7 ms·

I don't see the big deal, to be honest. Spain has successfully pulled this off a number of times. Fact is, all governments should force, by law, open standards

by forca 12y ago

I don't see the big deal, to be honest. Spain has successfully pulled this off a number of times. Fact is, all governments should force, by law, open standards for all governmental communications: software, formats, you name it. MS is sadly the de facto business standard and the files MS Office generate are much larger than the same content under .ods or .odt or other open formats. All that proprietary algorithm cruft underneath. Government should only be allowed to use Free/Libre software to prevent proprietary lock in. To do so would free up vast sums from the evil that is software licensing. Software for government should be free as in beer and free as in freedom. Full stop. Nothing else is acceptable to remain above board. Spain has done this, so we know the effort has been successful. Government should force open standards. Period. There should be third-party government workers ensuring there is no corruption with software vendors and/or someone getting kickbacks.

danudey 12y ago
Governments should use whatever is in the best interest of the citizens they're serving. If that's open standards and open software (and it often is), that's great. There are some cases, however, where that's either not feasible or not as practical. As an example: smartphones. There's a lot of functionality with modern smartphones (e.g. app distribution, remote management, etc.) which you can't do with open standards. Saying 'only use free software and open standards' is great, except that that would preclude government officials from using any smartphones on the market (Android included), and not using smartphones or tablets would make things worse for government, not better (example: the Saskatchewan government moving to iPads for cabinet ministers to save hundreds of thousands on printing costs for reproducing documents for ministers). And in the end, organization should play to their strengths and consider all the aspects. An increase in licensing fees to MS (which are typically done once, in a volume licensing agreement) may be comparable to ongoing desktop support for new users who aren't familiar. It's much easier to hire office workers, administrative assistants, office managers, etc. who are familiar enough with Microsoft Office to be proficient, but for whom OpenOffice would provide a not-insubstantial learning curve. A lengthened onboarding process plus further desktop support leads to a higher operating cost. The TCO, to use a term I haven't heard for years, can (not definitely, but possibly) be higher with open-source software and operating systems. Likewise, it's much easier to find software solutions to work on Windows platforms than on Linux platforms. The local transportation authority in Vancouver uses a few large software platforms designed specifically to manage large transportation authorities, and which provides everything they need, and which, of course, only runs on Windows. There are open-source solutions, but the support costs may well be the same, since you're still contracting a company to manage the software for you (and the cost of licensing software typically includes some level of ongoing support). Then you'll run into issues where you need large software solutions for which no vendors provide Linux-compatible versions (and WINE is not a solution, nor are VMs with one-off Windows licenses). So yes, open-source should be a serious consideration whenever possible, but restricting government to open-source software only is no better than restricting government to proprietary systems only.
- ewzimm 12y ago
  I don't think you're quite addressing the point raised. Free software in government is not important because of cost savings or efficiency. It is important because of transparency. For example, a proprietary voting machine might have a lower total cost of ownership than a free software machine, however it raises questions about the validity of the voting process when the public isn't allowed to know how it works. The fundamental problem here is that people expect the rules of their government to be transparent, not secret. When parts of the government run on proprietary software, the public is forbidden from knowing important parts about how their government works. Cell phones are a great example. We now know that, in part because of the use of proprietary, non-audited software, government leaders around the world have had private phone calls recorded by the NSA. If they had been using properly analyzed free software, this would not have been possible. So proprietary software not only makes formerly public processes secret but also leaks secrets. If no non-proprietary solution exists, the government needs to invest in creating it. It is impossible to analyze the cost of a government run by proprietary software. Without knowing what secrets are being stolen, what processes are being obfuscated from public view, what documents are made inaccessible to people because of proprietary software requirements, there is no way to know how much is lost by its use. If a government claims to represent its public, it needs to control its processes in a way that is verifiably transparent to the public. This simply isn't possible with proprietary software.

by forca 12y ago

danudey 12y ago

Governments should use whatever is in the best interest of the citizens they're serving. If that's open standards and open software (and it often is), that's great. There are some cases, however, where that's either not feasible or not as practical. As an example: smartphones. There's a lot of functionality with modern smartphones (e.g. app distribution, remote management, etc.) which you can't do with open standards. Saying 'only use free software and open standards' is great, except that that would preclude government officials from using any smartphones on the market (Android included), and not using smartphones or tablets would make things worse for government, not better (example: the Saskatchewan government moving to iPads for cabinet ministers to save hundreds of thousands on printing costs for reproducing documents for ministers). And in the end, organization should play to their strengths and consider all the aspects. An increase in licensing fees to MS (which are typically done once, in a volume licensing agreement) may be comparable to ongoing desktop support for new users who aren't familiar. It's much easier to hire office workers, administrative assistants, office managers, etc. who are familiar enough with Microsoft Office to be proficient, but for whom OpenOffice would provide a not-insubstantial learning curve. A lengthened onboarding process plus further desktop support leads to a higher operating cost. The TCO, to use a term I haven't heard for years, can (not definitely, but possibly) be higher with open-source software and operating systems. Likewise, it's much easier to find software solutions to work on Windows platforms than on Linux platforms. The local transportation authority in Vancouver uses a few large software platforms designed specifically to manage large transportation authorities, and which provides everything they need, and which, of course, only runs on Windows. There are open-source solutions, but the support costs may well be the same, since you're still contracting a company to manage the software for you (and the cost of licensing software typically includes some level of ongoing support). Then you'll run into issues where you need large software solutions for which no vendors provide Linux-compatible versions (and WINE is not a solution, nor are VMs with one-off Windows licenses). So yes, open-source should be a serious consideration whenever possible, but restricting government to open-source software only is no better than restricting government to proprietary systems only.

ewzimm 12y ago
I don't think you're quite addressing the point raised. Free software in government is not important because of cost savings or efficiency. It is important because of transparency. For example, a proprietary voting machine might have a lower total cost of ownership than a free software machine, however it raises questions about the validity of the voting process when the public isn't allowed to know how it works. The fundamental problem here is that people expect the rules of their government to be transparent, not secret. When parts of the government run on proprietary software, the public is forbidden from knowing important parts about how their government works. Cell phones are a great example. We now know that, in part because of the use of proprietary, non-audited software, government leaders around the world have had private phone calls recorded by the NSA. If they had been using properly analyzed free software, this would not have been possible. So proprietary software not only makes formerly public processes secret but also leaks secrets. If no non-proprietary solution exists, the government needs to invest in creating it. It is impossible to analyze the cost of a government run by proprietary software. Without knowing what secrets are being stolen, what processes are being obfuscated from public view, what documents are made inaccessible to people because of proprietary software requirements, there is no way to know how much is lost by its use. If a government claims to represent its public, it needs to control its processes in a way that is verifiably transparent to the public. This simply isn't possible with proprietary software.