Open source software makes inroads…slowly

Times have changed since the German city of Munich made its much vaunted decision to switch to Linux, the open source computer operating system, for an upgrade of 14,000 desktop computers.

Nowadays, governments are increasingly reliant on a mix of both open-source and proprietary software to ensure a maximum number of citizens are able to use their systems.

Munich's decision in 2003 had proprietary software and IT giants Microsoft and Apple shaking in their boots at the thought that the huge market in eGovernment might be swallowed up by champions of open-source software.

For cash-strapped governments, open-source software is a potentially attractive option. Such software has a licensed, entirely accessible source code that users can freely manipulate according to their needs, as opposed to proprietary software for which any usage, changes or distribution must be paid.

In recent years some well-known software developers, including IBM, Sun Microsystems and Novell, have jumped at the chance to compete with the market giants by offering tailor-made solutions using open-source software.

When Munich made its decision, Walter Raizner, IBM's German manager, who won the contract along with Linux distributor SuSE, declared that it was "open season for open computing".

"[Governments] need more flexibility to serve their constituencies better and faster, and freedom of choice to do it at less cost to the public," he announced.

Yet Munich's landmark decision has not precipitated the huge shift to open-source that some expected. There have certainly been other high-profile cases - last year the French police said that around half of its workforce would migrate to the open-source word-processing software OpenOffice from Microsoft Office and in 2006 announced that it would also begin deploying open-source email - but the full-scale uptake that some hoped for or feared a few years ago has not yet materialised.

Instead, governments often use a mix of both proprietary and open-source software, as in the UK's National Health Service. In 2004 the government won a landmark deal from Microsoft that allowed it to use up to 900,000 licences on a permanent basis, but in December it made a second deal with Novell which includes the latter's Open Enterprise Server, which potentially allows users to transfer their systems to a Linux platform.

Part of the reason is culture. There is a perception that open source solutions will not work as well as the usually better known proprietary ones, and that a mix of the two would maximise interoperability and therefore accessibility.

This is not helped by the fact that the other common perception, that open source software is entirely free, is not actually the case. Open source software is normally free of licence fees, unlike most proprietary software, but it does entail costs, both to install and modify the software for office use and then to train staff in using it. Proprietary software sellers have been quick to argue that in this way, open source software can actually be more expensive in the long run than the cost of their own licence fees.

Of course, canny governments can use this to their advantage and play potential contractors off against one another for the best deal. Patrick Guedj, an IT manager at the French Ministry of the Interior said of the Gendarmerie Nationale's decision to change its systems gradually: "If you buy everything the same, especially in IT where technology is sticky and difficult to change, it kills competition and pushes up prices."

Given the huge power of IT companies, policymakers have had to be careful who they back in the open source vs proprietary debate.

The European Commission insists that it is entirely 'technology neutral', while pushing for governments to pick the solution that will promote the internal market. The biggest problem for the EU executive is that governments are often keen to work on a national level but fail to promote the accessibility of their online systems for their citizens living and working abroad.

"It is up to govern-ments to find the best way to achieve the policy objectives of inter-operability, and in many cases this will be open source software but it might not always be," said a spokesman for Viviane Reding, the European commissioner for information technology.

Author takes a look at the role of open-source software in the provision of eGovernment services and comes to the conclusion that present trends point towards a combination of both proprietary and open-source computing.
Article is part of a European Voice Special Report, 'eGovernment'.