open source

Tory council's open source plans stymied as government considers policy - Computerweekly

A leading Tory council has been delayed in its attempt to replace Microsoft with open source software because the government is yet to fulfil an election pledge to introduce open standards.

The Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead, one of the four "vanguard" councils testing the government's Big Society project, also came to the attention of Microsoft after its IT strategy promised in April to "move away from the Microsoft Office platform and replace it with an open source or cloud alternative".

IT cuts, Open Sauce and harsh reality

Don't cut new, useful projects, start questioning what you pay for existing services
Responses to the cold, hard light of reality shining through the windows of UK Local Authorities in this newly dawned era of fiscal austerity have been varied.

I expect ICT news like the latest from Essex County Council to be become commonplace, so before we are all inured to stories like theirs, whilst the shock is still fresh so to speak, here's a brief analysis.

Firstly, the facts:

Open Source: It's not just cheap!

I suppose it's inevitable that when you talk about Open Source software to people for the first time the thing they focus on is that it is generally given away for free. "How do you make money if you don't sell your software?" Is the usual skeptical question. "What's the catch?"

As people start to buy into Open Source the line changes to something more akin to, "Well, we tried to warn you that you're crazy but if you're going to ignore that I don't see why we shouldn't benefit from your misplaced hippy principles."

Happy Birthday Debian

Today marks the seventeenth birthday for Debian, a free operating system based on Linux and GNU.

Debian has successfully grown and developed into being one of the strongest Open Source Operating Systems available. For a distribution which is produced by volunteers rather than with commercial backing, this is a great achievement, and a testament to Open Source development,

Open Source: The Capitalists' Choice

I often hear people referring to Open Source and Free Software advocates jokingly, or not so jokingly, as "communists" or "hippies". After all, giving away your "intellectual property" for the greater good may be a nice theory in some ideal world, but it rather flies in the face of capitalism, doesn't it?

Government IT: Open Data, Open Standards and Open Source

As the UK's new Government settles into power the direction in which it is taking ICT policy is becoming clear, the only question is how the admittedly great ideas will be implemented in practice.

Much informed analysis has indentified that despite the counter-intuitive pairing of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, they are in fact closely compatible in many policy areas.

ICT policy is one such area, and by far the majority of the excellent policy ideas from both party's manifestoes have made it through to official UK Government policy.

Becta's Home Access Scheme...not really a scam

I was asked by a colleague in Holland to explain Becta's Home Access scheme and give an update on how it was going. He was concerned that 'it had all gone a bit quiet' and he could not find out much about it.

As an (sorry, the only) accredited supplier of Free Open Source software to schools we had looked into tendering to become an accredited supplier of the Home Access Package so this presumably is why he thought we might know something.

My current interest in the topic was quite low but was given a fillip by two things:

Linux Users, the coolest cats in town.

Only one topic in town this week and that's bullying …

This post however was originally inspired by Glynn Moody's unrelated latest blog (in Computer World) which broadly was a treatise on the simile between organising Open Source folk on any large scale and herding cats...

...this activity is, as we all imagine, a futile pastime ... and moreover transposed into an office context, represents for a manager of 'cats' a role of terrifying proportions.

Microsoft and Child Protection

At a click of a button on Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 (and only on Microsoft Internet Explorer 8) a secret code is launched which reports an individual to a Government organisation called CEOPS which in turn accesses the Police databases.

What exactly does this button do?

I have no idea.

I never do know exactly what proprietary software is doing so this button is no exception, but nor do the developers of Firefox, Safari and Chrome. Who are CEOPs and why are they promoting Microsoft and 'Maddie' on their front page (www.ceops.gov.uk)?

Open Source 2010: New Year's predictions.

New Year predictions are of course a licence to speculate. What's more the normal boundaries of sanity are loosened sufficiently to make the predictions fun rather than libellous.