On the ‘Open Source, Open Standards and Re-Use: UK Government Action Plan’
As anyone interested in the politics and wider adoption of FOSS will know by now, the UK Government recently released an updated policy statement regarding “Open Source and Open Standards”. I made a brief comment on it when the news broke, but have now had more time to consider the document in more depth.
Firstly, It’s quite minor but nevertheless a shame that the pdf document was issued using Arial and Times New Roman embedded fonts that are not available on a free license. This leads me nicely to my second general point.
Why is there no mention of “Free Software“? There is a distinction between Open Source and Free software that, for some at least, is extremely important.
Anyway, having now read the pdf policy document in full, I want to air my thoughts on it.
After the preamble and introduction, in ‘The Way Forward’ we read this:
The Government considers that in order to deliver its key objectives a programme of positive action is now needed to ensure that there is an effective „level playing field‟ between open source and proprietary software and to realise the potential contribution open source software can make to wider aims of re-use and open standards. This programme needs to consist both of a more detailed statement of policies and of practical actions by government and its suppliers.
Notice how this is discussing a programme to generate policy statements and actions. I actually reckon this is really good stuff but am a little concerned about the fact there aren’t any demonstrable programmes or actions already created. In other words, it looks like we’ll have to wait for the bureaucrats to get their ink flowing before anything “real” happens. There are some actions at the end of the document, and although they are worthy in themselves they are rather broad and easy to spend years developing. Small, precise, tactical actions are what is required IMHO.
The objectives of the “programme” itself are pretty darn good from what I can tell. They read like a manifesto from RMS himself…
1. ensure that the Government adopts open standards and uses these to communicate with the citizens and businesses that have adopted open source solutions.
Nice – can I send documents to my MP or local council in ODF today then? (see toward the end of this piece) I don’t use any proprietary software in my business nor home (apart from my wife’s PC that is shortly to become Free too).
2. ensure that open source solutions are considered properly and, where they deliver best value for money (taking into account other advantages, such as re-use and flexibility) are selected for Government business solutions.
Once you do really take into account “re-use” it gets pretty hard to see how proprietary software represents value for money [“Sure Mr. Brown, just buy one copy of Office 2010 and re-use it across the country!”]. I look forward to seeing some detail here and the procurement guidlines for “properly” considering open source solutions.
5. ensure that there are no procedural barriers to the adoption of open source products within government, paying particular regard to the different business models and supply chain relationships involved.
Nice. Good objective.
The next section (6) is called “Policy” and stipulates the policy in broad but laudable terms:
(1) The Government will actively and fairly consider open source solutions alongside proprietary ones in making procurement decisions,
(2) Procurement decisions will be made on the basis on the best value for money solution to the business requirement, taking account of total lifetime cost of ownership of the solution, including exit and transition costs, after ensuring that solutions fulfil minimum and essential capability, security, scalability, transferability, support and manageability requirements.
(3) The Government will expect those putting forward IT solutions to develop where necessary a suitable mix of open source and proprietary products to ensure that the best possible overall solution can be considered.
(4) Where there is no significant overall cost difference between open and non-open source products, open source will be selected on the basis of its additional inherent flexibility.
These first policy item is sort of a catch-all but is quite vague and unmeasurable. I really want to see how they intend to implement, monitor and correct the bad procurement decisions.
The second and third points are indeed measurable and quite clear in their demands which is great.
The forth sounds very promising but again I’d want to know the detail; how the overall cost of the procurement can really be measured when you are comparing apples and oranges. This is a very difficult one to get right and the commercial vendors have many years of practice at coming up with exceptionally (ahem) creative pricing.
The Policy then goes onto non-open source software guidance:
Non-Open Source Software
(5) The Government will, wherever possible, avoid becoming locked in to proprietary software. In particular it will take exit, rebid and rebuild costs into account in procurement decisions and will require those proposing proprietary software to specify how exit would be achieved.
(6) Where non open source products need to be purchased, Government will expect licences to be available for all public sector use and for licences already purchased to be transferable within the public sector without further cost or limitation. The Government will where appropriate seek pan-government agreements with software suppliers which ensure that government is treated as a single entity for the purposes of volume discounts and transferability of licences.
Nice: “The Government will, wherever possible, avoid becoming locked in to proprietary software.” A fine objective if ever I read one.
I’m not sure about number 6 though. I guess it depends largely on existing contracts as to the flexibility they have with their current licenses but this must be sending shivers through Redmond right now.
