UK Govt Action Plan
The Open Source Consortium has written to the Minister for Digital Engagement about the Government Action Plan for Open Source, Open Standards and Re–Use to request a meeting to explore the wider issues surrounding the use of FLOSS.
UK Government Action Plan for Open Source, Open Standards and Re–Use
The Open Source Consortium has written to the Minister for Digital Engagement about the Government Action Plan for Open Source, Open Standards and Re–Use. We generally welcome the positive language, but have requested a meeting to explore some of the wider issues surrounding the use of FLOSS, which do not seem to be mentioned in the report.
Extract from email letter
To: [Minister for Digital Engagement]
From: Gerry Gavigan
Date: Friday 27 Feb 2009
...there are wider beneficial issues associated with FLOSS, which are
not visible when viewed [only] from a technical perspective.
These include:
- benefits to consumers (even if they themselves [do] not use FLOSS) by introducing market threat to incumbents
- local empowerment, the eco-system that emerges around FLOSS encourages a local skills base (technical, training, services)
as well as the more obvious issues such as increased choice.
An aspect of the government role which the report does not appear to address is the network effect of its software implementation decisions, negating consumer choice and increasing the price of closing the digital divide.[...]
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