The truth about government and open source

[Fred A. Miller]

On 07/13/2010 04:46 PM, David Gerard wrote:
> On 13 July 2010 20:38, Fred A. Miller <fmiller at lightlink.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> > "Another important point is your relationship to the community, which in
>> > this case is the whole country. You’re taking software from a commons. You
>> > need to donate back. You need to accept the contributions and ideas of
>> > complete outsiders, maybe even foreigners, maybe even Americans."
>> > The above would be a problem with the new gov't in the UK, I think. There's
>> > also some other points made I'd say will be problematic.
>>     
> The new Conservative-LibDem government are by *words* better on this
> than the previous Labour government were. And they've admitted the
> government is actually broke and it's time for some severe austerity,
> and one of open source's important virtues is that it's *cheaper*. The
> proof will, of course, be in the pudding.
>   

Yes, it will. How they implement a change over will be crucial. If they
seek IBM's advice
and software, they might not have that hard a time of it. The reason I
mention IBM, is that
their support is top notch and could make a change a whole lot less
painful. If they have
to rewrite app. software, it could be "sticky wicket." I'm sure you have
a better idea than I
do about what's in place there and what it's been running on.

Fred