Europe and the US philosophically divided on open source?
Published: 08 Nov 2005 11:15 GMT
United States: Open source too close to socialism?
Spotlight Project:
The commonwealth of Massachusetts recently decided to standardise its desktop applications on the open file format OpenDocument. State agencies must now migrate to OpenDocument-compliant applications by January 2007, a change that will affect about 50,000 desktop PCs. Microsoft Office does not support the open file format, but OpenOffice.org does, which means that Massachusetts is likely to migrate to an at least partially open source desktop.
Summary:
Every state across the US uses some form of open source, although some states are "more progressive" than others, according to Tom Rabon, a vice-president at Linux vendor, Red Hat.
The central US government also uses open source, but primarily the operating system Linux, says Michael Goulde, a senior analyst at Forrester Research.
"At the Federal level you have to draw a distinction between Linux and open source software — a lot of organisations [in the Federal government] are using Linux, but are not using other open source software," he says.
Recent examples of open source public sector deployments include the educational sector in Indiana, which is trialling the use of desktop Linux in schools in a project that could lead to 300,000 Linux PCs being deployed across the state. In the state of Mississippi, three counties and 30 agencies are reportedly using an open source management system to administrate all law enforcement and homeland security forces.
Both the federal and state governments in the US have neutral policies regarding open source. But some states are encouraging the increased adoption of open source indirectly, says Goulde.
"State governments will generally not mandate that open source is used, but are setting policies that agencies must provide equal consideration for open source software. There are also policies that encourage agencies to demonstrate that they have made best-value decisions," Goulde says.
Two years ago, the state of Oregon discussed a bill that would have mandated state agencies to consider open source software when deciding to procure new software, but the bill was pulled after pressure from industry lobby groups. The states of Texas and California also tried to pass similar laws, but neither was successful.
Although Massachusetts has mandated open file standards rather than open source, it could have a similar impact, as Microsoft has said it will not implement OpenDocument.
Goulde claims that there is a "growing recognition" among state governments of the benefits of sharing applications or code. Last year, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and several other US states launched a software repository to let government agencies make more efficient use of open source software. A number of states and Federal government agencies are using the repository, known as the Government Open Code Collaborative.
The main reason for the adoption of open source in the US government is open standards, although avoiding vendor lock-in and driving down cost is also important, according to Goulde.
Rabon from Red Hat attributes the varying level of adoption between US state governments to the different attitudes of senior government officials towards open source. "A lot of it depends on the progressiveness of people who run organisations in states. Every cause needs a champion," he says.
For example, the chief information officer of Massachusetts, Peter Quinn, is a well-known advocate for open source software.
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7 comments
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Good research. Arthur B. -
Oh, yes the "Old Europe" countries above all Franc... Anonymous
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It's not Holland, but The Netherlands. :-) Anonymous
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The French use Pays-Bas and most English sp... Jacob -
The allegation that TCO is smaller in the case of... Gabriel Voinea
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My my my. France using Opensource softwares b... Mitch 74
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Just a little correction:
Software libr... Diego Alcorta
