UK Takes Huge Step Forward On Open Standards 67
jrepin sends this news from the FSF Europe site:
"The UK government is certainly taking a long and winding road towards Free Software and Open Standards. The UK's public sector doesn't use a lot of Free Software, and many smaller Free Software companies have found it comparatively hard to get public sector buyers for their products and services. The main reason is that government agencies at all levels are locked into proprietary, vendor-specific file formats. ... The UK government has released a new Open Standards policy. With this policy (PDF), and in particular with its strong definition of Open Standards, the UK government sets an example that governments elsewhere should aspire to,' says Karsten Gerloff, President of the Free Software Foundation Europe. Under the new policy, effective immediately, patents that are essential to implementing a standard must be licensed without royalties or restrictions that would prevent their implementation in Free Software."
and www.gov.uk is developed in the open... (Score:5, Informative)
Hi,
The main UK Government Website is built in the open, using open-source tools where possible:
Code: https://github.com/alphagov [github.com]
Blog Post: http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/govuk-launch-colophon/ [cabinetoffice.gov.uk]
Disclaimer: I work for them ;o)
--
ZG-Rules
Re:And? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Does this include the BBC? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Does this include the BBC? (Score:4, Informative)
I don't think the BBC is technically part of the UK government. It's autonomous in a lot of ways, although it's been a while since the exact nature was explained to me.
The BBC is funded by a license fee, which is paid for directly by everyone in the UK that watches TV. The BBC's budget is controlled by the government and agreed every 10 years.
It's free of direct government control, so for example released damning material into the Iraq War, and reported an accusation that the government "sexed up" the case for war, and that WMDs did not exist. The BBC was later proven 100% correct.
The event, partly due to a cock-up by a BBC reporter, led to a scientist's death. There was a government inquiry by a government stooge that found in favour of the government over the whole affair. This led to the enforced resignation of the head of the BBC (who had been on holiday at the time of the incident).
Since then, the BBC has kow-towed to the government and lost much of it's teeth where it really mattered.
The license-fee part of the BBC has also been forced to take on funding of the BBC World Service and BBC Monitoring (which were always government funded, although in the former case, editorially independent and trusted to tell the truth around the world by everyone from sheep herders to jihadists).
The BBC Boss since the Hutton affair, Mark Thompson, recently left to become a Murdoch stooge (his reward for damaging the BBC as much as he did). The new DG, George Entwistle, has dropped into position in the middle of the whole Saville controversy in a "don't you dare try to shake anything up" style thing. Amazing timing.
On top of the fear of government (especially when Labour and Peter Mandleson were still in power), the BBC's journalism has suffered recently due to a dumbing down of output. It's the same across the industry. They're trying to produce too much materia, with too little
Leading BBC journalists, speaking privately yesterday, called for radical reform of the BBC's News division, claiming it had become afraid of running difficult stories. "There is a general timidity about broadcasting anything that's controversial," said one senior figure. "We have got to have a sense of devilment and we don't have that at all." [independent.co.uk]
The BBC has amazing correspondents, but the culture at the head is the biggest problem.
Jeremy Bowen, a middle-east expert, was recently criticised for spending too much time in the middle east during the Arab spring. Their knowledge rarely makes it out on mainstream BBC News, you sometimes get some good programs like "Reporters", and the occasional Newsnight and Radio 4 program, but even the 1/6/10 doesn't scratch the in-depth knowledge of the BBC's overseas correspondents.
Re:I'm sceptical (Score:4, Informative)
Local government is notoriously backward and inefficient in the UK. It's one of these institutions which is stuck in the 70's in terms of product decisions in some places. They've updated some practices but not others.
National government has gone the other way. IT projects are almost uniformly outsourced, on a massive scale, and cost billions because of private sector profiteering and inefficiency. The NHS database has cost about 15 billion so far for something no one really wanted. That's a few hundred pound every man, woman, and child of the UK pays each, for that project. No, I'm not bitter.
ps. I'm also a massive fan of local government and the nhs, and am very glad they are there - I just hate the things they get so obviously wrong.