Bonum Certa Men Certa

British Government Under Fire for Ignoring Free(dom) Software, Responds With Face-Saving Promise

Letting the US manage the UK digitally

David Cameron and Barack Obama



Summary: The British government misses an opportunity to employ Computer Science students who are eager to lay their hands on source code; instead it continues to sign cheques for Microsoft and under pressure it makes the mere promise of "evaluating" an open source vendor

NOT so long ago we wrote about government procurement in the UK, noting that unfair bidding processes were excluding Free software. As we have already shown, sections of the public sector, including BECTA and the NHS for example, have been deep in Microsoft's pocket. Microsoft and its allies are bullying smaller companies out of the room, just like in South Africa. Such cartel-like practices should be investigated, but they never come close to any substantial scrutiny. If someone complains about this, a fatwa/SLAPP gets used to silence the complainer. The UK is very libel lawsuits-friendly.



There are many articles about the subject of the UK government snubbing Free software. The most prominent one was in the BBC (from Rory) although there are some other reports that we put in our daily links. Here are some of the latest and belated ones:

1. UK Gov Struggling with Open Source, Spending Heavily on Proprietary Software

Despite its promise to embrace open source software for cutting down IT expenditures, the UK government has been consistently paying a hefty amount on proprietary technologies, a new report claims.

The matter was brought in to daylight by BBC after it had filed a Freedom of Information request as a part of its investigation to highlight the government's policies regarding software procurement.

The BBC report states that despite making bold claims about embracing open source software products, the government continues to rely heavily on the bigger firms and their proprietary products.


2. Whitehall breaks open source promise

Many departments in Whitehall appear to have given up on promises to spend more on open source, and are instead continuing to lay out huge sums on proprietary software.

Following a number of BBC freedom of information requests it has been revealed millions are still being spent on software from big name vendors.

This is despite claims from Francis Maude that there will be a ‘level playing field’, centred around the government’s promises to slash public spending. Even the Queen's neighbourhood has been looking to the cheap alternative.


These people are giving themselves another chance after betraying voters, according to this article which says "UK.gov works on YET ANOTHER open-source push":

Yet another government definition for the term "open standards" is incoming because the Home Office isn't satisfied with the current wording of its so-called Action Plan.

The department's IT wonk Tariq Rashid confirmed at an open source forum in Oxford yesterday that the government had been "lobbying against" the current definition for open standards, and added that a new version was set to be published by the end of 2011.

At the TransferSummit event he spoke about how a policy to encourage open source, open standards and re-use of software across central and local government had been mulled over since 2004 without any real action kicking in. And that's despite several redrafts.

[...]

Rashid said that within the next year, all gov departments would have a mandatory requirement to demonstrate they had fairly evaluated an open source vendor for any new software procurement.


Well, we shall see. Words are cheap. Romania used a similar trick to pretend that it at least consider Free software as well. This does not oblige one to make such a choice, just to say it was "evaluated". Corrupt procurement processes are much of what we'll show in upcoming leaked diplomatic cable. It helps to have a lot of evidence.

Recent Techrights' Posts

In defence of JD Vance, death of Pope Francis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Three Years in Prison for Disney Employee’s ‘Menu Hacking’: The Economic Fallout of Digital Menus
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Approaching 10,000 Articles/Pages Since Going Static
Trying to silence or derail the site was always a dumb strategy
Microsoft is Shedding Off Loads of Staff and That Can be Dangerous Too
Working for Microsoft is a choice; nobody forces you to do it
Richard Stallman and the Unix Philosophy
When asked about systemd people must remember that RMS speaks as an active Board member of the FSF and also the founder of the FSF
 
Links 26/04/2025: General Assassinated in the Town of Balashikha, US Promoting Seafloor Mining
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: Facebook Layoffs Again, Remembering What's Real, and Say No to Mass Surveillance
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: NOAA Budget Cuts and "Dog Days Ahead"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, April 25, 2025
Links 25/04/2025: Slop Fatigue and Patent Judges Flocking to Fake, Unconstitutional and Illegal Kangaroo Court (UPC, Captured 'Justice')
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/04/2025: Night Manager and Devuan in Hosting
Links for the day
Windows Falls to New Lows in Nicaragua, Now Below a Quarter (It Used to be Almost 100%)
Another all-time low for Windows
The Cost (to Linux) of LLM Slop
Slop 'artists' like Fagioli are far from harmless
Links 25/04/2025: Ubisoft Spyware, Hegseth Fails at Tech on Every Level
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/04/2025: Food Forest Update and Facebook Destroying the Net
Links for the day
Get Rid of Back Doors, Don't Obsess Over Bounties and Other Corporate PR Stunts (or Needless Reboot Rituals)
Security as a term has mostly lost its meaning due to repeated misuse for many years
Serial Sloppers Are Killing the Web (They Probably Don't Care, Either)
Slop is a disease on the Web
Streaming Apps Are “Investor Fraud” That Kills the Planet
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Things Get Increasingly Nasty at Microsoft Ahead of the Fake Results and May's Mass Layoffs Wave
They try to get people to 'resign' so that they won't count as layoffs and the company's 'wellbeing' will seem better
IBM's Debt Ballooned by 8.5 Billion Dollars in Just 3 Months!
Hallmark of a company in a state of disarray, trying to spend its way out of trouble
Big Trouble in GNOME
even GNOME people admit the CoC went wrong
Slopping the Trough: Disney Plus Loses Billions and the Decline of Physical Media in America
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 24, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 24, 2025
Links 24/04/2025: GAFAM Problems and No Peace (or Ceasefire) in Sight
Links for the day
Slopfarms on the Web Almost Always Generate Anti-Linux FUD When They Produce "Linux" Output
Welcome to the dying Web
Richard Stallman's Oxford Talk Has Just Ended, Here Are Some Photos
he might hop over to another European country
Gemini Links 24/04/2025: Birthday and Good Work of Academia in Esotericism
Links for the day
Links 24/04/2025: EU fines Apple and Facebook, Another Microsoft GitHub Security Blunder
Links for the day
New Article Explains How the GPL Came About and WordPress Having Copyleft Obligations
Having been involved in the WordPress development community since almost the beginning, I know why it chose the GPL and how it restricts abuse by Automattic
IBM Gained Almost 6 Billion Dollars in "Goodwill" Value in Just 3 Months, According to IBM
Congrats to the management!
In Belarus, Yandex is Now Measured as 50 Times More 'Popular' (by Usage) Than Microsoft
Yandex continues to gain, whereas Bing cannot even register at 1%. Last month it was registered or measured at a measly 0.65%.
IBM Cannot Lie to Shareholders Anymore
"I would not be surprised if we see a layoff every quarter this year."
Dr Richard Stallman (RMS) Gives Talk in Oxford University in 4 Hours
If you live nearby, go there (it's free as in gratis)
Using a Law Firm's Licence to Exercise Politics Through Frivolous SLAPPs and Nastygrams (to Silence People, Remove Pages, Demand Fake or Forced 'Apologies')
Things must be getting really bad when lawyers act for raving antisemites
We're Working to Make Full-Site Search Available
This site has over 1,000 'wiki' pages, many thousands of documents, several thousands of videos, and about 50,000 blog posts or articles. We need to make them easier to find/navigate.
Links 24/04/2025: IBM Loses Many Contracts, Intel to Lay Off Over 20% (Not Counting Those Who Leave 'Voluntarily')
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Can Explain to Oxford Artificial Intelligence Society Why LLM Slop is Not Artificial Intelligence and Why It Hurts Society
another 'crop' of LLM slop that damages GNU/Linux and facts
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 23, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 23, 2025