Government Commits To Open Source Route

The government has confirmed its intention to buy open source software, stating that it will buy open source rather than proprietary software when the costs are similar.

The rather lukewarm endorsement of open source came in a parliamentary written answer on Tuesday, by Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister. He said that even where there are no significant overall cost differences between open and proprietary products, open source will be selected “on the basis of its additional inherent flexibility”.

Open Source Policy

Maude wrote that the Cabinet Office along with the Office of Government Commerce, is working on “Guidance for Procurers” specifically covering open source software.

“A key principle is that government will actively and fairly consider open source solutions alongside proprietary ones in making procurement decisions,” Maude wrote. “Procurement decisions will be made on the basis of the best value for money solution to the business requirement, taking account of total cost of ownership of the solution.”

No Idea Of Cost Savings

Maude said that no estimates had been made on the likely level of savings that will accrue from transferring to open source software.

“While more open procurement can undoubtedly save money, it is difficult to ascertain precise cost savings from open source software alone as it is one element in the overall solution,” he wrote.

With the coalition government preparing a large round of budget cuts, it is perhaps somewhat surprising that it is not more actively pursuing a more vigorous open source approach. Last year for example the then-opposition Tory party was advised on its web strategy by Tom Steinberg, co-founder of mySociety, which campaigns for smarter use of the Internet and open source software as a way to increase visibility in government.

Status Quo

Yet Maude’s statement is simply a continuation of existing government policy towards open source. The previous UK government promised to use open source where it gave the best value for money to the taxpayer, in its open source action plan (PDF), first published 2004 and updated in 2009 with a promise that open source could save the country £600 million.

Despite this, that policy was criticised as toothless by open source vendors, comparing it with policies in other countries such as Hungary – which allocates a proportion of the IT budget to open source.

This criticism of the government’s approach to open source was reiterated this week by Nick Mayes, senior analyst at Pierre Audoin Consultants.

“Some suppliers may be disappointed that the government didn’t do something more radical such as looking at open standards,” said Mayes, speaking to eWEEK Europe UK. “Look at what the Dutch government is doing regarding open source, and you will see that the UK government is nowhere near as mature in this regard as the Dutch.”

Procurement Contracts

Francis Maude has been a busy man of late.

Earlier this week he managed to get to Atos Origin to sign a new deal with the government that entailed a ’single-client approach’ to engagement with central government. This meant that the government will in future procure IT projects as a single customer, rather than as separate departments, which is the current practice.

Soon after, Capgemini UK Plc became the second service provider to sign a new agreement with the government, dubbed a ‘memorandum of understanding’.