Re: [Fsuk-manchester] "Government changes IT procurement process to boost open source"

[Lucy]

2009/2/25 Tim Dobson <address@hidden>:
> from Out Law: http://www.out-law.com//default.aspx?page=9827
>
> "The Government has promised to train more of its technology staff to use
> open source software in a bid to increase the use of open source in the
> public sector. It will also include in contracts the stipulation that
> software can be re-used by other departments."
>
> Thoughts?

I think it's worth looking at http://writetoreply.org/ukgovoss/ as
well, since it links to the original and allows for commenting.

Personally, I think it's a positive step in the right direction.
Unfortunately, it seems to be a tiny-baby step and the actual action
plan itself needs to go much further. For example, in the action plan
paragrah 12 says [1]:

"It will support the use of Open Document Format (ISO/IEC 26300:2006)
as well as emerging open versions of previously proprietary standards
(eg ISO 19005-1:2005 (“PDF”) and ISO/IEC 29500 (“Office Open XML
formats”)."

So, actually all that could say is that government departments should
upgrade to the latest version of MS Office (which will eventually have
support for OOXML, we are told) and Adobe's latest PDF offerings. So
bringing them no closer to software freedom or real open standards.

It also doesn't mention freedom anywhere that I saw, just vague talk
of 'openness'.

[1] http://writetoreply.org/ukgovoss/2009/02/24/action-plan/#12