Open source: The government's commitment so far

Is the release of the Strategic Implementation Plan and the Open Source Procurement Toolkit enough to ensure a level playing field for the technology?

The promotion of open source and open standards is a key tenet of the government's ICT strategy, but did the publication of the Open Source Procurement Toolkit earlier this month and recent government initiatives provide the boost needed to increase understanding and procurement of open source within the public sector?

Open source is currently in use across several government departments, with Drupal powering the Cabinet Office website and some DirectGov services, Transport for London's Oystercard using an open source infrastructure, and the Department of Health using open source to work with EU partners.

In addition, some departments are creating their own open source technologies, such as the Department for the Climate Change, which has created FoxOpen. However, most of the technology used by government remains proprietary, with the Department for Work and Pensions, for example, still using comprehensive proprietary products from single vendors such as IBM.

The government's open source policy was established in 2004, but CIO for the Home Office and the senior responsibility officer for open source and open standards, Robin Pape, acknowledged in conversation with Computing that there had been limited progress towards a truly level playing field for open source. "This meant that opportunities for better value solutions were being missed," he said.

What is being done to promote OS?
There have been several recent announcements and initiatives that aim to create a 'level playing field' for open source technology. This was the aim established by the government ICT strategy launched in March.

Over the past six months, the government has established several bodies that aim to "break down the technical and cultural barriers that impede the use of open source solutions across government", as was also stated in the strategy.

These include an Open Source Implementation Group, a System Integrator Forum and an online Government Open Solutions Forum.

The government's Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP), which fleshed out the original ICT strategy and was released in October, reiterated the commitment that open source solutions should be considered as a matter of course against proprietary solutions based on value for money and total cost of ownership.

The major open source milestone detailed by SIP was that the Cabinet Office publish an Open Source Procurement Toolkit providing best practice for evaluating the use of open source solutions.

The toolkit contained advice and information about open source software, open source vendors and running costs. It also includes a guidance paper by the CESG, an arm of GCHQ that covers security matters relating to public sector use of open source software.

In the past, the CESG's rules on information assurance were criticised for hindering uptake of open source, but the agency denied this, saying its Code of Connection and guidance were being interpreted incorrectly.

The new toolkit aimed to clarify the CESG's policies around security and open source.

And as is the case with much of the government's ICT strategy, the toolkit is a work in progress. As Pape explained: "There will be at least one more version of the toolkit before the end of April 2012, which will take account of the feedback we are currently receiving on v1.0."

Open source: The government's commitment so far

Is the release of the Strategic Implementation Plan and the Open Source Procurement Toolkit enough to ensure a level playing field for the technology?

The government will also launch its ICT Asset and Services Knowledgebase – which was tendered for at the end of July – in the new year. The database will be used to record the reuse of existing open source solutions.

Although the toolkit in not something that Laurent Lachal, an analyst at Ovum, believes will necessarily increase uptake of open source, he says the sharing of information such as that within the Knowledgebase database is more likely to address a lag in uptake.

"Those who have implemented open source must share their experiences," he said. "The government has shown ongoing willingness to implement open source, but documents such as the Open Source Procurement Toolkit are just a small part of what is required. They are a step in the right direction, but users of open source need to be able to learn from one another."

A report from Gartner entitled UK ICT Strategy May Be Too Bold, published in April, argued that although the government was showing willing with regard to creating a level playing field for open source, it hadn't made any reference to how it would move from legacy systems and contracts to a new world of open standards and open source.

The paper was also skeptical regarding whether the government has had enough internal knowledge and talent to procure these solutions, and whether the SMB community supplying them had enough experience of dealing with government.

Although the SIP does address the second and third of these issues, with considerable emphasis on skilling up ICT staff in government to be able to procure solutions more effectively and creating pathways between the SMB community and government to open the means of communication, the shift from legacy to open source remains unaddressed.

Rather, the SIP stated rather vaguely that open source solutions would be considered fairly against proprietary solutions based on value for money and total cost of ownership.

It also said the government would survey each department's compliance with the existing open source policy, and that in the long term departments would be measured annually by the use of a departmental maturity model.

Still the point stands, there is no mandated pathway leading from legacy proprietary solutions to satisfactory open source alternatives.

Market forces
But even if the government was not pushing to increase use of open source, market forces would lead that way anyway, according to Lachal, and this is also noted in a Gartner report called, Public-Sector IT Sourcing in EMEA.

The report states that open source will continue to grow because of the increased maturity of open source ecosystems.

These mature ecosystems see vendors deliver enhanced support services around open source for free (they are often selling additional, paid-for technology, too).

Lachal said on the issue: Open source has been woven into strategic technology roadmaps, "systems integrators and software providers will have an open source software as part of their offering.

"This is down to market forces. It is often cheaper for suppliers to take up solutions like this, and many aspects of technology are now commoditised using OS. This is written into design roadmaps, and companies are more familiar with collaborating with open source providers than they were in 2004, when the government first announced its strategy."

Open standards consultation
Separately, the government has just announced a second consultation on open standards, which will be conducted early in the new year. This follows an original survey conducted in March, and aims to broaden the number of views considered on the subject. It is widely considered that once open standards are mandated, procurement of open source based on those standards will be more easily procured.

Pape said on the subject: "Open standards are the real enabler for change. Open source software is part of the opportunity that arises."

The Cabinet Office released a statement on the matter that read: "The [original] survey has provided a rich source of information. It has given us useful views and evidence that we will take into account as part of the full public consultation, but it has also highlighted areas we need to consider more deeply. This is an important decision, and we need to make sure everyone's view is considered."