Oct 15 2007

Government Operating System Policy Challenged

Published by Miles at 1:10 pm under Microsoft,Open Source,Research

Over on Kablenet, Liberal Democrat MP Dr John Pugh (nice open source web site, sir) believes that the government is unwittingly creating a Microsoft monopoly in its delivery of online services because, in many cases, the public can only access them by using Windows software.

In a Commons debate last week, Pugh went on to outline a “damning” range of preferential treatment, which he said was tantamount to advertising and product placement.

Winding up, Pugh said “Those who have Unix or Linux computers or who use Mac computers should simply not bother.”.

In response, the Treasury’s Angela Eagle said that whilst the DirectGov site (6.5m hits per month) used open source components, “some open source projects cannot meet our needs for quality or security, and we are not prepared to compromise on those.”

As we all know, Windows and other proprietary software is well known for its quality, security and ability to deliver value for money to the great British taxpayer.  Indeed, we’ve quite forgotten government IT projects have a long history of soaring costs, failed projects, and regular security breaches.

Discuss…

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