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15 Apr 2010
Digital Britain minister Stephen Timms has said in an interview with V3.co.uk that smaller firms should be given more opportunities to compete for public sector contracts, but he was vague when discussing the government's open-source commitments.
We asked Timms how Labour's strategy compares with statements made in the Tory manifesto, which promises to open up the £200bn government procurement market to small and open-source companies, partly by breaking up large ICT projects into smaller components.
Timms said that it would be difficult to tell without further details exactly how the Conservative Party would reform the procurement process.
"I have not seen what kind of reforms they are putting forward, but we want to extend the procurement process to smaller providers," he said.
But Timms was less clear when it came to how the government would encourage more open-source technology into the public sector.
"Open-source software is useful, holding opportunities for low-cost and highly reliable solutions, but I don't think it is right for the government to use only open-source technology," he said.
"I don't think we need to bias procurement in open-source. Just because it is open-source, there is not necessarily cost savings. Government procurement should be most focused on getting the best solution. We intend to be pragmatic in our use of open-source."
The Tory manifesto contains a clear commitment to create "a level playing field for open source ICT in government procurement".
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Over Simplified?
"Open-source software is useful, holding opportunities for low-cost and highly reliable solutions, but I don't think it is right for the government to use only open-source technology," he said. If this is the thinking behind the policy makers then this won't work out well as it over-simplifies the situation. I don't think there are many people who seriously consider ONLY open source technology. It is not a choice of proprietory OR open source - there is plenty of room for both depending on the tasks in hand. The choice of open source or not should be about functionality, freedom to adapt and reuse systems and avoid vendor lock-in and proprietary formats. Also the ability to provide the workforce with applications at home without increased licencing costs should not be overlooked. In the schooL I work in, we provide pupils with install CDs for Open Office, this is not an option for MS Office for obvious reasons. Cost should also be a factor, however there may not be short-term benefits in terms of savings due to change management costs and training but over the medium to long term there should be savings to be made. Open Source is not a "magic bullet", but neither is it something to be shut out of the system because of a lack of companies with multi-million turnover supporting it. A recent example is in the UK Education system - BECTA's requirements stated that potential suppliers of VLEs needed a £10M+ turnover effectively shutting out the worlds most widely used system (Moodle) in favour of more expensive systems with significantly greater on-going costs. At a government level the document storage formats used in Open Office should be preferable to the formats used in MS Office. If there is a level of functionality in MS Office required for a particular task and that functionality is not available in Open Office then that is a good case for purchasing appropriate licences to complement installs of Open Office. In short, co-existance where appropriate not necessarily complete replacement using OSS.
Posted by: Anon 26 Apr 2010
Not clear cut
He makes one remark which is valid; just because something is Open Source doesn't mean it is Low-cost/cheaper/free. In fact most procurements switching to Open Source will require a hefty training budget at least. However anyone taking a long term view (especially with other EU and non-EU governments adopting Open Source to some extent) will see the potential for enormous on-going savings. I for one object to the government shipping millions of pounds overseas to Redmond for the privilege of training my children to become locked into Microsoft products and continuing the cycle. On the other hand do schools have the time and resources to make children truly computer-literate as opposed to training them for office work on the current monopoly provider. And can we trust any government to clamber over the entry-cost barrier to widespread Open Source adoption once the business lobbies step in?
Posted by: JM 21 Apr 2010
Not to be trusted
I don't trust Stephen Timms one bit, especially after seeing him reveal himself for what he is during the Digital Economy Bill (Act) fiasco - a sycophant for big business. He has proved to me that he has no interest whatsoever in innovation, and new business models. I can guarantee you that this man is an enemy of OpenSource technologies (or anything else that's new and poses a threat to those who are already establish and have deep pockets).
Posted by: Ryan Duplitour 16 Apr 2010