After many years now of the dominance that Uncle Bill has placed on the UK, especially since "New" Labour came to power, it finally looks like the powers that be (no doubt lead on by the
goings on recently in Europe) have started to see sense.
In a parlimentary answer Douglas Alexander (Home Office) said that they would be looking into the benefits of
open source as opposed to propriatory (closed) applications (our mates at
ElReg [4] have more
here [5])
The interesting points for all of these are
- What will happen over GCHQ and the "oh look, let's entrust the security of the nation to a company who's idea of security at it's best is 'OE'"
- The reply given was that the best value for money would be the option of choice. Given the advances in OpenSource desktops and office products, can this be further doom and gloom for M$?
- More importantly, if RISC OS [6] was to go open source, would it enable us to claw our way back in as not only being faster and more efficient than just about anything out there, it's a hell of a lot more stable and friendly to use than anything out there.
Okay, we all know that there is fat chance of
RISC OS [7] going
open source, but surely something like this (and approached sensibly instead of peacemeal) could do us no end of good in the long run.
The floor is now open.
