[Wylug-discuss] HMRC want to see me. Can you help?

[Paul Brook]

> >  In the meantime have any of you any suggestions of how I should pitch
> >  Free Software and Open Source at HMRC.? All help appreciated.
>
> Please, please, please don't hammer on about how _all_ software should
> be Free and open-source. Keep focused on what HMRC want from it and
> put yourself in their shoes. I don't think they will be looking for
> external development assistance, just the best way of making something
> freely available for people to use at zero cost. So don't waste too
> much time on how software is developed, rather the benefits of an open
> source license and perhaps highlight the difference between a few.
> E.g. BSD, GPL and maybe just public domain.

It may also be important to stress the importance of the interface, not just 
the client software.

If there is an open and well documented format for submissions then there's a 
good chance that open source solutions will appear, with or without 
assistance.

If however the submission is done via some poorly documented or proprietary 
format then you're effectively locking people into that proprietary solution. 
Open source folks are much less likely to contribute if they've first got to 
reverse engineer everthing and are always going to be second class citizens.

Paul