Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Re: UK government getting serious about FOSS?

On 23 February 2011 02:19, Marc Paré <marc@marcpare.com> wrote:

> Le 2011-02-22 18:42, Ian Lynch a écrit :
>
>
> > http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/enterprise-os-how-hard-can-it-be/2011/02/the-government-gets-really-serious-about-open-source/index.htm
> >
> > Could be good news for libreoffice?
>
> Thanks Ian, I have added this to the "LibreOffice in the Press" wiki page.
>
> Sometimes, these are political jostling for more favourable procurement
> terms.


In this case I thnk it is deeper than that. They seem to have appointed some
key people and the Chancellor made very positive noises about FOSS in
opposition before the elections. Cameron, Clegg and Osborne are a new
generation.


> MS may not have provided the UK government terms that were palatable for
> its pocket book. So, the most evident sabre rattling that one would do in
> this case is put into motion the adoption of open source software and file
> formats. I believe, if I remember correctly, this has happened before a few
> years back in the UK. And it worked! Not sure if doing a second time will
> word though. Maybe there were lines drawn in the sand and the final decision
> had to be made.

No doubt it is a sensible strategy on those grounds but since they are
telling all the big systems integrators that they must offer FOSS solutions
I think it is more. They do need to save a lot of money. The previous
government *thought* it had loads of cash so they were utterly complacent on
what they saw as marginal issues. This government is desperate to save money
especially in areas that don't affect frontline services in health and
education. The seem to think FOSS is a real possibility. The worst case
scenario is that it forces proprietary prices down so really its a
no-brainer strategy.

> Hopefully, this time, the UK government has come to realize the clear
> advantages to "open source everything" and that taking steps to move to the
> ODF and ODF compatible software is just good policy.

The key think is how well the civil servants can implement, but a campaign
for odf in central government would be timely.

Let's keep our fingers crossed.
> Cheers
>
> Marc
>
>
>
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