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As a Lib Dem, I'm actually very embarrassed about this. Especially since it was Vince Cable's department (BIS) who seems to have led the charge against OSS from

As a Lib Dem, I'm actually very embarrassed about this. Especially since it was Vince Cable's department (BIS) who seems to have led the charge against OSS from within government. Ridiculous.

JackdawX 15y ago
Are you a lib dem member or supporter? As someone who had optimistically voted for the lib dems in the last election, I think there are plenty of reasons for them to be embarrassed about their time in power. Anti-tech, anti-education policies are being proposed that we were led to believe the Lib Dems would be tempering, but from the point of view of the average person I can't see anything of the sort happening.
- tehwalrus 15y ago
  Member and campaigner. We have a major perception problem on that score - the work our ministers do tempering policy is inside the opaque government bubble, and the public (and indeed activists like me) have no idea who thought what before the unified public face of government is presented. People on our democratic, party wide Federal Policy Committee have a better idea, because they're called in before decisions go public (I was astonished when I learned this, and greatly encouraged!) I sincerely hope that the coalition process is made more open before we get to a 2015 "but we were saying this in private"-match during the election campaign (which would leave us looking either disingenuous, weak, or both.) (Edited for grammar.)
  - toyg 15y ago
    If what you are saying is correct, then policy proposals from the Tories are even more insane than what bubbles up, which makes the whole idea of being in power with them even more distasteful. Considering the AV referendum is now gone, what's the point of staying with them any longer, apart from the occasional ministerial pension ?
    - tehwalrus 15y ago
      What is the point of being in government and actually having influence over decisions that affect the lives of millions of people? Power is a device to improve the world - you hold onto it for as long as you can to do the most good you can. Obviously "as long as you can" is defined in terms of democratic parameters (without which people would do significantly less good with their power.) If tory policy is even more insane (scrapping all employment law, anyone* ?) then that makes it even more important for us to be in there fixing it. * - no, really, from one of Cameron's advisers.
      - robhu 15y ago
        Do you have a citation for the claim that 'scrapping all employment law' was a Tory policy? Or do you mean that it was the viewpoint of one advisor (and so not Tory policy), or even that one advisor said something that might be construed in that way, or entertained the idea of such a thing?
        stuaxo 15y ago
        Found them suggesting scraping unfair dismissal laws: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/10/26/unfair-dismissal-law-scra_n_1032144.html http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/10/26/unfair-dismissal-...
        robhu 15y ago
        The original claim made was "If tory policy is even more insane (scrapping all employment law, anyone* ?)", "* - no, really, from one of Cameron's advisers." According to the article this was never Tory policy, so that is false. The Huffington Post are a second hand source here, reporting on something in the Telegraph. The details of course aren't available in either, but what is in the Telegraph (who actually saw the thing) look more reasonable (whether one agrees with the gist of it is another thing). It's also rather misleading to say "one of Cameron's advisors" which implies this is a paid employee, rather than a successful businessman who has been asked to make a report (I imagine the government ask for and receive many reports most of which they ignore or only take elements of).
  - robhu 15y ago
    This sounds a bit suspicious to me - saying that the Lib Dems are the good guys who are tempering the bad policies of the Conservatives, but as it's all done in secret we can't see how good they are. The Lib Dems pledged to oppose tuition fee rises for instance but in fact raised them from £3k to £9k, and apparently /planned/ to do so before coming in to power http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2010/11/14/lib-dems-plotted-tuition-fees-u-turn-before-g http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2010/11/14/lib-dems-plotted-t...
    - tehwalrus 15y ago
