[ILUG] Re: FLOSS in Irish National ICT Policy and in R & D

[Kuda Dube]

Clarke,

Thank you.

So, could we say that the Irish Government does not seem to have any
formal FLOSS policy in existence and that current state of FLOSS in IRL
is solely due to individual efforts of members of the community? Would
that be the case for FLOSS support infrastructures such as
ftp.heanet.ie, i.e., these arise mainly as a result of decisions that
seem not to have any policy baking ... more like the way ILUG resources
arose?

Regards
--
Kuda


On Mon, 2009-04-20 at 13:37 +0100, Andrew Clarke wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Recent moves by the UK Government are very strong on the adoption of 
> Open Source and Open Standards. Whilst there are still issues about how 
> much will really happen, this is an extremely positive step.
> 
> http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/cio/transformational_government/open_source.aspx
> http://www.netvibes.com/cabinetoffice#Open_Source
> 
> Given the current economic position and the fabled goal of a "knowledge 
> / information society", this would make even more sense for Ireland, but 
> apart from the Green Party, there is simply very little will to allow it 
> to happen.
> 
> The real changes happening in public sector technology are powerful and 
> flexible working solutions being deployed using Open Source technology. 
> This is currently the only way that FOSS can be strongly promoted 
> without any official policy position.
> 
> The transparency of process and interoperability of FOSS could bring 
> immense advantages to the public sector through a wide adoption, but at 
> the moment it is individuals who are pushing this and with no safety 
> net. If decision makers were made justify the purchase of proprietary 
> software where a real open source option is available things would be a 
> little different. In any other arena, they would have to.
> 
> There is a mentality shift needed too. Requests are often made for 
> particular products rather than generic solutions or functionality. 
> People talk about Powerpoint presentations instead of presentations, ask 
> for a SharePoint server instead of a document management system. I think 
> I'll go for a Nescafe Break.
> 
> 
> 
> Andrew Clarke
>