[FSF India] [INFO] German Govt. Says Use Open Source Software

[Raj Singh]

After the UK, French, Korean, and Chinese governments, it is now the turn
of the German government which has recommended the use of Open Source
Software (OSS) for use in their offices.

I hope you find this interesting reading.

-- Raj

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German Governmental Agency Says: Use Open Source

An official team of the German Ministry of the Interior has released a
statement which examines the possible use of Open Source software in the
German administration. The statement concludes:

"Linux and FreeBSD and accompanying Free or commercial software provide a
stable, cheap, low-on-resources, safe and sufficiently supported
environment even for professional offices."

=============== Some Readers Comments ================

Of course they should use open source instead of commercial software since
it's saving tax payer money and is ultimately more reliable (which means
more efficient employees).

I am giving you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you just forgot
to put the smileys at the right places, but this undoubtedly there are
some of us here that actually think this statement has any truth in it.

The fact that one uses open or closed source software doesn't mean
anything in itself when it comes to costs. True, with open source there is
generally no fee that needs to be paid, but to see this as a major cost
saver is incorrect. The costs in any IT-related project within
organisations is generally not associated with software nor hardware, but
with the amount of man-hours needed to complete the project. Espescially
when specialist knowledge needs to be hired from third parties the costs
are rising like the amount of Guinness in an Irishman on Saint Patricks
day. After the roll-out of a project the cost is in the ease of use for
the user and in the cost of keeping everything up and running.

At the moment the cost of running open source based software on
server(-like) configurations is probably tied with that of various closed
source alternatives. It all depends on what you want, who you have working
for you and what kind of other systems you use. The cost of open source on
user-systems is probably still higher then that of various closed source
alternatives. Most notably MS-Windows based products, but for some uses
the Mac comes to mind. Even if one accounts for BSOD's and related stress
issues, loss of working hours etc. A properly configured system is still a
cheaper option then Open Source because the money for an organisation is
in the applications and in the added value that a worker gets from those
apps.

Yup, it all boils down to apps again. Though i must say that in certain
areas this gap could be bridged quite easily. Especially there where users
are doing data entry, where all data goes to a large database (eg:
call-centers), most screens are designed espescially for that database.
With that in mind, new systems in this area could be as easily build to
work with an open as a closed source environment.

----

It means that the German Federal offices can use Open Source products. So,
if you work for the German Federal government, you can go ahead and use
Open Source software now.

----

The German Goverment "Gets It" -- the use of open source helps in keeping
certain cost down. Allows you to add extentions to the software you use.
Also allows you to audit the software you are using at the source so there
are no question about certain things.

----

Governments are composed of many, many, individuals; they perform many,
many jobs. Some people in the German government have the job of
recommending the ways in which technology, specifically computers, should
be used within federal offices. These ones are recommending Open Source.

You should have realised they're saying a lot more than: 'Use Linux/BSD
'cuz they're cheap!' As a matter of fact, they present a very detailed
accounting of the advantages of OSS, including the key arguments of better
security (through transparency) and freedom from control by any one
corporation (never named, but in my opinion implied), as well as a
detailed plan of how Linux and friends could be installed at all levels of
the government. I don't know if this document carries any weight with the
decision-makers, but it is a ringing endorsement of free software of all
stripes.

----

Strange. I'm a German and I'm fascinated by the progress our government
has made since it was elected in 1998. But now, I'll leave this great
country because of monetary reasons (hi USA!).

I'll certainly miss the open and liberal minds of our politicians. The old
government was crying for more control of the Internet while the new one
gives money to Open Source cryptology projects and even recommends the use
of encrypted communication channels.

----

When I was a govt contractor, we were using the GNU tools and perl on
several Department of Defense projects because the were the most portable
around. Of course these were Unix based projects.

Is anyone out there actively lobbying the government to officially endorse
OSS solutions rather than proprietary software? It seems to me as a
taxpayer that I would like to see the vast number of government projects
out there actively evaluate Linux as well as Solaris and NT as platforms.

Not only would they be getting a high quality, low cost platform, the code
that the government contractors develop could be fed back into the
community. The govt develops a considerable amount of software and while
much of it is specific to its needs, there are other areas such as
infrastructure where having an OSS solution makes sense.

If they used OSS software as the basis of building their systems, it would
prevent a lot of the reinventing of the wheel and proprietary lock-in that
occurs now.

----

Alot of us are trying, believe me.  Most of us have OSS snuck in the
background but contributing none the less...  The more "public" uses are
seen at NASA with their Beowulf cluster and at NIST.

There's a FOSE conference coming up next month and one of the seminar
tracks includes a session on Linux.  However I wish that more on OSS was
scheduled to be discussed at this.  The timing of FOSE is really good
considering all that's going on right now, but seems no one in the
D.C./MD/VA area appeared to push it for this year's conference...

----

Using open-source products is good government. In fact, I think it helps
to mollify one of the real problems of most modern states. usually, when
the government spends money on a project, only one group in the population
benefits. Although this is often a large group, there are almost always
some people who are left out.

But with OSS, when the government works on a special program designed
for one group, the whole community benefits, because the whole
community gets free source. And more, since in the course of the
project it's highly likely that the government-employed programmers
will contribute patches, code, ideas, etc. to other projects.
So, not only is OSS good for government, it also constitutes good
government.

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