[Gllug] DTI/Government Open Source Software consultation

[James de Lurker]

Alain Williams wrote:
> On Thu, May 08, 2003 at 12:55:42AM +0100, Rich Walker wrote:
> 
>>>   Favoured bidders may hear a whisper that a contract is being offered,
>>>others have to look for themselves.
>>
>>Ain't that always the way...
> 
> 
> No, the favoured bidder is the one that helped to write the tender document ...
> 

The practice is rather more formally organized than that. I was involved in
projects with Mod at the time in the 80's when Michael Heseltine introduced 
compulsory competitive tendering, on both sides of the fence.

Now there are strict EU wide directives that apply, too.

But ( at least, when I was involved ) it was both straightforward, and
scrupulously honest. It is open to all to influence the specification and
contract process before a specification reaches formal release!

Similar processes apply commercially within the EU ( one leaps to mind, and 
that is EUMetsat ). For number of years, me, and my one man and a dog 
company was a formal part of the notification and invitation to tender 
process. Having a crate of documents delivered by a huge lorry direct to my
home was a hoot. ( A freeby mousepad was nice, I'm using it right now...)

At MoD the civil service has really strict codes of conduct; the objective 
is to write a specification that does not exclude any of the likely 
competitors without good technical or operational reasons, but the spec has
to be tight enough to prevent non technical contract letting decision
makers from being swayed by bogus arguments from sales and PR people.

Before a spec went out of a draft stage decided only by abstract technical
limits, every major competitor was given an opportunity to discuss specific
arguments that favoured their own products and processes. In doing so, they
had to trust the integrity of the techie civil servants in preserving
commercial confidences. So the process carries risks as well as potential 
commercial rewards for the bidders.

Of course, for Open Source, there is no "intellectual property" to preserve
in quite the same way, so it may be perceived that there is less need for 
representation... Virtual teams and ownership has its downside, too, when
established procedures lose contact with changes in the marketplace.

That factor is probably the biggest risk to the interests of Open Source
in government, by this perspective. The GPL ( and other Open Source 
variants ) must be perceived as an entity that requires fair representation 
to compete with proprietary IP owned solutions. Who is the "owner" exactly?
How will they be commercially disadvantaged by lack of representation?

That is possibly the line of any counter arguments that must be made.
Their duty of care towards public funds demands a proper hearing.

Forward my views here to the Government Minister concerned, if you feel 
that OS was not properly represented at all stages of the process. Some
( who shall remain nameless ) in the current administration are quite
inimical to the competitive tendering process, anyway. You'll have to
work a lot harder to get proper OS representation in such a case.

I didn't catch what started this thread; Tet's comment / correction about
a name was all I found in my GLLUG pile... Hope this essay isn't completely
OT and uninteresting as a result...

-- 

   -- James

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