In 2011 our government issued a policy document which outlined a clear preference that all newly procured software systems should be based on open standards. That means if the government invests in a new database, telephone system or document management system, these systems should be able to inter-operate with databases, telephones and document management systems provided by other vendors without any technical or patent-licensing restrictions.
We all accept that free, open-standards are good. For example, the standard British power socket fits any appliance you can buy in the shop. It’s guaranteed to work and John Lewis does not need to pay anybody a fee for every device they sell. In theory the adoption of open standards in sotware works just the same way... by making it easy to interoperate it means we can do more and hopefully everybody in the private and public sector benefit from the growth that ensues.
Only one year after what seemed like a new era for sensible technology procurment the government is already back-peddaling from this position. I spoke with Glyn Moody who has written about free software and digital rights for almost 20 years. He’s one of the UK’s leading technology journalists. I began by asking him to explain why open standards are such a good deal for the tax-payer.
While paying lip-service to the spirit of openness, the FRAND proposal is anything but open. Even without software patents the encroachment of non-open standards into the public sector will almost certainly see a quick return to the bad-old-days when government contracts were an opportunity for technology providers to establish supply monopolies at the tax-payer’s expense.
