Community Addresses UK Parliamentarians
In a half-day session in Westminster, members of the Free Software community gathered to inform British parliamentarians and civil servants of how Open Source software may impact the public sector and British industry in future.
Notable contributions to the Westminster eForum were made by Alan Cox of Red Hat, Tristan Nitot of Mozilla Europe, Mark Taylor of the Open Source Consortium and jounalist and author Glyn Moody. Nick McGrath of Microsoft was also present in order to give the proprietory perspective.
The forum had been split into two sessions one investigating the potential impact of Open Source in both the public and private sector and investigating the future of Open Source. In the first of these sessions, chaired by Dr. John Pugh MP, presentations were made by Specsavers and Alfresco detailing the success of these organisations in both using and developing Open Source. Michel Kahn, CIO of Specsavers, cited the use of Open Source as a crucial element in the success of his organisation's rapid groth across Europe in the last few years.
When it came to use of Open Source in the public sector,however, most speakers were positive about the potential for Open Source but were concerned that the UK public sector's overly conservative approach to software procurement and development may continue to be a barrier to adoption.
Much of the future impact session looked at how as Open Source adoption grows in the UK we shall see a rise in service based companies offering all the deployment, support and training required to make adoption viable. Glyn Moody concluded this session by making explaining that the biggest development in perception of Open Source occur when the public sector realises that Open Source is a social phenomenon advocating collaboration.
The meeting, as a whole, was very informative and should have been very useful to the senior parliamentarians present. However, the content and audience were both tipped in favour of Open Source, making the meeting unbalanced. As a result, the meeting was more successful in displaying the passion of the UK's Free Software community than it was at getting across a healthy balance of the facts.
comments powered by Disqus
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you've found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
The GNU Project Celebrates Its 40th Birthday
September 27 marks the 40th anniversary of the GNU Project, and it was celebrated with a hacker meeting in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland.
-
Linux Kernel Reducing Long-Term Support
LTS support for the Linux kernel is about to undergo some serious changes that will have a considerable impact on the future.
-
Fedora 39 Beta Now Available for Testing
For fans and users of Fedora Linux, the first beta of release 39 is now available, which is a minor upgrade but does include GNOME 45.
-
Fedora Linux 40 to Drop X11 for KDE Plasma
When Fedora 40 arrives in 2024, there will be a few big changes coming, especially for the KDE Plasma option.
-
Real-Time Ubuntu Available in AWS Marketplace
Anyone looking for a Linux distribution for real-time processing could do a whole lot worse than Real-Time Ubuntu.
-
KSMBD Finally Reaches a Stable State
For those who've been looking forward to the first release of KSMBD, after two years it's no longer considered experimental.
-
Nitrux 3.0.0 Has Been Released
The latest version of Nitrux brings plenty of innovation and fresh apps to the table.
-
Linux From Scratch 12.0 Now Available
If you're looking to roll your own Linux distribution, the latest version of Linux From Scratch is now available with plenty of updates.
-
Linux Kernel 6.5 Has Been Released
The newest Linux kernel, version 6.5, now includes initial support for two very exciting features.
-
UbuntuDDE 23.04 Now Available
A new version of the UbuntuDDE remix has finally arrived with all the updates from the Deepin desktop and everything that comes with the Ubuntu 23.04 base.