Open Technology Foundation denied AGIMO support

By Liz Tay on Sep 15, 2010 6:56 AM
Filed under Strategy

State Government project seeks start-up funding.

A South Australia-led initiative to promote and support open technology in governments was yet to secure Federal Government support.

Spearheaded by SA Government ICT service delivery director Stephen Schmid, the Open Technology Foundation sought $2.71 million in start-up funding over three years.

It was the latest iteration - "plan L", Schmid said - of a project to increase exposure and reduce perceived risks of government open source adoption.

The initiative was supported by State Governments, the New Zealand Government, Australian Local Government Association, Labor Senator Kate Lundy, IBM and Microsoft, Schmid said.

But it failed to win over a Cross-Jurisdictional CIO Committee chaired by the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO).

A spokesman from the Department of Finance and Deregulation explained that while open source was "in wide use across the Australian Government", AGIMO took a neutral position on open source.

"Based on the Committee's decision, AGIMO formally declined South Australia's request to be involved in the OTF," she told iTnews.

"AGIMO has a policy of informed neutrality regarding open source software with value for money across the total cost of ownership of the software being the overriding principle for its use."

But Bryan King of the SA Office of the CIO yesterday told delegates at the open source OSSPAC conference that "open source for Government hasn't made any major penetration".

King explained that public sector IT departments faced "three Es": extra risk of new projects; entrapment by vendor lock-ins; and the ego-stroking marketing tactics of larger vendors.

While he was "ideologically more predisposed to open source", King said "we're not encouraged to take risks, we're not encouraged to do anything extra".

Those barriers could be reduced if government organisations more successfully shared "siloed information" on their open source deployments, Schmid said.

He hoped the OTF would provide a functional open technology discussion forum to "glue" together government organisations and the industry.

According to the OTF business plan (pdf), it would be jointly owned by Australian governments and incorporated, with a general manager, board of directors and advisory committees.

Schmid also hoped to recruit academics, like PhD-level researchers, to provide figures on the costs and benefits of interoperability, open standards and open source deployments.

He hoped to have the organisation established by January, noting that its focus was on collaboration rather than procurement, which was the role of ICT Supplier Advocate Don Easter.

Open Technology Foundation denied AGIMO support

13 comments in this discussion

"Wallabyted - your aspersion that Open Source is dominant on web servers is not strictly true. Most of the largest Australian Hosters (Web Central etc) run Windows, which has a 58% share of this ..."

