British Opposition Leader Encourages Open Source
by Reuven Lerner - Apr. 07, 2008Comments (2)- Related Blog Posts
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Politicians tend to make all sorts of promises. Typically, they say that they'll reduce taxes and offer more services. Promising to promote open source software doesn't happen quite as often.
But today, British opposition leader David Cameron -- gave a speech at the the National Endowment for Science, Technology, and the Arts in which he promised to make government more transparent, so that British taxpayers will know where their money is going. That would be interesting in and of itself, but not that important to readers of OStatic, if it weren't for the fact that Cameron singled out IT spending as a particularly problematic area for government spending. If government budgets were subject to public scrutiny, he said, then there would be a "level playing field for open source software in IT procurement."
In other words: When governments use open source software, then competition increases. Increased competition leads to lower prices and better service. Using open source software would thus allow the government (and taxpayers) to save money, while getting better results. Indeed, Cameron said that if the UK were to switch to open source software, it would save "hundreds of millions of pounds per year."
All of this might well be true, and it points to a growing trend among government officials that see open source software as preferable to its proprietary counterparts. Governments are not only interested in demonstrating transparency, but also in promoting their own local service providers. And while the United States might benefit from the large number of software companies -- and thus jobs -- that sell proprietary software, other countries are not so thrilled to send their money abroad. Open source gives them a chance to support local providers, as well as to spend less overall, given that such jobs are generally put up for public bids.
Another benefit of using open source is the relative lack of lock-in: If you use one open source package, then you are not chained to a particular provider forever. (This, of course, assumes that no custom programming has been done; as any programmer knows, custom code is often a recipe for lock-in, even when it is well documented.) Open source packages, by their very nature, make it relatively easy to import and export data.
Cameron also spoke about the importance of open standards to government projects. It's important to remember that not every function can always be accomplished with open source software, for a variety of reasons. When open source isn't available or desirable, it's still possible to achieve a level playing field by demanding adherence to open standards -- that is, standards that have been defined by industry-wide committees from different companies. Microsoft can probably claim that Windows is a "standard" of sorts, but it is mostly a de facto standard based on market dominance, not based on any international committees giving a stamp of approval for their practices.
Politicians in some other countries, such as Peru and Brazil, have long advocated the use of open source. However, it's one thing when a third-world country talks about saving money with open source, and when the British opposition leader talks about it in a serious setting. It will be interesting to see if leading politicians from other wealthy countries adopt a similar attitude.
Do you think they will?
