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Government open source licensing plans under fire
Guidelines could force departments to use open source…

By Matt Loney

Published: Friday 12 March 2004

In a draft consultation document published this week, the office of the e-Envoy has sent its clearest signal yet to government departments that they should pay more attention to open source.

The guidelines say that departments should consider open-source software alongside proprietary software in IT procurements and award contracts on a value-for-money basis - a measure bound to rankle with proprietary software vendors, who increasingly find it difficult to compete against open-source software in terms of value-for-money.

Furthermore, government departments are banned from using products that do not support open standards and specifications, they will seek to avoid lock-in to proprietary products and services, and will consider obtaining full rights to any bespoke code that they commission.

But the measure that most acutely touched a nerve with proprietary software vendors appears to be the rule that says that publicly funded software will be released under open-source licences.

"Essentially, if this goes ahead, it will force public-sector bodies into using software that is not appropriate for them," said the Initiative for Software Choice (ISC), in a statement. The ISC is an initiative of industry association CompTIA, which represents several hundred proprietary software companies, including Microsoft - one of the most outspoken critics of open-source licences.

"R&D project owners should be free to select the licensing model that best meets their particular needs and public authorities should maintain the broadest array of licensing options when pursuing R&D projects," said ISC. "For this reason, the ISC strongly encourages the e-Envoy to continue to promote a technology-neutral policy with respect to government funded R&D, and it recommends that any discriminatory reference to a particular software licence be deleted from the policy currently under discussion."

The e-envoy's consultation closes on 11 June.

Matt Loney writes for ZDNet UK