Table of Contents
Comments
Commenters
1. The Government last formally reviewed its Open Source policy in 2004.1 The policy made clear that the Government would consider open source solutions alongside proprietary ones in IT Procurements and that contracts will be awarded on a value for money basis.2
2. Since 2004 the Government has increased its use of Open Source, particularly in operating systems and middleware components of business solutions. For example:
2. The NHS “Spine” uses an open-sourced operating system and, when complete, the replacement of Netware by Open Enterprise Server will mean that 35% of NHS organisations covering almost 300,000 users will be supported on Linux infrastructure.
3. Open Source components are used in major mission critical systems such as Directgov and Electronic Vehicle Licensing.
3. However since 2004 the software and wider IT marketplace have also developed to make Open Source products more competitive and easier to include in enterprise business solutions. For instance:
1. robust and sustainable enterprise–class business models for the implementation and support of open source solutions have emerged.
2. an increasing number of major players in the IT industry are actively engaged with open source and are supporting the use of open standards.
3. large enterprises, including Government departments, have started routinely to use open source components within large, mission-critical systems; as a consequence the different commercial, cost, licensing and risk models are better understood among enterprise CIOs.
4. There have also been developments in the approach to Government IT which affect the approach to Open Source:
1. The creation of the Government IT profession and the open recruitment of technology professionals into government has re-established skills and cultures for a more open challenge to suppliers about technology solutions.
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2. The establishment of the CIO Council has led to more openness and exchange of information about good IT solutions and experience within Government. There is greater willingness and there are mature service frameworks to re-use more of the Government’s existing IT assets. Open Source and Open Standards are able to make an important contribution to making this happen.
3. The agreement to the Cross Government Enterprise Architecture framework and its acceptance by the Government’s major IT suppliers has enabled the disaggregation of ‘closed’ business solutions into component requirements. This which allows sharing and re-using of common components between different lines of business.
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4. The licensing policies of software suppliers, particularly where government is not treated as a single entity, and the lack of cost transparency in the supply chain, have created issues in the progress towards greater cost reduction and joining-up of services across government.
5. Some major departments have now established ‘ecosystems’ which allow the use of a wider range of IT suppliers within an overall service provision partnership.
6. The techniques and cultures of open source have been adopted in other parts of Government business, for instance in the public consultation on the DIUS Science White Paper and the work of the Cabinet Office’s Power of Information Task Force.
1. Use of Open Source Software: Use within UK Government, version 2. Cabinet Office/OGC, 28 October 2004Tags: Apache, Cabinet Office, CIO, enterprise business solutions, government, Information Task Force, Linux, major IT suppliers, mission critical systems, Netware, NHS, Open Source Software, opensource, openstandards, operating system, operating systems, re-use, software, software suppliers, standards, supply chain, technology professionals, technology solutions, uk, UK Government, ukgovOSS, web server
citing examples of ways in which free software has already saved significant amounts of public money is an excellent way to counteract arguments for the deployment of proprietary software and proprietary standards.
Guilds provide their services, not their products. This was the standard practice for skilled labour, for centuries. Then along came corporations (see http://www.thecorporation.com), the original purpose for which was warped into nothing short of a legalised de-facto form of slavery (no this is not a joke or a hoax).
software development in particular has been hit extremely badly in this regard by the expectation of corporations to “outright own all intellectual property”, and the implicit support of software patents as one of the tools in a corporation’s arsenal has not helped in this regard one iota.
so whereas software used to be regarded, especially in the 60s and 70s as “freely shared”, resulting in licenses such as the BSD license, corporations soon took over, pushing “boxed product” with deliberate flaws and bugs deliberately not fixed, in order to guarantee return custom in the form of “upgrades”.
software as a service was destroyed.
then, along came free software, with updated “Viral” licenses such as the self-protecting GPL – finally bringing back, slowly, inexorably, bringing back the idea of “software as a service” not a “Commercial Off-The-Shelf Product”.
you CANNOT EVER get “COTS” software to do the job required. either the software does “too much” (in which case you will pay too much) or it does “too little” (in which case it will be useless or require astronomical amounts of money to customise).
solution: a government owning the rights to the software it has paid for is absolutely the right thing. i’m so proud of the team and the leader of the team who wrote this policy document.
I am massive supporter of the goverment making conscious efforts to include open source in it’s IT startegy.
And I agree that applauding any progress is the right thing to. But the only way to make a real change is to drive the numbers. That will cause a change in purchasing and evaluation processes.
Has the choice of open source in these instances actually saved any money at all? Who measured how much it was costing before and after ; and how much more money came into government because of the use of open source?
Remember that government outsources the decision to use open source to its SI’s. So, firstly, government did not choose to use open source. They are not allowed to make that decision if I understand the process correctly. Or they have chosen to outsource that decision.
So government only manages the costs. The real trick is how to keep the SI’s, service delivery partners and other vendors honest.
It is too easy for those suppliers to say “Yes, we looked at open source and nothing was suitable”, or “it’s too much risk for this project Mr X – do you want to stake your reputation in open source” – FUD.
Secondly, where is the measurement? Real quantifiable examples of a goverment tender environment that was using proprietary software and switched to open source resulting in decreased costs and increased service quality and/or revenue.
300,000 users running a web application from some Linux servers means what ?? The cost of that project was stupid and I would love to see the quote with or without Linux rather than Solaris/Windows/HP servers. And they are probably running on Redhat Enterprise which carries as much overhead per year as any other vendor’s operating system.
Nonsense.
If Gartner is correct then saying that ‘we use open source’ is going to be like saying IT is important to our business in a few years.
The real revolution of open source is that it is a way of doing business. This transparent approach is what will really shake the tree. Anything else will save a few pennies at best and more likely will simply increase the profit margins for SI’s that supply the government.
I would like to see a council of government and enterprise CIO’s meeting every three months (without any vendors present) to talk openly about open source as an IT and open source as a business management practice.
CIO’s care about costs whether they are in govt or business.
Let me know – I can set that up.
I think i’ve seen this somewhere before…but it’s not bad at all