Notes, Links, 2009-02-2

The action by the UK to promote open source published 24 February is of course terrific news and should be hailed as such. I hope it will, along with similar other European acts, stimulate the North American governments to also promote open source, open standards, and thus directly and indirectly innovation and economic growth here. Certainly, we need it. Note--the policy directive issued by the government is not a dismissal of proprietary software, and it is not a celebration of the freedoms granted by Foss. It is rather a statement about giving taxpayers the best value for their taxes:

“While we have always respected the long-held beliefs of those who think that governments should favour Open Source on principle, we have always taken the view that the main test should be what is best value for the taxpayer.

“Over the past five years many government departments have shown that Open Source can be best for the taxpayer – in our web services, in the NHS and in other vital public services.”

Why then the directive now? Because “we need to increase the pace,” as the innovation, the dialog between government users and the IT industry, needs to be allowed free rein, and not the essentially furtive and sporadic efforts that have preceded this directive--and which characterize government procurement practices elsewhere.

Yet there is good news emerging: Canada put out a Request For Information to which numerous companies replied, including Sun. (I helped draft the response, along with Bruno S.; Simon P. provided the logical frame.) And late last month, I gave a two-hour discussion on Foss and policy to the Ontario government. All of which is to say that in Canada there is movement in the right direction--a movement I fully expect to see grow. Why? proprietary software costs taxpayers money--upfront, down the road, in the end.

Of course, we all expect the usual arguments, and I’ve already noted harbingers of them: that there are hidden costs to Foss, and that these include such things as migration of documents, files, people; and also training and certification costs, and then the biggest fear of all, the by and large bogus problem of using software that may have license issues. In the case of OpenOffice.org (and probably most other significant software the government is likely to consider) that’s a false fear.

But that won’t stop some. In Microsoft’s suit against the in-car navigation device maker TomTom for patent infringement, even though the suit is ostensibly and ostentatiously not against Foss, (“Open source software is not the focal point of this action.”), the environment Foss is clearly affected. For whatever the merits of this suit (and TomTom is hardly quiescent here) this is very close to the sort of fear frightens governments and corporations away from Foss: That there is a tiger lurking in the open source commons.

It shouldn’t. But it should provoke us to ensure that our code is clean and that any code that we expect others to build on and distribute must be have an unimpeachable pedigree. And that goes for proprietary software, too. Or does anyone really think that the mélange of doubt can only apply to works licensed under Foss copyrights? So let’s speculate that the end result of this sabre rattling is ultimately to endorse a copyright regime that is characterized not by FUD but by transparency, of license and code, and backed not by market-driven entities but by responsible community organizations and companies--those that understand where innovation lies and how to promote it, so as to foster a sustainable present and future. We certainly need it.