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Comments: 13

dubious Sep 15, 2010 11:50 AM	If the inclusion or exclusion of Open Technologies was in the top 1000 burning needs for change, to improve Federal & State Governments cost effectiveness and general effectiveness in delivery of Information Services Projects, I for one would be exteremely surprised. The pre-occupation with Technology Stack selection over Business Information requirements continues to strangle any realisation of economies of scale that could, nay SHOULD be achieved through rationalisation to a simple suite of products.
longsword Sep 15, 2010 1:18 PM	Given that most government IT Departments are being asked to provide cost saving measures Open Source is a good option. I was shot down however when I suggested an open source option at my Department which was better than the paid for software which was up for renewal @ $10K+ for 1 year.
wallabyted Sep 15, 2010 1:32 PM	Often overlooked is the less obvious penetration and associated reliance on opensource. Opensource is used in the majority of Network appliances we rely on every day to provide the Internet experience (as well as our internal networks) and is also the dominating (yet curiously not the most attacked) platform for Internet servers. By that fact alone it is arguably less risky than any other software platform. Of course the other area Opensource is accepted and taken for granted is in the majority of ARM processor based appliances (eg pdas, smartphones, whitegoods) - which I'm told even outnumber INTEL processors. People Trust Opensource - whether they know it or not - its all about what they are familiar with and comfortable with.
Glenn_Archer Sep 15, 2010 1:32 PM	Given the discussion underway on this topic, I think it valuable to clarify the Australian Government’s policy and use of Open Source Software. I’ve only been at AGIMO for a couple of months but this is an important issue for us and was something that caught my attention in my first few days here. Facts are always useful. A survey conducted in 2007 of Federal Government agencies, showed that more than 60% had either piloted, or were using open source software. In addition, this survey indicated that 86% of agencies had a positive view of open source software and expected its usage to increase over the next 5 years and 90% of agencies indicated that they believe open source and proprietary software can co-exist, and that composite solutions are certainly practical. Subsequent data collected by AGIMO earlier this year has shown that 64% of agencies now use open source software to support their business needs. AGIMO actively supports Open Source Software by convening a Government community of interest on Open Source Software. The “Guide to Open Source Software for Australian Government Agencies” issued in 2005 doesn’t capture a number of latest development in the Open Source arena, and consequently we have been giving some thought recently to updating it.
wallabyted Sep 15, 2010 2:10 PM	I can't see opensource being actively put forward for enterprise solutions without some promotion of its attributes by AGIMO - even though your stats show a valiant effort. I remember when Desktops were first introduced in the public service they were actually made available before we had a job related use, and we were encouraged to play games just to familiarise ourselves. With outsourcing the dynamics have changed and outsourcers do not feel the same responsibility to acquaint public servants with alternative technologies as our inhouse IT departments did. Without AGIMO driving acceptance of Opensource alternatives, it is unlikely that outsourcers will push it - especially when they can make more money out of selling the Government proprietary alternatives and lockins.
nate.cochrane Sep 15, 2010 3:31 PM	@wallabyted Depends on what you mean by open source; ITIL is an open-source framework beloved of outsourcers because it makes it easier to sell their services into the business. Others, such as IBM, made open source a focus in the '90s because it promised services adoption. Even Microsoft toyed with open source Samba because, in the early days especially, it provided an entree to big-iron and Unix systems in government. Where open source floundered was on the desktop where the user experience for many was not in line with what they came to expect from commercial software.
dubious Sep 15, 2010 4:15 PM	Glenn, Coming from an MIS background, can we drill down on your facts a little if possible? From your 2007 survey, of the 60% that has either piloted, or were using open source software, what proportion fitted into each category? Let’s face it after all, if you’ve been exposed to Govt. agencies - “piloting” and real delivery of operational solutions are very different. I’m sure there are a lot of under-utilised techies sitting running Red Hat LINUX on a special little server they have somewhere, BUT are they running an implemented ERP, or Asset Management Solution, Accounting, Payroll, OHS, ECM, CRM, or Enterprise Data Warehouse on it? As for the 86% positive view of open source software, and expected usage to increase over the next 5 years, with respect – so what? Same for the 90% of agencies indicated belief that open source and proprietary software can co-exist, - WE KNOW THAT. Statistics and facts make very strange bed fellows – particularly in the world of theory versus delivery in the IT industry of Govt. The solid stat that you present – that 64% of agencies now use open source software to support their business needs, this would be a really interesting one to drill down on. Does it mean that they use Google?... or is it something more dramatic? “Actively supporting” a cause doesn’t produce any tangible outcomes. The fact that you’re considering “giving more thought” to updating a guide that was published in 2005 is some indication of how far behind the reality of functional systems required by large Govt Agencies. Adding into the equation what “wallabyted” has pointed out, that these same agencies are addicted to outsourcing everything from, Infrastructure Management, to Analysis to Project Management to “Implementation Partnership”
Glenn_Archer Sep 15, 2010 7:10 PM	Dubious, The recent data on agency solutions shows that there are more than 200 open source software products in use across government. These products include, for example, Apache Jakarta, Eclipse, Real VNC, 7-zip, PuTTY, Apache Tomcat and Mozilla Firefox. We are continuing to support agencies in their consideration of open source software. The 2005 guide to open source software was highly regarded internationally and by the open source community. We are committed to ensuring that the guide continues to be relevant for agencies and industry. Glenn
