By silicon.com, 2 March 2006 11:20
Some people might be surprised that the government is only just waking up to the idea that open source is secure, stable and attractive to end users.
Better late than never, though.
And to be honest, Whitehall has been getting cannier about its software spending. Increasingly it has been aggregating demand across the public sector into mega-deals that get government agencies better value than their own bargaining power could have achieved.
But the public sector, in all its various forms, still spends tens of millions each year on proprietary software - including that from Microsoft.
And so the government should get a good return on the small amount of money it has spent on the Open Source Academy - especially if the OSA successfully builds a business case that shows local authorities how they can save money by moving off of their proprietary software packages.
Many authorities might see the attraction of leaving proprietary offerings behind yet don't have the luxury of testing out these ideas on anything other than a very small scale.
But with something as repeatable as migrating desktops to open source, many organisations can learn from the OSA's projects.
IT departments in the private sector are also rarely big enough to take on this kind of research, although many are facing exactly the same dilemmas about what to do with open source. They too can learn from these projects.
The concept of the OSA makes a lot of sense, as a single testing bed for potentially disruptive technologies. Perhaps there are other technologies that could benefit from the same treatment, for example in the mobile space.
After all, why force every part of government to to reinvent the wheel - or in this case rediscover the penguin?
Comments
There are 17 comments. Join the discussion
1. Willy Smith
This is worrying - the ODPM is driving a falsehood in the so called free market. How can we have a free market where the government buts our money into the 'free' option! If this software was 'good enough' to break into the enterprise of business then it would be good enough to standalone in its own right for local and central government. Worse than that the outsourcing companies that these poor councils have to run too are rubbing their hands with glee at the amount of money they can make supporting 'free' Linux. Remeber the trueism 'There is no such thing as a free lunch!" This holds the same in IT.
2. Doug Brown
Willy Smith's comment fails to take account of the fact that the principle reason for proprietary software's ongoing ubiquity, is an enormous in depth marketing strategy run by the vendors, which is backed with massive resources, as well as user inertia.
A 'free' open source system is unlikely in the near future to have such a resource pressing it's message home. This doesn't mean that - in Willy's words - the software isn't 'good enough' to break into the marketplace. It simply means that de-mystifying and levelling the playing field requires much more effort than would otherwise be the case.
Also, it used to be true that free software was worth exactly what you paid for it; that time has long gone however. There is a wealth of highly efficient, superbly written freeware readily available. Systems such as Linux and Open Office represent the maturing of this process, offering enterprise class facilities, for zero cost of ownership.
3. Willy Smith
Had to respond to that one Doug. You have an intresting vision of 'Zero cost of ownership!'. Having been a support of 'Open Source' and 'Free' software for longer than I wish to imagine it is just not true that it costs 'nothing'. Furthermore I agree that there is some OK free software out there now and I work and promote quite a bit of it. And to be honest I make a very good living out of supporting it. What I do know is that most of it, though, is terrible and almost unsupportable.
My grip is I don't want thew Governement using my and your money to drive this software into the mainstream. Lets get real - without the 'hidden' financing of IBM, Novell, Sun and Oracle Linux and its ilk would have died away. Now you are not telling me that those players are not doing that out of charity! Red house has become very profiable out of distributing 'free' software and so have a number of others.
In reality would you trust your bank to store your bank account and credit card to either a Linux or Windows box? Well Windows maybe but not Linux!
Lets cut the romantic view of the world and except Microsoft, IBM and Oracle are really the only way forward.
