There are political advantages in vendor lock-in

Today Matt Asay urges government buyers to support open source, open data and open standards. Why? Because it’s better. Because it promotes competition. Because it gives government flexibility. But after watching government on every level, in various countries, for over half my lifetime, I can tell you the last thing any government wants is to make a decision its successor can overturn.

UK Government policy update supports open source

The UK government has published an updated policy on open source in government. The new policy takes a more aggressive position on government use of open source than the original policy, published in 2004. That document set out five policy points that allowed open source based solutions to be considered alongside proprietary solutions and tried to avoid lock in to proprietary software. The new policy document notes how the 2004 policy has already had effects, such as 50 per cent use of Apache web server within departmental web sites, and the NHS "Spine" migration to a Linux based infrastructure, which will cover 35 per cent of NHS organisations.

USA: Open Source Clouds On The Rise

The U.S. government is an early adopter of cloud computing and a proponent of open source, two trends that are about to intersect. Cloud computing has the potential to transform how government agencies tap into IT services, and open source is an underlying technology in several of the early government clouds that have been developed.

Interjú a Linux Ipari Szövetség elnökével

A szabad és nyílt forrású szoftverek állami szférában történő meghonosodásának esélyei jócskán gyengébbnek látszanak hazánkban, mint az Európai Unió nyugati országaiban. Legutóbb a Központi Szolgáltatási Főigazgatóság és Nyílt Dokumentumformátum Szövetség vitája kapott nagyobb visszhangot. Ezen ellentét okairól és a lehetséges megoldásról Dr. Szentiványi Gábort, a Linux Ipari Szövetség elnökét, az Open Document Format Alliance magyar tagozatának elnökségi tagját a ComputerWorld kérdezte.

Törvény a nyílt szabványok kötelező alkalmazásáról

A Nyílt Szabvány Szövetség (NYISSZ) üdvözli, hogy az Országgyűlés kötelezővé tette a nyílt szabványok alkalmazását a magyarországi hivatalok, közműszolgáltatók, állampolgárok és magáncégek egymás közötti, a központi állami rendszeren keresztül folyó kommunikációjában.

Open Source Has Nothing to Do with Open Government

One of the interesting consequences of the Open Government Directive has been a burst of enthusiasm by some of the open source software proponents and vendors (see here and here) who have immediately established a link between the use of open source and the directive.

E-Gov Versus Open Gov: The Evolution of E-Democracy

How is the Obama Administration’s Open Government (Open Gov) initiative different from the Bush Administration’s E-government (E-gov) initiative? There are many people who use the two terms interchangeably but this paper argues that although they are distinct initiatives in the United States, they are also part of the same E-democracy maturity continuum. Thus while they should not be handled totally separately, they should not be combined either. This paper provides a short history and terminology discussion and then compares and contrasts the two initiatives.

By Jenn Gustetic, Associate, Phase One Consulting Group

PDF: Read more

Open source revolution in the public sector

I was asked two very interesting questions by a thoughtful technical architect who worked for a major Local Authority who now, like many many others in this sector, wanted to know more about open source software.

He wanted to know, in the light of the Government's well-publicised new found enthusiasm for open source software, whether I thought they would all be using open source software in ten year's time and if so when and how would it all happen?

Gov 2.0: Obama Team Details 'Open Government' Progress

At the Gov 2.0 Summit, federal deputy CTO Beth Noveck detailed what is being done to make government data more widely available.

Open Government Laboratories of Democracy

"It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system," Justice Louis D. Brandeis wrote in 1932, "that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country." The Obama Administration is taking unprecedented strides toward creating the most open and accountable government in history. And in so doing, we’re learning from those states and municipalities, which are undertaking exciting experiments to bring transparency, participation, and collaboration to the way they work as well.

Open Source in Government Is Irrelevant

Did I get your attention? I was sure I would.

Of course I do believe that both open standards and open source do play an important role in government (and I won’t get into explaining the differences – after six years that people discuss about this I’m confident we all have a fair idea).

Government 2.0: A Gartner Definition

I have just publish a note that provides Gartner definition of Government 2.0 as the use of IT to socialize and commoditize government services, processes and data.

Government promotes open source for public sector

The UK government has published a new policy aimed at promoting the use of open source software in the public sector.

European Public Sector Open-source Guidelines Spark Debate (2008)

European public sector open-source guidelines are igniting a legal debate.

SUSE Linux Enterprise for Government

Around the world, governments at all levels are discovering the advantages of open source technology. They already have recognized its extraordinary potential in the age of always-on e-government. This recognition is a critical turning point—one that reshapes how agencies and organizations choose to improve their services.
And today, many such groups are rejecting rigid proprietary solutions. In fact, when performance, reliability and world-class support really matter, today's governments are turning to open source solutions. And they rely on SUSE® Linux Enterprise from Novell—which delivers interoperability and mission-critical support for the complete computing environment, to help reduce cost, complexity and risk.

F/OSS and the Public Sector

I've long held the view that the public sector stands to gain more from the adoption of F/OSS technology and principles than perhaps any other area. This is not just about saving on software licensing, reducing integration and support costs, fostering reuse and increasing the transparency of software projects. As if these benefits alone were not enough: costs are frequently an issue and transparency can be a serious problem where huge, complex, drawn-out and all-too-often-prone-to-failure public sector ICT projects are concerned. More than this, though, an opportunity exists to create, as Dan Bricklin called it in his article Software That Lasts Two Hundred Years, "Societal Infrastructure Software".

Indonesian Government Urged to Move to Open Source Software

Minister of Communication and Information Technology Tifatul Sembiring said open source software offered unlimited opportunities for local businesses and human resources in the information and communications industry.

Latvia will study if it can cut costs by increasing its use of open source software

An IT trade group earlier that week protested the exact wording of the government plan, which singles out the proprietary software vendor Microsoft.

German Government wants open standards and open source

The newly elected German Government plans to support open standards and open source software. In its four-year coalition contract, the government led by Chancellor Angela Merkel, writes it wants to orient its IT systems on open standards and include open source solutions.

Government CIOs keen on open source software

Free and open source software continues to gain traction in the South African government with more than 90 percent of CIOs and IT managers in favour of using OSS in their departments. And Arno Webb, head of the State IT Agency’s (Sita) open source programme, says that while open source migrations have been slower and not as widespread as originally hoped, government is now firmly on a path to wider open source use. We speak to Webb to gauge government’s open source progress.