dubious Sep 15, 2010 10:44 PM	Glenn, The products you list are all valid, but look at the space they fill - they're very basic tools with numerous alternatives (many also Open Source). These are not where the big bucks are spent. They are not Business Applications, in that they do not capture, manage and transform a corporations’ information. The distinction is between the likes of free Web browsers, JSP’s and file compression trinkets, and the BUSINESS APPLICATIONS that everybody ABOVE THE BONNET cares about. This has increasingly amused/frustrated me over the 20 years I’ve been contracting in Govt and Private organisations. The time, effort and distraction debating a technology stack that real business people are oblivious to, and do not give two hoots about. Conversely, take the Microsoft Office Suite away from nearly any large modern Corporation and see them scream. On the flip side though, do you think a switched on CIO cares whether IE7, Safari, Firefox or Chrome is what his/her Senior Exec peers use to get onto the Financial Review? The only way to realize true economies of scale and effectiveness is for Aust. Government Agencies at all levels to be TOLD which horse has been picked and be forced to ride the bloody thing, in the realms of those BUSINESS systems I mentioned before such as ERP, Asset Management Solutions, Accounting, Payroll, OHS, ECM, CRM, or Enterprise Data Warehouse. Just as an example, imagine if every State, Federal and Local Govt. Employee was managed on the same HR/Payroll suite.
Ace Sep 16, 2010 12:46 AM	I believe @Glenn only mentioned a very small handful of 200 os products @dubious. Desktop 'Business applications' as you call it is probably a minor part of where Open Source software is implemented, and only a small (and getting smaller) part of what users know about. ALL java applications run on open source software, whether it be part of a commercial offering or not. In fact, unless you use a complete Microsoft stack, the chances are that your technology stack is already peppered with open source software. The most sophisticated and mission critical parts of software are not the front end bit that users see, but the back end and middleware bits. These are the bits that connect one system with another, process huge quantities of data etc etc. This is where you'll find open source software and open technologies and open standards. While there might be some incursion onto the desktop by Open Source software, I don't see this as the most important area to be considering open source. And given that desktop applications are disappearing and becoming network/cloud based applications, it would seem a less worthy area to be worrying about anyway.
Graeme Harrison (prof at-symbol post.harvard.edu) Sep 16, 2010 7:51 AM	I think 'dubious' should tell us what company he works for. He sounds like someone who makes his living from 'the old proprietary way' of doing things. His denigration of open source is palpable. He worries about any government department having an real business needs on an open source platform. Personally, I feel far more relaxed about such business apps being built using open source tools, as often these government systems hang around for 20 years, so why pay licence fees for that period, when they could be avoided. Plus, with the proprietary route, you have to keep re-engineering the solution to use the vendor's most recent approach (latest APIs, forced migration to latest versions etc). Part of the vendor lock-in is to get client organisations to shift to the ever-more-proprietary solution, as a way to make it harder for them to use open source. Conversely, with open source, you know the software will keep running for ages, as the newer versions still support the existing APIs, etc. And Glen lives in a make-believe world where 'an intention to consider' something is as good as using it. The more truthful position is to acknowledge that government has been very tardy in shifting to open source, and that those who should be encouraging the switch (where it makes sense) have failed to encourage initiative. If the whole German government can standardise on Open Source, surely in Australia we can progress faster than we have. The Feds one-laptop-per-child SHOULD have been a Ubuntu (or similar Linux) platform, but instead in NSW the state insisted on 'handling' the laptops, turning $350 computers into $1300 expense items. Ludicrous. And it played completely into the hands of the proprietary proponents, in that if you teach the kiddies on proprietary stuff, you hook them for life. The NSW Department claimed they had no responsibility in terms of such life skills (what else is education about?) but that current budget issues were their sole determinant (existing staff already having their own skills in only proprietary software). If we can't break the cycle in school, we are like the addicts lining up on the street corner! And we do need some Federal initiative to break the cycle, as has been done in many countries... but only when they've made a commitment to make the savings. It does not happen automatically. But as Microsoft knows, once people are educated on Open Office, they never switch back. That is why there are such steep discounts for in-school use. We need government bureaucrats who see such 'free first use' as precisely like the 'free first use' in illicit substances. It is NOT 'free' as it sets you up for a lifetime of paying royalties you didn't have to pay.
dubious Sep 16, 2010 1:36 PM	I have not and do not pre-sell, re-sell or gain from any particular technology selection in any of my roles. I’m technology stack agnostic!! It has to work on a large industrial scale to deliver functionality and information in a manner that is useable by lay people… that’s it. Open Source is finding its niche and can continue to do so wherever it fits the bill. My proposition, which I probably didn’t put too succinctly in my previous rant, is that if it’s good enough (as some of it is) it doesn’t need a band of evangelists being paid public money to promote it. But…@Graeme Harrison (prof at-symbol post.harvard.edu), dear oh dear! The palpable dislike of technology options appears to lie more squarely with you, when you liken the use of ANY software solution to a problem where “If we can't break the cycle in school, we are like the addicts lining up on the street corner!” I didn’t realise we were discussing the forces of light & darkness here – my mistake. As far as I’m concerned the more people educated on Open Office, the better – they have a choice then. It’s just laughable to me when people equate Oracle or Microsoft with Lord Voldemort. Maybe academia has given you a slightly over bolstered sense of the dramatic – comparing proprietary software to “illicit substances”. These companies, competitive business organisations, like banks or insurance companies, neither entirely virtuous nor evil, employ thousands, are used by hundreds of thousands, and have often in the past set a benchmark of functionality for other developers to compete against.
ITNeutral Sep 17, 2010 3:11 AM	Wallabyted - your aspersion that Open Source is dominant on web servers is not strictly true. Most of the largest Australian Hosters (Web Central etc) run Windows, which has a 58% share of this market (Netcraft,Sept 2010). Given, Windows share of this market is higher than in most other countries.