Open source and the sluggish UK public sector • The Register

More from the article. What is crucial here, for me, as an ODF advocate, and as a realist, is policies mandating open standards (and those that can actually be implemented by a range of vendors). Thus, Silber:

Open source and the sluggish UK public sector • The Register: "At a recent Cabinet Office forum for system integrators, there were some striking examples of open source being used in the public sector, according to Silber. Bristol City Council, for example, has achieved 50 per cent cost savings by using open source, and the National Digital Resource Bank reported an IT spend reduction of 98 per cent.

The Cabinet Office is in the middle of an informal consultation on open standards in IT. Asked what she’d like to see come out of the process, Silber has no hesitation, especially in the light of Bristol City Council having to re-install Windows because of compatibility issues.

“Some really strong statements of support for requirements to support open standards should be included,” she says. “Compliance really ought to be mandated. The government seems to have a good understanding of open source software’s potential. It is time we saw this turn into action.”"