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UK Gov't Solicits Comments On OSS Policy 20

Posted by timothy from the unto-the-people dept.
sufehmi writes "The UK government is asking for comments on its Open Source Software (OSS) policy document. This may have a great effect on OSS usage in UK gov, so don't miss this - get your voice heard. Also what would you say to your government about this topic ? Let's share your thoughts with others here."
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UK Gov't Solicits Comments On OSS Policy More

UK Gov't Solicits Comments On OSS Policy

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  • Seriously though, I have contacted polticians to try and get them to get a policy on this and it sounds like they are starting to listen, so I'll be sending them lots of comments on this.

    For a start, as an FSF member and given that this is in relation to government, I really think it should be called "free software" or "software libre" to emphasise the freedom aspects -- for most government apps they couldn't care less about the source but freedom and data protection is very imprtant.

  • Have to sign up to make comments....

  • Comments on Document Intro. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sepluv ( 641107 ) <blakesleyNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday March 24, 2004 @10:32AM (#8656326)
    Here's my quicky-written in-depth textual analysis of page 1 (the intro.). I'm glad they are taking notice of the pressure us, UK free-software users are putting on them, but, let's say, it doesn't look as great as it could be though. Disclaimer: maybe I'm very cynical and I am in a pissed off mood about just talking to the powers at be at my central-government-funded college who think that free software "is evil hacking [sic] tools like Kazaa" and who worships MS -- only using MS software were possible.

    "Open Source Software (OSS) is software whose source code is openly published"

    This is exactly why (as I said in my last post) it should be about free software. They obviously think they any software with source is open source as opposed to only stuff that fits the Debian Free Software Guidelines, OSI open source definition or the FSF free software definition.

    "is usually available at no charge"

    But they still seem to think that it is about cost not freedom (even though they use the term, open source, which was apparently designed to remove perceived ambiguity with the term free software -- I personally think free software is a clearer term). Cost hardly matters to governments anyway -- they get very good deals -- the fact that MS has control over the government's computer systems and all the personal data of UK citzens, and that no one can see what the software is doing is *far* more important.

    "under a licence defined by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) which prevents it from being redistributed under a more restrictive licence."

    AFAIK the OSI have not made under any software licenses. Also, I believe, at least three-quaters of software is licesed under the FSF's GNU GPL. If the are talking about the GNU GPL, the GPL does not "[prevent] it from being redistributed under a more restrictive licence" -- the author can distribute it under any license -- it does prevent a *derivative* work from being licensed under a more restrictive license (unless all the orignal authors have seperately licensed the software under a more restrictive license).

    "It has leapt to prominence by starting to take a significant market share in some specific parts of the software infrastructure market."

    So, they are saying that they now like FOSS because it may have a monopoly in some areas -- I'm not sure which ones they are refering to -- servers?

    OK, fine they actually think the government should go out of their way to support monopolies and lack of freedom, then? I can see why most desktop PC's in the UK gov. run MSW then, if they have that attitude.

    "to live up to their initial press hype. OSS is indeed the start of a fundamental change in the software infrastructure marketplace, but it
    is not a hype bubble that will burst and UK Government must take cognisance of that fact."

    Do they have a guilty concious about being a gov. who are very into creating and blindly following hype bubbles or sthg? Seriously though, it seems they have (after the years of campaigning that free-software advocates by those at the UK AFFS, FSF, &c.) finally realised that free software is an important and fundamental change (or actually return to the old days) in the way we look at software (esp. in gov.).

    "The Action Plan (June 2002) for the European Commission's initiative
    eEurope 2005: An Information Society for all builds on the previous Action
    Plan (June 2000) which set the target "to promote the use of open source
    software in the public sector and e-Government best practice through
    exchange of experiences across the Union"."

    So it seems that they are making another action plan as part of their previous action plan on which they haven't done anything yet but produce another action plan. Oh, and they are only doing it because the EU (who I think are more free-software friendly thanks to FSF Europe bringing them over) forced them. My experience is that the only way to get the UK government to do anything for their citizens (as oppose
    • Disclaimer: maybe I'm very cynical and I am in a pissed off mood
      No kidding...

      also, I believe, at least three-quaters of software is licesed under the FSF's GNU GPL.
      Figures?

      If the are talking about the GNU GPL, the GPL does not "[prevent] it from being redistributed under a more restrictive licence" -- the author can distribute it under any license

      Legally, thats distribution not redistribution as the author originates the material, and they are in fact correct as regards the GPL. But point taken, the
      • >>No kidding>Figures?>thats distribution not redistribution>their executive-level introduction of what open source is is a bit inaccurate. But its just an introduction and not the policy.>Bollocks. In fact, the 2005 plan was produced because it was felt many of the goals of the 2002 plan>Government depts are well aware that having access to the source prevents them being held to ransom by companies who need a big license payoff to stay afloat.>Eh??? Have you looked at HMSO [hmso.gov.
      • Woops!

        >>No kidding<<
        There was a disclaimer, OK?

        I've just discovered that /. is brilliant for rants (when one is pissed off) especially in threads like this were no one seems to be commenting (or reading) ;-) .

        Hmm...ye...I wrote the grandparent post very quickly when the article first came out. I must stress that I think it really is great that they have a policy on FOSS and I really hope the action plan will trickle down to some action on the ground. As an example of why I was being cynical t
        • There was a disclaimer, OK?

          I've just discovered that /. is brilliant for rants (when one is pissed off) especially in threads like this were no one seems to be commenting (or reading) ;-) .

          No worries, I do the same. I'm not trying to flame you, just comment from the point of view of someone who works on gov't contracts (as I do).

          ATM many parts of the government only produce documents in proprietary Microsoft formats (and even worse expect others to be able to read and send documents to them in the same
  • A friend of mine has been doing some work for an MP and I heard that this was coming quite a way back. They're pretty pissed off with Microsoft's security track record and silly licenses.

    There's a significant chance they can be persuaded to take OSS up.
  • How is the availability of source code going to matter the quality of work of government employees? There should be no open source policy as well as no closed source policy, there should be a single software requirements policy to be eligible for government tenders.

    The government could specify for example, certain formats, protocols and standards that should be supported by a participating vendor. The rest is up to the vendor, which would most probably use already available open source codebase (faster dev
    • The Peruvian government seem to have a better understanding of the issues...

      Peru and Microsoft [opensource.org]

      If a government policy specified that video files must be distributed in WMV, that policy needs to be revisited...
    • How is the availability of source code going to matter the quality of work of government employees? There should be no open source policy as well as no closed source policy, there should be a single software requirements policy to be eligible for government tenders.

      Considering the length of time government, as opposed to commercial business, is often required to hold on to data it's possible that many closed source systems are inappropriate. Because the vendor is unwilling to support the same software for

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