Let's hope that the new Government pushes Open Source a little better than the last one. Still. It all sounds positive!
Chris "Second, we need to follow the example of businesses all over the world and take advantage of "open source" technology. Open source is a way of developing software so that the source code is made openly available to licensed users. It started out as a communal philosophy but it's now mainstream. It has been harnessed by companies such as Amazon and Bebo to enable them to keep down costs and more easily improve their products. Amazon, for example, estimates that using open source has slashed its IT spending by a quarter. And 20 per cent of online Europeans - including me - now use the open source Mozilla browser to surf the internet. Unfortunately the Government is lagging far behind, with open-source suppliers all too often locked out of its contracts. Last week the Conservative Party published an independent report by Mark Thompson of Cambridge University which sets out detailed proposals to create a level playing field for open source. His report showed that the Government could save more than £600 million a year if it made more use of open source as part of a competitive procurement system. That's the right way forward. We're not saying that government should not use traditional licensed software - simply that open source should be used where it makes sense and can deliver better value for money." http://www.conservatives.com/News/Articles/2009/02/George_Osborne_When_it_comes_to_IT_big_is_not_beautiful.aspx -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/