Open Standards didn’t get much coverage. I guess it says what it must but open standards are one of the reasons we have FOSS today. The IETF who gave us amongst others RFC 793 and 791 (without which the Internet wouldn’t exist) and the W3C who protect and publish the open specifications for the world wide web are light-years ahead of the ISO as we have seen recently with the OOXML debacle. At least this part of the policy will be very easy to monitor. Send your Doctor, MP or Councillor an ODF document for example.
For IT and digital standards, the ISO is becoming totally redundant. Thinking back to when I was a lad, we had X.25, X.400, X.500, the ISO 7 layer reference model OSI and a ludicrously complex network management protocol known as CMIP. In their full specifications, these are all virtually obsolete now although some have been used in a cut-down form for modern standards like LDAP for example. But the reality is the ISO/ITU (CCITT) take too long, and try to be too clever. So Mr Brown and Mr. Watson, please do be careful – there are standards, and then there are standards…
The “Re-use” section gets really interesting and shows quite a good understanding of what FOSS is all about. But how on earth do they expect to achieve this
… look to secure full rights to bespoke software code or customisations of commercial off the shelf products it procures, so as to enable straightforward re-use elsewhere in the public sector.
without paying an arm and a leg for it. Can you imagine Larry or Steve agreeing to giving “full rights” (whatever that means) without a blank cheque? I can’t. In the same paragraph the following sentence is a really excellent policy:
Where appropriate, general purpose software developed for government will be released on an open source basis.
In the US public sector they have, for some time I believe, had a policy that basically means stuff created by and on-behalf of the public belongs to the public and is in the public domain. When I read stuff like this from what is the most draconian Government we have had in generations I am somewhat sceptical and really wonder how much actual input Number 10 and the policy makers have had in this document. The state that wants to restrict the citizen’s liberty whilst protecting the state itself so judiciously doesn’t feel like the same state that will write open source software. Time will tell on this one.
In the final section “Action Plan” there are 10 actions presented for the Government. These actions cover producing published guidance on procurement which will include words like:
a standard form of words for Statements of Requirements to state positively that the Government’s policy is to consider open source solutions on their merits according to total lifetime cost of ownership.
and
The CIO Council and the OGC, working with industry and drawing on best practice from other countries, will institute a programme of education and capability-building for the Government IT and Procurement professions on the skills needed to evaluate and make the best use of open source solutions . The aim will be to raise the level of awareness, skills and confidence in the professions in the different licensing, support, commercial and cost models associated with open source solutions.
Which is very interesting to an Open Source Consulting Business like my own 😉
As is the following which I feel is particularly strongly worded compared with the rest of the document:
Government Departments will challenge their suppliers to demonstrate that they have capability in open source and that open source products have been actively considered in whole or as part of the business solution which they are proposing. Where no overall open source solution is available suppliers will be expected to have considered the use of open source products within the overall solution to optimise the cost of ownership. Particular scrutiny will be directed where mature open source products exist and have already been used elsewhere in government. Suppliers putting forward non-open source products will be asked to provide evidence that they have carefully considered open source alternatives and to explain why they have been rejected.
Well, well, well:
The Government will specify requirements by reference to open standards and require compliance with open standards in solutions where feasible. 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 (“PDFâ€) and ISO/IEC 29500 (“Office Open XML formatsâ€). It will work to ensure that government information is available in open formats, and it will make this a required standard for government websites.
Can I say that again… “The Government will support the use of ODF” and a lovely phrase for OOXML “open versions of previously proprietary standards”. That’s possibly the kindest description of the worst specification ever written. Kudos for the clear mandate for ODF.
The last action is probably the most important of the lot:
Government will communicate this policy and its associated actions widely and will expand it as necessary. It will engage with the Open Source community and actively encourage projects that might, in due course, develop into „Government Class‟ products. It will keep the policy and progress on the actions under review, and report on progress publicly.
Firstly, I want to see how this policy is going to be communicated to the huge oil tanker called the UK Government. Secondly, it is spot on to want to engage with the FOSS Community but they will have to put in place some mechanisms, resources, on-line locations etc. where this engagement can take place. And the Government will have to learn very fast that for FOSS to work, the community has to collaborate in all directions and its members must give as much, if not more, than they take to get real benefit. It’s a bit like love… The more you give, the more you get back.