4. anonymous
Yes I would trust the security of Linux over windows any day. Given the market share of Linux managing servers across the world is pushing 40% presumably not everybody is so worried? As for costs/benefits see http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2006/02/23/bristol_migration.html
Where the benefits are clearly set out by Bristol Council. We need more hard fact here, not wild accusations
5. anonymous
Willy, you apparenly have never used "Free Software". I've used hundreds of "Free Software" applications. All are very supportable. What kind of "IT Pro" are you if you cannot support them? As for "Barely good enough" is that a joke? The US Navy (actually all of the US Millitary) is starting to INSIST on using Linux because there is nothing else. 40 of the 50 fastest computers in the world run on Linux (including all of the top 5). Now I've supported things like Microsoft's XP. Talk about headaches. Thats a nightmare to support. Linux is a dream by comparison. The Total Cost of Ownership is wildly higher for that than for Linux! I'm not just talking about the price of electricity either. I can easily maintain 50 Linux servers all supporting at least 100 clients each (sumultaniously). But I would be very hard pressed to maintain more than 1 server running XP (with 20 clients). I remember looking at updates for the NTP time server software (for example). It came broken out of the box on XP. Microsoft suggested 3rd party software. With Linux, I can get (not someone on the phone, but a developer replying with software) inside of an hour (if you actually manage to find a bug but its extremely rare). Its all about ease of administration, setting things once (and having the settings stay put), not having to have things 'just freeze' or 'just crash'. Linux does not freeze, die, 'just stop', or suffer from viruses, worms or other problems. I've had several Linux systems online for more than 10 years (including a webserver that fetches 50,000 hits per year. Never ever had a problem. Anyone thinking that Linux is merely a 'free lunch' is not looking at how the development works and what's in it for the developers (great software) in a peer-review model that's been around for a few thousand years. I've seen salespeople try to babble on otherwise, but they either have their own agenda, or are being obtuse.
6. Peter Tosh
"it is just not true that it costs 'nothing'."
You are intentionally ignoring what he meant, that is no licenses, no copy-restrictions, no costly terms etc. For companies it cost support-money like any other software.
>> Furthermore I agree that there is some OK free software out there
That's an understatement.. 100 best products 2005:
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,120763,pg,12,00.asp
>> And to be honest I make a very good living out of supporting it.
I don't believe you. If you did, why this rant?
>> What I do know is that most of it, though, is terrible and almost unsupportable."
Do you know how much s***** windows software is out there? Nobody asks you to use it unless you want to, it just gives you a choice without emptying your wallet.. bah..
>> My grip is I don't want thew Governement using my and your money to drive this software into the mainstream.
Why not? Because it's communist-programs? Are you a programmer and someone made a OSS program that is better than yours? Can't be because it's no money in it, according to what you say?!
>> Lets get real - without the 'hidden' financing of IBM, Novell, Sun and Oracle Linux and its ilk would have died away.
What a wash of bull. Linux is not dependent on anything or anyone to be "Linux" more the opposite it exits despite the SW-giants trying to foot anything smaller than itself. It does not have any "goals" as such, it is there out of it's own strengths in allowing people access to tools that almost everyone needs these days to function in a modern technology. It inspires, challenges, enables and power uncountable projects that puts abilities into the hands of private, small and medium companies to prosper.
>> Now you are not telling me that those players are not doing that out of charity! Red house has become very profiable out of distributing 'free' software and so have a number of others.
Red Hat makes money, IBM makes money etc.etc. it's called competition and marketplace dynamics, what's your problem with that?
>> In reality would you trust your bank to store your bank account and credit card to either a Linux or Windows box? Well Windows maybe but not Linux!
Haha, what a joke, most fortune 500 companies use Linux as essential network-infrastructure for their business..I guess WallStreet trusts Linux more that you..golly.
>> Lets cut the romantic view of the world and except Microsoft, IBM and Oracle are really the only way forward.
What romantic view? If it works it works, if I want it I want it, if I don't I don't. Stop being a MS shrill will ya.
7. Ty Miles
So you would trust your personal data on Windows servers? They same software that last year caused Bank Of Americas 15,000 or so ATM's in america to be down for days because of a worm!
Have you ever heard of a worm taking down even close to that many Linux machines all at one time.
Oh I know the excuse that there are more Windows machines then any thing else so that is why so many machines get hacked. But in the case of servers, Linux RUNS the internet. Yahoo, Google, Amazon.com, EVEN when the Windows update site got attacked a couple of years back who did that turn to? Akamai Technologies and what do they use? ALLLLL Linux! Do you think you would ever see RedHat turn to MS software?
We all know that Linux is more secure, always has been and always will be!
8. Jimmy Hughes
First of all, it sounds like MR. Smith is a Microshaft plant. This is not uncommon in articles promoting Linux.
I think that linux.gov is a wonderful idea. The NSA has been working on a version for years now. It is very solid, and combined with the right desktop apps, it could be the way for local and federal agencies to go.
