UK Makes Bold Move on Open Source

The United Kingdom government CIO Council has just published "Open Source, Open Standards and Re–Use: Government Action Plan", taking a strong stance on a preference for open source technologies, communities, and business models.

Here is the forward from the report:

Open Source has been one of the most significant cultural developments in IT and beyond over the last two decades: it has shown that individuals, working together over the Internet, can create products that rival and sometimes beat those of giant corporations; it has shown how giant corporations themselves, and Governments, can become more innovative, more agile and more cost-effective by building on the fruits of community work; and from its IT base the Open Source movement has given leadership to new thinking about intellectual property rights and the availability of information for re–use by others.

This Government has long had the policy, last formally articulated in 2004, that it should seek to use Open Source where it gave the best value for money to the taxpayer in delivering public services. While we have always respected the long-held beliefs of those who think that governments should favour Open Source on principle, we have always taken the view that the main test should be what is best value for the taxpayer.

Over the past five years many government departments have shown that Open Source can be best for the taxpayer – in our web services, in the NHS and in other vital public services.

But we need to increase the pace:

1. We want to ensure that we continue to use the best possible solutions for public services at the best value for money; and that we pay a fair price for what we have to buy.
2. We want to share and re-use what the taxpayer has already purchased across the public sector – not just to avoid paying twice, but to reduce risks and to drive common, joined up solutions to the common needs of government.
3. We want to encourage innovation and innovators - inside Government by encouraging open source thinking, and outside Government by helping to develop a vibrant market.
4. We want to give leadership to the IT industry and to the wider economy to benefit from the information we generate and the software we develop in Government

So we consider that the time is now right to build on our record of fairness and achievement and to take further positive action to ensure that Open Source products are fully and fairly considered throughout government IT; to ensure that we specify our requirements and publish our data in terms of Open Standards; and that we seek the same degree of flexibility in our commercial relationships with proprietary software suppliers as are inherent in the open source world.

This open source strategy addresses these key points. It sets out the steps we need to take across Government, and with our IT suppliers, to take advantage of the benefits of open source.

Tom Watson MP
Minister for Digital Engagement

This is excellent progress and sets the stage for even more widespread adoption of open source throughout the public sector in the UK, including higher education.

I do think this initiative (and the IT industry in general) still needs to take more concrete steps to address the problems with the costs of responding to a tradition enterprise software procurement process. Proprietary vendors cover their high cost of the sales with their large license feeds (you didn't think that money actually went into R&D, did you?). Who will cover the cost of sales when an open source platform should be considered, especially a community-developed project? Not the community behind the project, there's no motivation or funding for that. Not consulting firms (like ours), we have no way to recoup the cost of such an expensive process without charging rediculous consulting rates that no one would pay.

I think the real answer lies is getting institutions to separate the decision of what software platform to select from the decision of what services provider to engage. This adds real value to the procurement process since open source genuinely allows this separation (with proprietary solutions, the choice of one dictates the other). This separation would create a more honest examination of the value of the software platforms, but this examination would have to occur at the cost of the procurer since there is no monetary award that goes with the selection of the open source platform. This would also avoid the problem of having multiple services providers separately proposing the same open source platform in different ways, which can be confusing and often leads to stange selection decisions. Then separately running a procurement process for selecting a services provider would provide for real competition around the value of the services, instead of just having to accept the services of whoever best presents their selected software platform.

We'll be talking more about this open source procurement problem at the Jasig Conference next week in a panel session titled "Your Open Source Procurement Headache". I hope to see you there!