My biggest concern with this is the executive. Over the last 10 years or so their insistence on draconian lawmaking and interference in our liberty does make me sceptical about the commitment from the top dogs and hence the drive to pull this off. But, I will support this effort in whatever way I can until that scepticism is either proved wrong or right.
To conclude this rather long post then, I think this could be a huge and historical turning point in the health of FOSS here in the UK and I am very excited about the tone and sentiment behind this policy document. The authors (Our Government) have started to roll a very large ball down a very long slope. If the current Government do not take this seriously, or should the administration change and turn away, then the ball will roll out of control. If they do what they say and keep close to the community then I honestly believe there could a very bright future ahead of us.
Microsoft’s Fixed Rate Tax approaches 100%
Yesterday, we decided that we needed to get a new laptop for our business.
Nothing particularly staggering about that you might think. And, on the face of it you’d be spot on. However, as you probably know, our company The Open Learning Centre is focused on delivering business solutions and services based on Open Source technology.
Consequently what I definitely DO NOT WANT is to be forced to buy any Operating System with my hardware. I would like to choose for myself. I might want Ubuntu, or SUSE or Mint or something else. Or, god-forbid (and this is purely for example’s sake) I could choose to install one of the many valid, and already paid for, copies of Windows 95, 98, ME or XP that I have lying around.
So after a great deal of Googling yesterday, I found a grand total of TWO companies here in the UK that publicly offered me the opportunity to buy a new laptop on-line without an operating system.
The only other way is to buy individual components and assemble your own computer. This can end up being more expensive and is certainly not a trivial task, especially with a laptop. I do build my own desktops but wouldn’t consider doing the same for a portable PC.
I did look at Dell’s Ubuntu offerings but the spec of the machines wasn’t quite what I needed and – to be honest – all the “Dell Recommends Windows Vista” and notices about “Beware! This Computer Doesn’t Run Windows” made me feel a bit patronised. I understand to a certain degree the problems Dell face and must address; support and an audience of not-so-techy customers so I am not going to denigrate what they are doing. I just hope in a year or two’s time, I will be able to choose NO operating system on any of their computers.
But to get back to the main thread of this. Just two companies here in the UK that could offer me a laptop which I could choose to have supplied without an Operating System. That is bloody scandalous. EVERY other laptop (apart from the 2 Dell machines and some Asus EEe PCs [Update: I was a bit brief here. There are few other vendors who supply Linux pre-installed. But they do not offer the choice of “no operating system”]) would be supplied with a Microsoft Operating System. I had little or no choice; I could always have bought a Mac but that’s a somewhat similar issue.
Irrespective of the fact that I wouldn’t use their crappy and expensive software anyway, I have plenty of old discs with Microsoft’s operating systems on them that I have legitimately paid for and are not installed on any of my other computers. I’m sure there are many millions more like them. So why must I pay for another copy? This is completely unfair and should be (if it isn’t already) illegal.
The Globalisation Institute submitted a report to the EU commission last September saying just that:
Computers in the European Union should be sold without a bundled operating system, according to this submission to the European Commission. It says that the bundling of Microsoft Windows with computers is not in the public interest, and prevents meaningful competition in the operating system market.
The current situation basically means that for almost every single PC sold around the world, I believe we (you) are paying a TAX to Microsoft. We have already seen how they have done this with our schools. And we have seen Becta’s responses here and here.
I suggest that interested readers write to their MP or MEP, explain about this grievance and ask what the EU is doing about the report above.
On a positive note however, the two companies that did enable me to buy OS free computers deserve to be properly applauded, mentioned here, and please pay them a visit when you are looking for new hardware.
The first is a highly customisable offering from PCSpecialist.co.uk (http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/). You can build desktops, towers, cubes and laptops to your own specifications and choose your Operating System or not as you wish. Removing the OS saves you anything from about £60 to £120 depending on your other choices.
The second is a more “mainstream” computer business. And was where we decided to buy from in the end as the price/spec was just a bit better for my particular requirements. That company is Novatech (http://www.novatech.co.uk). Yes, Novatech. It looks as though you can choose your operating system (or not as you wish) for any of their PCs. Be they laptops, servers or desktops. They have a good range and probably the best value we found anywhere. Choosing no OS saves you anything between approx. £50 and £300 depending on your choice of hardware.