      Well, it's my opinion. politics is the definition of subjective, alas! "The Lib Dems" don't 'plan' stuff like that. We're a distributed party without any kind of hierarchy of command (to the extent that local parties often contradict one another, much to our opponents' mirth.) We have people at different levels making different decisions about policy for that level, sure, but we're not obliged to agree with people up the chain (as I certainly didn't and don't on Tuition Fees.) My local party, for example, strengthened a Labour council motion condemning the NHS bill, partly due to my urging. Clegg was only ever a reluctant supporter of the Tuition Fees policy, but the NUS pledge was the NUS pledge, and all our candidates everywhere chose to sign it, including him. And 14 kept it and voted against the bill, too.
      - robhu 15y ago
        The Lib Dems have a reputation for saying whatever people want to hear, and it was suggested before the election that they would turn around when they were in power. I didn't think so so I voted for them, but I've now learned the error of my ways. Clegg's lies about the tuition fees policy is but one example. I doubt the public will be fooled a second time.
        tehwalrus 15y ago
        I'm sad you think so. So what we say/said on Europe, on Immigration, and on the Deficit even before the election, that was all "what people wanted to hear" was it? Tuition fees was technically a lie, because all our MPs signed a "pledge" which some of them (more than half) then broke by voting for it or abstaining. However, other examples are hard to find, because compromising on a manifesto to form a coalition is a legitimate reason to diverge from "what we said" in "what we're doing." The Guardian did some analysis (which I can't seem to find now) that said something like 60% of our manifesto was being delivered under the coalition. I think that's pretty good going for the smaller partner, and while some of what the government is doing makes me good and angry (DLA 'assessments,' housing benefit changes especially in London, Tuition Fees, scrapping of PCTs, and so on), other bits are much better for it (the Tuition Fees repayment system, the Pupil Premium which was doubled again recently, raising the income tax threshold, the Youth Contract, and so on.)
mjwalshe 15y ago
err actually I think you (lib dems) have a lot more to worry about than some pious (used in its political sense here) belief by OS Zellots and hobby programmers that some how Open Office is a better solution than MS Office for a huge (largely non technical) user base. The cost of a MS licence is so tiny when compared to the cost of employing some one - and when you factor in the cost of retraining it makes very good sense - whose hospitals or schools would you close to pay for all this.
- tehwalrus 15y ago
  This is about defending the coalition agreement, which has aspirations about open source software and open data in it that come straight out of the Lib Dem policy book. Admittedly Europe wasn't (and OSS/Open Standards wouldn't be) the most electorally-useful topic to pick a fight on, but since when have Lib Dems ever done anything the easy way. It's our policy, I and some of our voters care about it, and we won the concession off the tories during the coalition negotiation. That should be enough to make us fight for it, when the time comes.
- jsmcgd 15y ago
  Where governments are concerned, MS Office licences can be huge and will always be more expensive than free. They will always always be more restrictive too than free software, by definition. I agree that a licence by itself won't be the biggest expense a government will have, but the sleazy insidious contracts that they are normally bundled with are the most dangerous aspects licensed software. One example: why do so many government institutions still use IE6? It's because of the eye-watering expenses they're obliged to pay to upgrade their own systems. This type of type of contractual bondage must end. Especially when it comes to tax payers money. Unnecessary licences for sub standard MS software comes out of the same purse as that used to pay for life saving operations. It's always worth bearing this in mind.
  - mjwalshe 15y ago
    Its not cheaper if you have to retain a lot of people - and Open office is not well liked by ordinary users "its shit" was one comment by a coworker at my last place And look at any advert for a Govenment IT project its always to many chiefs and not enough experianced devlopers. IE6 lock in is due to cheap and shoddy work by the "outsourced" developers and a lack of technical nous (incopentance being more blunt) in the specification stage PPI has a lot to answer for.

