I’ve been working on a contract for the last few months at a government agency and it’s one thing I’ve mentioned a few times in that period. I think all gov. departments should be using open source software, other governments are doing it, so should we.
Seems the Green party thinks so too (also notice the first comment on that post, it’s from a Green party official it seems). Looks like they practice what they preach backend wise, too bad their website isn’t all that good standards and accessibility wise.
It won’t convince me to vote for them but it’s an attention getter and I’m aware of them now. If only the guy running in my riding looked competent. I know, I know, doesn’t mean much but certainly not a good first impression.
2 Comments
The government in my opinion shouldn’t be bias in favor of open source software. Wow, have I created a controversy here. Let me explain. The quality of products is based on choice we have as a consumer, same thing applies to software and government. If we bias to open source software, a new monopoly is created. The real advantage for the government and my tax money is Open Standards, let the format be known, that way if a company goes bust we can still read their document format. Well this was my rant for today :-)
Hehe. Always a good way to get Mr. Moral out, talk about open source!
Interesting point of view. Standard formats should certainly come first. In theory you should be right, no monopoly either for open source or paying software but since it’s harder for “free” software to get a footing, especially when faced with years of habit towards Microsoft or Oracle for example so an obligatory bias, at least for a while, might be needed for open source to get a decent share of governement use.