Up to £300 quid Microsoft TAX… And it’s a fixed penalty too. Your hardware could cost £250 or £2500 – it doesn’t matter to them. Next time you are equipping your business or home with new computers please think about this first. You can have Ubuntu Linux Desktop Edition and/or Server Edition for free. You can copy, re-use, install on as many machines as you wish and they will provide much better performance with no usage restrictions either…
Microsoft reported to the OFT by Becta
Remember this article (Would you buy software licenses you can’t use?) I wrote a little while ago? Well it seems as though Becta have had enough trying to negotiate with Microsoft and have referred them to the Office of Fair Trading for alleged anti-competitive practices in the schools software market.
Hooray. This is good news. According to the original article:
The agency’s main concerns surround the limitations Microsoft places on schools using its subscription licensing arrangements and the potential interoperability difficulties for schools, pupils and parents who wish to use alternatives to Microsoft’s Office software, including “free to use” alternatives.
They missed an opportunity here when they could have suggested that Schools deploy OpenOffice.org instead.:
Becta’s advice to schools considering moving to Microsoft’s School Agreement subscription licensing model is that they should not do so. Schools must be legally licensed for all the software they are using, and if licensing Microsoft products is an imperative they should consider using a perpetual agreement such as ‘Select’ until such time as the OFT have responded to our complaint.
But they make up for that slip up a bit by saying here:
Becta’s advice to schools in relation to the deployment of Office 2007 remains that schools and colleges should only deploy Office 2007 when its interoperability with alternative products is satisfactory. That would necessarily imply effective support by Microsoft of the internationally approved ODF file format.
About time too. Next time you talk to your childrens’ teacher tell them about Open Source software and OpenOffice.org in particular. Perhaps we could save the country a few Million quid and get some more teachers/books/hardware/sports equipment or anything else that would be more useful and valuable than a piece of paper from Microsoft; that’s all you get in reality…
Would you buy software licenses that you can’t use?
I don’t often get surprised or shocked by stuff – events and such normally just strike me as one of those things or simply inevitable. Today however, I learned that our schools and further education establishments are being screwed!
If that doesn’t make sense, here it is in English…
Here in the UK, the government commissioned a report into Microsoft’s academic licensing programmes. The research and report publication is by Becta. [WHO?] “Becta is the Government’s lead partner in the strategic development and delivery of ICT for the schools and the learning and skills sectors.”
The interim findings are nothing short of scandalous and I am surprised that this hasn’t received more coverage. Here are some key quotes from the report:
Microsoft’s subscription licensing agreements are all or nothing: in other words, if a school wants to cover any of its ICT estate using a subscription agreement, it must cover all its ‘eligible PCs’. Microsoft has set the definition of an eligible PC as any computer with a specification of a PII processor or higher (the PII was launched in 1997). The eligible PC definition also includes Apple Macintosh computers (G3 or higher). This approach results in over-licensing, double licensing and other anomalies.
So basically some of our schools (and I don’t know how many) are paying Microsoft licenses on each and every PC they acquire. This includes machines which may be too old or unsuitable to run the standard application/OS package that their license provides.
Schools subscription pricing is on the basis of eligible PCs, where licensing for Microsoft products is based on the number of computers in the school estate irrespective of whether the Microsoft product is installed, required or used on all of these computers.
That’s nice 🙁 – NOT.
A further anomaly arises in that a school which uses a mix of Microsoft-based and Apple computers can find itself paying Microsoft a licence fee for software which cannot run on its Apple machines.
Get the idea now? And finally here’s a nice conclusion:
Becta’s advice to institutions that are not currently using a Microsoft subscription licensing agreement is that they should consider carefully whether, in the absence of the changes Becta is recommending, they should enter into such agreements.
You can download the whole report – it’s about 20 pages so not that long – from here: http://publications.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?resID=28197&page=1835.
There is more in this report too – about the way that certain licenses used for schools mean they pay over-the-odds pricing AND that they get tied-in for long-term subscriptions which are so calculated that the cost to cancel or stop becomes prohibitive!
Now, like I said, I’m not usually surprised or shocked by much, but that fact the we (all UK taxpayers) are paying for unnecessary, potentially useless, and duplicated Microsoft software licenses does offend me.
The final blog which led me to this report came from here: http://www.businessreviewonline.com/os/archives/2007/06/paying_for_soft.html where the author describes how, in Norway, they have managed to stop this scandalous activity. Why can’t we do the same?
I have forwarded my findings to the Conservative MP and Shadow Chancellor, George Osbourne, who regularly promotes Open Source initiatives.
If you think this important, please contact your local MP and ask for them to explain why we are paying tax on software that our kids will never use?
