Government embraces open source

 

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By Maggie Holland

Posted on 25 Feb 2009 at 18:16

The Government has pledged to consider open source and proprietary software equally when making IT spending decisions.

In a statement, the Government announced decisions will be based on total cost of ownership (TCO), with open source favoured if the TCO is similar to proprietary software.

"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," says Tom Watson MP, Minister for Digital Engagement.

"So we consider the time is now right to build on our record of fairness and achievement and to take further positive action to ensure that open-source products are fully and fairly considered throughout Government IT; to ensure that we specify our requirements and publish our data in terms of open standards; and that we seek the same degree of flexibility in our commercial relationships with proprietary software suppliers as are inherent in the open source world."