The rest of us profit through the addition of Administrators and developers that will surface. Right now, there are tens of thousands of Microshaft Administrators working for our Government, that though they hold numerous credintials, and are very knowledgeable, are reduced to emailing Microshaft when they encounter a bug. Under the Liux model, these admins could fix the problem, then post their solution to a public site, where every administrator would have access to the fix. Unlike the Microshaft model, where after months of denial, they deceide that the bad press about their latest problem is getting too hot, so they add a fix to their terribly slow update page, and you do the update, without really knowing what it will do to your systems.
9. Gustavo Becerra
Willy Smith, your perception of the value and usefulness of ope source software is simply misinformed. Have you asked your self why Google runs their entire server farm on Linux? Why the NSA, NASA, and many other high-caliver goverment agancies around the world use Linux for their heavy-duty computing needs? I think you need to read more and have more of a critical mind. Some how I see some of the Micro$oft FUD in your opinions.
10. Rob Golding
Actually Willy, I deliberately changed banks as the bank I used to use was changing over to MS for all its systems, back office, desktops and counter, something I didn't trust to keep my personal and financial details secure.
I simply refuse to do electronic business with any entity that uses MS and tries to tell me it is secure, I know this to be a lie. This includes the Tax department and my ISP along with the bank.
I even went so far as to refuse electronic wages payment when offered by my last employer as they used Server 2003 for their IT.
11. Niki
"In reality would you trust your bank to store your bank account and credit card to either a Linux or Windows box?"
I already surf the web with a Linux powered computer because it IS more secure than a windows one ; I don't know a SINGLE soul at school (business data processing studies) who doesn't use FireFox instead of MS Internet Explozer ; why should I think otherwise about my bank ?
12. anonymous
Linux is being used in top enterprise systems now. Some of the largest databases are now Oracle on Linux.
13. Mark West
While I agree with both of you on various points. I believe that just like there is a seperation of church and state, there should be a seperation of technology and state. I do not believe that Linux and Open Source software in general will benifit from the governments involvment. We are doin just fine on our own.
There are a number of options for government officials that wish to (almost) painlessly switch to OSS. Most require a small fee but include a lot of help. Others are entirely community driven (Debian), but offer nothing other than a strong community of "hollier than thou" guru's making smartass remarks about reading howto's. I've done my fair share of both. Personally, I don't want OSS to go the way of NASA (constantly being help up by government red tape). Let's keep the governments hands out of it.
When we use something we improve it. As OSS matures it will attract more users but with out healthy competition, from the likes of Microsoft, OSS would become an overbearing dinosour. Take, for example, Microsoft Windows. Before the popularity of Linux, Windows wasn't much more than the butt of a thousand jokes. Without Windows in the marketplace, Linux would go the same route.
Just my 2 cents.
14. Richard Hall
Absolutely agree, from the Windows camp we welcome the competition and strive to ensure we add value above and beyond OSS (supported or otherwise).
One issue that has not been addressed in the thread is that total cost of ownership breaks into many parts including:
Install/deploy/configure
Initial licence
Training
Support/maintenance
So far one of the major reported costs for Desktop OSS deployment has been on training - and I know several lUK ocal authorities rejected use on this ground alone.
I would be interested to see the opinion of other government bodies, and indeed whether the library project mentioned encounters this hurdle or finds that it is not significant in this case.
15. Eur Ing Christopher Thoday
It is understandable the some IT "professionals" who make their money out of supporting Microsoft systems should feel threatened by open source software. That is no excuse for spreading FUD.
As a system administrator I use OSS because it is far more reliable, secure and efficient than anything that Microsoft has produced. More importantly it puts me in control when things go wrong. In my experience it is not difficult to administer. While any change causes some disruption I do not believe that there are heavy training cost involved.
The huge cost to the economy of Microsoft computer viruses could be drastically reduced by switching to Firefox and Thunderbird - but, of course, the IT security industry would not like that.
16. anonymous
One of the big OSS issues is the fear of the unknown - and no-one gets sacked for buying the market leader and sticking with known risks and accepted standards. The government is not good at risk they prefer the devils they know - even when these are more expensive, resource intensive and less secure and flexible than OSS. The cost and effort can translate in a managers head into expensive = better and this is the price you need to pay and the effort you must invest for reliable security. This and marketing hype such as Wills can encourage the risk averse to develop safe havens for the more expensive and least effective solutions even when the public purse is at stake.
17. anonymous
Red House? I think he means something else. Maybe I'm a bit picky, but this shows how much Willy realy knows.