Government policies favoring open-source software adoption should be wildly popular within the open-source crowd. Yet, at an open-source conference in Amsterdam today, I kept hearing the opposite. Despite the Dutch government's best intentions to foster open-source adoption, some people think it may actually be doing the opposite.
By many measures, the Netherlands is a great place for open-source software. In 2007, the government started to phase in a policy that gave preferential treatment to open-source software in IT purchasing decisions. Initially, at least, the policy seems to have been a success, with a July 2009 study highlighting a wide array of open-source software in use by government.
Sounds good, right?
Maybe not. According to sources within the government and others that sell to the government (both proprietary and open-source vendors), the government's rigid definition and management of the policy has more often than not thwarted its attempts to go open.
At its core, however, the problem derives from a mismatch between ends and means. The government's goal--"to increase the sustainability of information and innovation, while lowering costs through the reuse of data"--is not always best achieved by open source. A proprietary program with a broad community that is fully open standards-based could actually be a better solution to achieve this end than an open-source solution, particularly if it has a small community and smaller adoption.
That's because "openness" is not simply a measure of software's licensing. That's not even necessarily the most important consideration, as Tim O'Reilly reminds us.
But the government's policy doesn't look beyond whether the software in question is licensed under an OSI-approved license. This is what we thought of open source five years ago, but these days, this line of thinking is increasingly outdated.
An OSI license is a fruitful beginning to an open-source policy, but if it's the end, then the Dutch government's policy begins and ends with lawyers, who are almost certainly not the best equipped to evaluate IT solutions.
Indeed, the commentary I heard today confirmed that inbound software is first reviewed by the Dutch government's lawyers. If there's not an OSI-approved license attached to it, even if the software is provided by an open-source vendor with full rights to view and modify the software (but not redistribute it), it's out.
This wouldn't be so bad if there was a plethora of alternatives in each given product category for the government to choose. But there isn't.
Hence, more often than not the government ends up buying an established proprietary solution. It's very difficult for most products to run the legal gauntlet that the government has established. The vendors that do are either too small to effectively service the government's requirements, or they're Red Hat, which focuses on a limited infrastructure product portfolio.
Having painted itself into a legal corner, there's one easy thing for the government to do: buy the same proprietary software it always has.
Given that the policy allows for selection of a proprietary product if a suitable open-source alternative doesn't exist, the stated preference for open-source solutions is turning into a minor speed bump on the way to continued acquisition of proprietary software.
This is silly.
The Dutch government should focus on the end: open, interoperable solutions. True, doing so requires more thought than a binary decision based on a license. But it's a much smarter policy to balance a range of factors (freedoms and constraints of the license, community associated with the product, open standards, payment model [license fee vs. subscription], etc.), in order to reach a more thoughtful position on a given piece of software.
Such a policy would result in more open-source software adoption, not less. It would let open-source software compete on broader criteria than the license. Open source, and the trends it has inspired, are much more than a license. Other considerations, such as open data policies, take precedence in our networked age.
The Dutch have the right intentions. But the way they're managing their open-source policy is not helping them most effectively reach the goals they seek.
While some organizations continue to hide their open-source adoption, NOiV (Nederland Open in Verbinding), has published a map of over 200 open-source products currently in use by the Dutch central government as of mid-2009. (Translation here.)
Spoiler alert: there's a whole lot of open source being used by the Dutch government.
NOiV concludes in its study (PDF) that that Dutch central government is on the right track with open source for the operating system (platform) and middleware, but is in a very early phase of looking at business applications.
Open-source Networking Software Used by Dutch government
(Credit: NOiV)The main obstacle for moving from closed to open source even faster than it has is the high cost of migration, something that afflicts middleware and applications more than it does operating systems, as Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst recently noted.
Lest you think this move to open source is inspired by a cloud of cannabis smoke, the report also mentions significant improvements in interoperability (31 percent), cost reduction (8 percent), and quality improvements in the municipal governments (22 percent).
If that's what open source delivers, pass the bong!
The adoption map shows a wide range of open-source technologies being adopted, but the big winners at present are Linux, MySQL, Nagios, OpenOffice (and associated ODF plug-in), Firefox, Apache (Web server), SSH, and Tomcat.
With Forrester suggesting that 2009 IT budgets will fall 10.6 percent in 2009, it's a good time to be looking at high-value, low-cost open-source software. Just like those crazy Dutch.
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
The U.S. patent system is increasingly broken, a point argued persuasively on ReadWriteWeb, but there is a huge array of factors working against successful patent reform.
In the meantime, both proprietary and open-source software is constantly threatened, making intellectual property indemnification the No. 1 issue lawyers negotiate when working through software contracts here in the U.S. (This is, incidentally, very different from the issues my company and others face when negotiating contracts in Europe--just one of many differences between open source in the U.S. and in Europe.)
Open-source savvy patent reformers can take heart, however, from this week's move by the Netherlands Patent Office to adopt open-source software. With the patent office running open source, presumably open source will be treated equitably across The Netherlands. According to its patent office:
The open source pilot project at the Netherlands Patent Office is part of (Foreign Trade Minister Frank Heemskerk's) action plan 'Nederland in Open Connection,' in which a number of specific measures are put forward to encourage the use of open standards and open source software in government authorities.
'Wider use of open source software offers greater opportunities for new software companies. It also reduces the government's dependency on fixed suppliers and ensures lower costs,' explains Heemskerk. According to the minister, the Netherlands Patent Office is an important front runner with its plans and serves as a good example to other government authorities that have yet to implement the action plan.
Exactly. Let's hope that The Netherlands can also serve as an example to its American brothers and sisters on this one (though I think I'd prefer to keep marijuana illegal here). :-)
Indeed, word on the street is that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has been looking at adopting a range of open-source software. Let's hope that comes to fruition.
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