As a Lib Dem, I'm actually very embarrassed about this. Especially since it was Vince Cable's department (BIS) who seems to have led the charge against OSS from within government. Ridiculous.

JackdawX 15y ago

Are you a lib dem member or supporter? As someone who had optimistically voted for the lib dems in the last election, I think there are plenty of reasons for them to be embarrassed about their time in power. Anti-tech, anti-education policies are being proposed that we were led to believe the Lib Dems would be tempering, but from the point of view of the average person I can't see anything of the sort happening.

tehwalrus 15y ago
Member and campaigner. We have a major perception problem on that score - the work our ministers do tempering policy is inside the opaque government bubble, and the public (and indeed activists like me) have no idea who thought what before the unified public face of government is presented. People on our democratic, party wide Federal Policy Committee have a better idea, because they're called in before decisions go public (I was astonished when I learned this, and greatly encouraged!) I sincerely hope that the coalition process is made more open before we get to a 2015 "but we were saying this in private"-match during the election campaign (which would leave us looking either disingenuous, weak, or both.) (Edited for grammar.)
- toyg 15y ago
  If what you are saying is correct, then policy proposals from the Tories are even more insane than what bubbles up, which makes the whole idea of being in power with them even more distasteful. Considering the AV referendum is now gone, what's the point of staying with them any longer, apart from the occasional ministerial pension ?
  - tehwalrus 15y ago
    What is the point of being in government and actually having influence over decisions that affect the lives of millions of people? Power is a device to improve the world - you hold onto it for as long as you can to do the most good you can. Obviously "as long as you can" is defined in terms of democratic parameters (without which people would do significantly less good with their power.) If tory policy is even more insane (scrapping all employment law, anyone* ?) then that makes it even more important for us to be in there fixing it. * - no, really, from one of Cameron's advisers.
    - robhu 15y ago
      Do you have a citation for the claim that 'scrapping all employment law' was a Tory policy? Or do you mean that it was the viewpoint of one advisor (and so not Tory policy), or even that one advisor said something that might be construed in that way, or entertained the idea of such a thing?
      - stuaxo 15y ago
        Found them suggesting scraping unfair dismissal laws: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/10/26/unfair-dismissal-law-scra_n_1032144.html http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/10/26/unfair-dismissal-...
        robhu 15y ago
        The original claim made was "If tory policy is even more insane (scrapping all employment law, anyone* ?)", "* - no, really, from one of Cameron's advisers." According to the article this was never Tory policy, so that is false. The Huffington Post are a second hand source here, reporting on something in the Telegraph. The details of course aren't available in either, but what is in the Telegraph (who actually saw the thing) look more reasonable (whether one agrees with the gist of it is another thing). It's also rather misleading to say "one of Cameron's advisors" which implies this is a paid employee, rather than a successful businessman who has been asked to make a report (I imagine the government ask for and receive many reports most of which they ignore or only take elements of).
- robhu 15y ago
  This sounds a bit suspicious to me - saying that the Lib Dems are the good guys who are tempering the bad policies of the Conservatives, but as it's all done in secret we can't see how good they are. The Lib Dems pledged to oppose tuition fee rises for instance but in fact raised them from £3k to £9k, and apparently /planned/ to do so before coming in to power http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2010/11/14/lib-dems-plotted-tuition-fees-u-turn-before-g http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2010/11/14/lib-dems-plotted-t...
  - tehwalrus 15y ago
    Well, it's my opinion. politics is the definition of subjective, alas! "The Lib Dems" don't 'plan' stuff like that. We're a distributed party without any kind of hierarchy of command (to the extent that local parties often contradict one another, much to our opponents' mirth.) We have people at different levels making different decisions about policy for that level, sure, but we're not obliged to agree with people up the chain (as I certainly didn't and don't on Tuition Fees.) My local party, for example, strengthened a Labour council motion condemning the NHS bill, partly due to my urging. Clegg was only ever a reluctant supporter of the Tuition Fees policy, but the NUS pledge was the NUS pledge, and all our candidates everywhere chose to sign it, including him. And 14 kept it and voted against the bill, too.
    - robhu 15y ago
      The Lib Dems have a reputation for saying whatever people want to hear, and it was suggested before the election that they would turn around when they were in power. I didn't think so so I voted for them, but I've now learned the error of my ways. Clegg's lies about the tuition fees policy is but one example. I doubt the public will be fooled a second time.
      - tehwalrus 15y ago
        I'm sad you think so. So what we say/said on Europe, on Immigration, and on the Deficit even before the election, that was all "what people wanted to hear" was it? Tuition fees was technically a lie, because all our MPs signed a "pledge" which some of them (more than half) then broke by voting for it or abstaining. However, other examples are hard to find, because compromising on a manifesto to form a coalition is a legitimate reason to diverge from "what we said" in "what we're doing." The Guardian did some analysis (which I can't seem to find now) that said something like 60% of our manifesto was being delivered under the coalition. I think that's pretty good going for the smaller partner, and while some of what the government is doing makes me good and angry (DLA 'assessments,' housing benefit changes especially in London, Tuition Fees, scrapping of PCTs, and so on), other bits are much better for it (the Tuition Fees repayment system, the Pupil Premium which was doubled again recently, raising the income tax threshold, the Youth Contract, and so on.)

mjwalshe 15y ago

err actually I think you (lib dems) have a lot more to worry about than some pious (used in its political sense here) belief by OS Zellots and hobby programmers that some how Open Office is a better solution than MS Office for a huge (largely non technical) user base. The cost of a MS licence is so tiny when compared to the cost of employing some one - and when you factor in the cost of retraining it makes very good sense - whose hospitals or schools would you close to pay for all this.

tehwalrus 15y ago
This is about defending the coalition agreement, which has aspirations about open source software and open data in it that come straight out of the Lib Dem policy book. Admittedly Europe wasn't (and OSS/Open Standards wouldn't be) the most electorally-useful topic to pick a fight on, but since when have Lib Dems ever done anything the easy way. It's our policy, I and some of our voters care about it, and we won the concession off the tories during the coalition negotiation. That should be enough to make us fight for it, when the time comes.
jsmcgd 15y ago
Where governments are concerned, MS Office licences can be huge and will always be more expensive than free. They will always always be more restrictive too than free software, by definition. I agree that a licence by itself won't be the biggest expense a government will have, but the sleazy insidious contracts that they are normally bundled with are the most dangerous aspects licensed software. One example: why do so many government institutions still use IE6? It's because of the eye-watering expenses they're obliged to pay to upgrade their own systems. This type of type of contractual bondage must end. Especially when it comes to tax payers money. Unnecessary licences for sub standard MS software comes out of the same purse as that used to pay for life saving operations. It's always worth bearing this in mind.
- mjwalshe 15y ago
  Its not cheaper if you have to retain a lot of people - and Open office is not well liked by ordinary users "its shit" was one comment by a coworker at my last place And look at any advert for a Govenment IT project its always to many chiefs and not enough experianced devlopers. IE6 lock in is due to cheap and shoddy work by the "outsourced" developers and a lack of technical nous (incopentance being more blunt) in the specification stage PPI has a lot to answer for.