Submitted by The UK Government has said it will accelerate the use of open source software in public services. Open source software will be adopted “when it delivers best value for money”, the government said. It added that public services should where possible avoid being “locked into proprietary software”. Kroc says: Very welcome, but let’s believe it when we see it, the UK is famous for failed IT projects. You can start by removing the DRM from iPlayer.
…but aside from that, by far the most interesting part of this article, for me at least, is the following:
Now that sound like a fair way of trying to get proprietary software companies to even the field.
There was a time when the UK was the software power-house of the world because we did everything ourselves. After the 80’s though and with UK offices being paved with Win 3.1 that all went away.
I don’t think the UK can ever get back to that position again, but providing level ground for open source is certainly a way to give the next generation a chance.
Just to pick up on the last part of that post: “You can start by removing the DRM from iPlayer.”
The government have no say in whether the BBC uses DRM in the iPlayer or not as it’s not a ‘public service’ in the sense of the NHS etc.
it would be up to the board of directors and governors and other people-in-suits types to do that.
OpenSource should, really, be used in schools, NHS, police service, civil servants, councils etc because as tax payers we currently pay for Windows licenses for them.
Here is a thought … not only should government bodies use open source and open standards, and hence save taxpayer money that would otherwise be spent on software licences, but in addition any software solution created within these government bodies should ALSO be released as open source.
That way, taxpayer (public) money that is used to fund software developer employees within government bodies would see a “return on investment” back into the public purse.
First off the BBC is a QUANGO in so far as its not governemt run and is paid for via a tv licence and not directly via taxs (although it does recive certain subsidies).
Do also remember that although the BBC does produce a great deal of excelent programing themselves, they do put other productions on iPlayer (6 Nations).
BBC Worldwide (BBC’s commercial arm) still make money on selling they programs on dvd or cd so they cant afford to give everything away for free, unless you wish to pay for the privilage via an increase in TV licence costs
A TV Licence costs £139.50 for colour and £47.00 for black and white per year.
Can I get a refund as I am colour-blind ?
I don’t see in black and white, but I don’t see the TRUE colours you all see…
check out this site, http://www.vischeck.com/examples/ I am Protanopic colour-blind. There is a few others listed there, in fact one or two people might be surprised..
You and alot of people miss the proper reason for this.
Your TV receives a colour signal and so does your Video, so being colour blind makes no difference because the equipment is colour signal receivable. B/W TV’s can’t so it’s cheaper.
At least the BBC has gone flash for their video, I’d rather that than needing video plugins like WMV, quicktime, etc.
Edited 2009-02-25 16:17 UTC
well said about the flash.
Most people are annoyed by DRM only when they cant play the content. Flash (as best as you can considering other presures) ensures that mac, linux and windows users all get the chance to view the content
Most people are annoyed by DRM only when they cant play the content
No, most people doesn’t even care or know what DRM is because they never have had problems with it, the people who whine abut DRM are pirates and RMS advocates.
You are a troll, and an amateur one at that.
Many Windows users have problems with DRM http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/knowledgecenter/media…
WTF?
That is a link to a FAQ of MS with people having issues with DRM in an informative way, that means, people who are having proplems due DRM but because ignorance not because DRM misstakes.
You got pOwned.
Please try harder if you are going to be a shill, or give up, no-one is listening to you.
Im sorry but Im in /TrollIgnore mode, leave a message.
Depends on what you classify as “DRM.” In the case of media, I agree, a good number of people never encounter an issue at all, save for perhaps when they accidentally ripped their own CDs to a protected WMA file and move to a new computer. Call me a troll if you wish, that doesn’t make this less true.
If, on the other hand, you count software activation and the like as DRM, then a good many users *do* see it indeed. In fact, I had it happen today, to one of my family members. Their system needed reloading, which they had done a few weeks back, , and now their copy of Microsoft works won’t activate. It’s the same exact hardware (well unless you count the CPU fan that needed replaced a few weeks back), but the damn thing won’t activate without a call to Microsoft. This is ridiculous, at least they should be smart like Apple and provide a way for you to de-activate an activated copy of their software. You can authorize and de-authorize iTunes accounts at will, that’s what ms should have in place but for their software. Just in case, hmm, the system crashes. This type of DRM, and I do consider it a form of DRM, many users do run into and get annoyed with on a regular basis.
This news has both cheered me up, and pissed me off at the same time.
I am really happy that someone in the UK government is aware of the dangers of using proprietary software and is making sure we can all access the data we need. Also £600m is not to be sniffed at. In these troubled times, the money could be more wisely spent in our health service.
But I am annoyed that my dividend of MSFT will go down, and my shares will be worth even less than their current 16.71
I feel like someone who has found a penny and lost a pound
The UK is also making publicly-funded data available:
http://www.showusabetterway.co.uk/
And is being actively leant on to do more in this area:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/feb/12/data-policy
As someone with policy influence over a public service that exists and can be modified to UK needs because it has the monopoly on the publicly-funded data it receives, I am ambivalent about this drive – if in the effort to allow a greater flow of data the UK government also permits commercials access to such data, and the data flows there, my apprehension is that a great deal of infrastructure, development capacity and political direction will also flow out of the UK. We may end up selling the family silver and not being able to sup from our own bowls as a result.
If anyone has any inkling of where the UK Gov might be going with this, it would be interesting to hear.
Surely that should be true of everything. The question is: how do you assess “value for money”?
Yes, naturally. Lock-in, like everything else, has a cost. It should be factored into the measure of value for money.