Category Archives: Open Source Software

“Each time we look at open source, Microsoft is cheaper” says local government CIO

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Local government CIO Jos Creese has come out in favour of Microsoft over open source alternatives, explaining that it has always proved to be the cheaper option when he has examined the alternatives.

Speaking exclusively to Computing, Creese said: "We use Microsoft [for our desktops]. Each time we've looked at open source for desktop and costed it out, Microsoft has proved cheaper."

He explained that this is because most staff are already familiar with Microsoft products, and that they work well with the thin client model employed at Hampshire council. But it's also partly down to Microsoft itself.

"Microsoft has been flexible and helpful in the way we apply their products to improve the operation of our frontline services, and this helps to de-risk ongoing cost. The point is that the true cost is in the total cost of ownership and exploitation, not just the licence cost. So I don't have a dogma about open source over Microsoft, but proprietary solutions - from Microsoft, SAP to Oracle and others - need to justify themselves and to work doubly hard to have flexible business models to help us further our aims," Creese argued, adding that his organisation does also use open source solutions in some areas.

He said that he'd like more vendors to show greater flexibility over contracts, with an appreciation that longer term deals may need to change over time to suit evolving business needs.

"I want to see greater flexibility over contracts, I expect suppliers to take a long-term view," said Creese. "If it's shared services, suppliers need to allow flexibility over existing contracts to join them together. There's a range of habits and behaviours I expect from big suppliers to justify continuing using any proprietary software."

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has made several speeches championing both open source software, and procurement from SMEs within government. Indeed, Maude has gone on record to state that government should specifically drop the Microsoft Office suite in favour of open source alternatives.

While Creese acknowledged that smaller firms often offer the greatest innovation, there is a risk in a large public body agreeing a significant deal with a smaller player.

"There's a huge dependency for a large organisation using a small organisation. [You need] to be mindful of the risk that they can't handle the scale and complexity, or that the product may need adaptation to work with our infrastructure.

"We look at whether [the vendor] large or small, can support our business ambition and the risks associated. A niche application is sensible in some areas, but you need to plan your exit strategy. If you go for a small supplier because you want to support SMEs and you're not mindful of the risks, you may end up with difficulties later. If we are the largest client of a small company and it gets into [financial] difficulty, what happens if they can't sustain a system that schools are depending on?"

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“Each time we look at open source, Microsoft is cheaper” says local government CIO

Out in the Open: Occupy Wall Street Reincarnated as Open Source Software

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Image: Loomio

Benjamin Knight helped run the Occupy camp in Wellington, New Zealand.

It was 2011, when the globe was dotted with camps inspired by Occupy Wall Street, that iconic protest against economic and social inequality. As part of Occupy Wellington, Knight didnt just camp out on the street. He participated in the daily General Assembly meetings, an effort to reach a consensus on a variety of protest issues and ultimately make everyones voice heard.

He loved the process when it worked. Some discussions took hours or days without ever reaching a consensus. Worse, the ultimate decisions were sometimes made without input from the whole group. Everyone has to be together at one time and in one physical place, he says. A few voices could dominate the conversation, or a small group become dominate by waiting everyone else out.

With the right web software, he thought, it should be possible to give everyone in the group a voice.

He knew there had to be a better way. With the right web software, he thought, it should be possible to give everyone in the group a voice regardless of whether they were able to attend every single physical General Assembly or not. So he and a few other activists approached a New Zealand tech startup incubator called Enspiral. We basically turned up and asked them: Hey, youre a bunch of web developers. Can you make us a tool for making non-horizontal decisions? Knight remembers. And they said: Sure, we actually need something like this for ourselves.

The result was Loomio, an open source web application for making group decisions. It may sound like a niche application, but although the Occupy movement is largely a thing of the past, Loomio is still going strong. Its uses at non-profits and small businesses like San Franciscos Adobe Books and the Newtown Ethical Lending Trust in New Zealand. And earlier this month, the team raised over $100,000 in a crowdfunding campaign to help expand development of the platform.

There are plenty of tools for having discussions online, ranging from social networks to forums to idea management tools like Spigit or even Whitehouse.gov. But there are surprisingly few tools available for group decision making. Loomio is about participating in a process that leads to a clear course of action, not just talking for the sake of talking, Knight says. Whats more, its open source. That means you can run it on your own server without the help of anyone else, including the Loomio team and you can modify it as you see fit.

Image: Loomio

The Loomio interface is simple. At the top of the screen, youll find an explanation of the issue being discussed. The rest of the screen is then split into two columns: one side is for discussing the issue, as you would on a blog post, and the other is for voting on a specific way of addressing the issue.

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Out in the Open: Occupy Wall Street Reincarnated as Open Source Software