are in danger of allowing UK Government Departments to be hood-winked. “Yes! We Are Standards Compliant! Look – The ISO Says We Are! Use Our Proprietary Product! Anyone Can Follow The Standard! No – Really!”

bxxxxxks they can.

the purpose of OOXML’s forced-and-bought approval through ISO is to make a mockery of _true_ open standards.

don’t be fooled.

stuff that!

make a “Forge” web site, and go round badgering every department to start using it!

and get them to do talks at the conferences and point each other at the “Forge” web site on which copies of their slideshows – which of course will be in in ODF and PDF format, not PowerPoint.

on discovery of this standard, some associates i know who are free software business experts asked to be allowed to bid on the contract.

they were told in no uncertain terms that they were not entitled to see the “standards” documentation – documentation that was available to the existing cartel of suppliers.

you absolutely _have_ to stop this kind of thing from happening. ways in which that can be achieved are to make this section much more prominent.

on first reading, even i missed the first words.

so you need to make the following ABUNDANTLY clear:

* the mandatory development and publication of appropriate open standards prior to contractual bidding;

the specification, publication and evaluation of compliance with open standards ….

something like that. perhaps a section (d) which makes it separately clear that the development of closed “cartel” standards is “off limits”.

also, the standards need to be given PROMINENT weight on the “Forge” sites, as it is well-documented standards (such as DCE/RPC – see opengroup.org web site) that provide the biggest opportunity for code re-use and cross-project interoperability.

so you need people – yourselves, and suppliers – to be able to _find_ these standards, and to help you be able to specify them.

ok – that’s another important one: you need to “break up” the contract bidding process into separate stages for the evaluation and development of the “open standards” to be used in and by the project, BEFORE going in to the actual bidding process for the main contract itself.

so suppliers will help you to “thrash out” the project prior to actually going into the “real bidding” so to speak.

you can’t make such obtuse blanket statements without further explanation!

let me try and think of things which might help, here…

1) security through obscurity is always a failure (sometimes immediately, sometimes not). security through obscurity is almost always a complete embarrassment. somebody, somewhere, thinks of something better, and by providing an open opportunity to review the security of a product, you invite world-wide altruistic help.

2) security by open review is NOT a replacement for doing your own homework.

3) Running a Goverment requires more often than not customised specialist tasks and developing tailored software. COTS does NOT exist (or is bloat-ware when compared to the actual requirements).

therefore, to imagine that simply declaring “we will expect open source to do the job” i mean.. it _might_, if you believe “The Secret”, actually result in the software actually come into being as Free Software, but it’s unlikely.

The point is: you’re actually going to need to _fund_ the development – sustainably – of the suitable specialist Free Software that you envisage requiring. It won’t just happen “by magic”. Or maybe it will – “The Secret” is pretty powerful stuff

4) If you are referring to existing mature products such as Debian, Apache2, Django, Zope, Wine, GWT, Joomla (god help us), MySQL (god help us) PostgreSQL etc. then yes, fortunately, there is enough cross-over between the “fundamental” requirements of Free Software users, world-wide, and the UK Government’s diverse requirements, for there to be a large list of existing software that should go onto an “approved” list.

However, there should be no expectations that the software MUST be “fit for purpose”, and entering into a maintenance and development contract with the developers of the project, to help them fund its continued development and security i.e. to help fulfil exactly the expectations as outlined in this section, should be given careful consideration.

short version: don’t free-load of of our efforts!

this is why the “Forge” site is so essential. Take a look at Sourceforge closely and you will find that it has an incredibly comprehensive range of “categories” which help find software for a particular purpose.

Of course, google more often than not comes to the rescue when looking for software, as does a good “overview and description”.

So the lesson should be clear: it is ESSENTIAL that government-funded software be published and categorised accurately on OPENLY accessible web sites, so that you, suppliers _and_ potential free software developers interested in becoming a supplier can all work from the same _fair_ page.

sourceforge.net, the earliest, largest and most slagged-off of the free software “forge” web sites, is probably (unfortunately!) your best role model, minus on the advertising and plus on the sponsorship and donation opportunities for civil departments, individuals, foundations and large corporations alike.

also, you need to think hard about how it is that you’re going to forge relationships between free software advocates and developers and civil departments.

to that end, you really need to start attending, sponsoring and even _creating_ conferences dedicated to getting people together to discuss the open standards and the open source software that they are actively working on.

lovely titles such as “How we used PDF417 and XML to save Pathology Labs from having their proven, reliable existing systems replaced by a national untried-and-untested behemoth costing a billion quid” would be a good one to have at a conference.

you need to set up OGC “Summer of Code” programmes, modelled on Google’s Summer of Code – a Government Sponsorship Initiative where young citizens from universities and schools and job seekers across the UK can work with a well-regarded Free Software Mentor to help develop code that will be, or be the beginnings of, “Government Class” Free Software products.

The success of Google’s Summer of Code programme should leave you in absolutely no doubt that an “OGC SoC” initiative will be highly beneficial to all concerned.

You should use the same “Forge” site as mentioned in other comments (something based on a combination of code.google.com, sourceforge.net, schoolforge.net, savannah.org, github.org etc. etc. with NO advertising only sponsorship ).