[Ecommerce] Australia: Government delves into open source

[James Love]

*  The increasingly influential role of open source software as an 
alternative to proprietary solutions has prompted the federal government 
to put together a new seminar looking at the demand for open source 
systems across departmental agencies.

*  "The Commonwealth doesn't have a defined policy on OSS, in terms of 
specific use by agencies on OSS,"

*  A surprise addition to the NOIE speaker list is Microsoft senior vice 
president, business strategy Maggie Wildrotter.  Despite the nature of 
the seminar, Troeth said Microsoft's involvement is justified by the 
fact that "it has an interest in the OSS issue". "As far as 
[Microsoft's] involvement in the seminar goes, it is one vendor to offer 
an industry perspective," he said.  "We don't believe favouritism should 
be shown towards OSS or proprietary software solutions."


http://old.linuxworld.com.au/news.php3?nid=2199&tid=1

Government delves into open source

By Nadia Cameron, LinuxWorld, 2003-02-10

The increasingly influential role of open source software as an 
alternative to proprietary solutions has prompted the federal government 
to put together a new seminar looking at the demand for open source 
systems across departmental agencies.

To be hosted by the National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE), 
the seminar, "Open Source Software and the role of Linux in the public 
sector", is designed to provide departmental CIOs, CTOs and agency IT 
professionals with a broader understanding of non-proprietary software, 
as well as examine the current and future role such solutions can play 
in the government sector.

The seminar will be held at the National Press Club in Canberra on 
February 18 and is expected to be the first in a series of sessions on 
the potential use of open source software (OSS) in government agencies.

Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts 
ministerial spokesperson Simon Troeth said the purpose of the seminar is 
to provide information to agencies in a vendor-neutral style whilst 
gauging their interest in OSS.

Troeth said there is no truth in recent speculation suggesting the 
government will make open source software mandatory across its 
departmental agencies. Nevertheless, the government believes open source 
solutions are worth looking into, he said.

"The Commonwealth doesn't have a defined policy on OSS, in terms of 
specific use by agencies on OSS," he said.

"OSS fits the purpose and value-for-money guidelines. Some agencies 
already use OSS at the server level, or in the maintenance of Web sites."

The seminar will centre around general OSS issues with a focus on 
Linux-based operating systems and applications.

Speakers at the February seminar include IBM's public sector Linux 
program director Mary Ann Fisher and Gartner research analyst Robin 
Simpson. The seminar will also feature case studies from the Department 
of Veterans' Affairs and the Bureau of Meteorology, both of which 
currently use open source applications.

The Australian Unix and Open Systems Users Group (AUUG) will also put 
forth its views on the role of open source in the government sector. 
AUUG Open Computing for Government (OCG) task force chairman Gordon 
Hubbard said the group will focus on the general advantages of open 
source computing as well as discuss licensing open source software in 
comparison to standard proprietary solutions.

A surprise addition to the NOIE speaker list is Microsoft senior vice 
president, business strategy Maggie Wildrotter.

Despite the nature of the seminar, Troeth said Microsoft's involvement 
is justified by the fact that "it has an interest in the OSS issue".

"As far as [Microsoft's] involvement in the seminar goes, it is one 
vendor to offer an industry perspective," he said.

"We don't believe favouritism should be shown towards OSS or proprietary 
software solutions."

Hubbard said AUUG expects government representatives will leave the 
seminar with a stronger understanding of the differences between open 
source and proprietary systems.

"I don't think anyone will leave and throw out their current systems 
immediately. But we expect they will want to look into open systems in 
more detail," he said.

In further support of the use of open source computing in the government 
sector, AUUG has announced its own Unix and Open Source in Government 
symposium in Canberra on March 1 2003. Hubbard said the symposium is 
open to anyone with an interest in the use of Unix and open systems in 
government. The symposium is being coordinated by AUUG.s Open Computing 
Task Force, a subcommittee launched in 2002 to accelerate the use of 
open systems in government.

-- 
James Love, Director, Consumer Project on Technology
http://www.cptech.org, mailto:james.love@cptech.org
tel. +1.202.387.8030, mobile +1.202.361.3040