UK Conservatives Point out the Politics in Proprietary by risa
I’m going hard with the aliterative titles these days. I think it’s nice in a epic saga, Beowulf kind of way. I also think this is a nice twist- the shadow minister in British Parliment making a passionate and eloquent argument against any ruling body’s dependency on closed software. And in fact, he puts OS right on the line as a campaign promise. Though of course it’s odd for me, (knee jerk lefty that i am =), to wrap my head around a conservative open source proposition done in good faith, the fact of the matter is that OS does naturally what the Green party here in Canada attempts – it appeals to people who self identify on either side of the emotional political spectrum by being plain good sense. (And interestingly, we know- green and linux are connected). Osborne, the shadowy figure in question, is particularly astute toward the end of this quote in explaining that support for open source does not translate into a rallying anti-microsoft cry. Personally I think Microsoft and proprietary solutions in general will always have an important role to play. There are certain benefits to their development processes that become even more important and cool when they work in a balanced sort of symbiosis with the open source community. The work now in arguing for open source is about creating that healthful balance, and integrating the redundancy that open source and the web provides into systems like governance to improve collective participation, ownership and efficiency.. and awesomeness.
George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, has critisised the government over its apparent lack of support for open-source software.
He said that many of the world’s multinational corporations are developing open-source software strategies, and that “far-sighted governments are also taking advantage of this trend”.
But Osborne said the case in the UK was very different. Speaking on Thursday at a conference organised by the Royal Society for the Arts, he said: “In recent months, Conservative MPs have put down parliamentary questions that reveal most central government departments make use of no open-source software whatsoever”.
The problem is “the cultural change has not taken place in government”, and, within government, the balance is weighted against open source. “There isn’t a level playing field for open-source software,” he said.
“Too many companies are frozen out of government IT contracts, stifling competition and driving up costs,” he said. “Not a single open-source company is included in Catalyst, the government’s list of approved IT suppliers.” One of the problems is that “a government IT system is incompatible with other types of software, which stifles competition and hampers innovation”.
He condemned the “litany of IT projects that have collapsed or spiralled over budget”, and said: “It’s clear that this has meant billions of pounds wasted and public service reform being hampered”.
The shadow chancellor went on to applaud “software that’s developed collectively”, and he criticised the government’s strategy of sticking to the major vendors. The result is that “unlike traditional proprietary software, users can access the source code, making it possible for them to tailor the software to their needs and make constant iterative improvements”.
Osborne also set out the Conservative party’s strategy on technology, pointing to “three pillars” on which the Conservatives intend to build — equality of information, social networking and open source. He said that they would enable a future government to “recast the political settlement for the digital age”.
Osborne was keen to explain that he saw open source not just as software, but as a concept of collaboration. And he was careful to avoid implying that to support open source was to condemn proprietary vendors such as Microsoft. “Adopting open-source software in government departments does not necessarily mean having to stop using Microsoft products,” he said.
Read the interview in full, and Microsoft’s measured response, on ZDNET.
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