LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Richard Russell <richard@yellowgoanna.com>
  To  : <linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au>
  Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2001 00:02:41 +1030

Re: Good news maybe ?? IT Minister

OK, it seems a few people are keen on a letter...  

here's my first draft, written on the spot, without revision, late at
night (how's that for a disclaimer -- if it's crap, tell me, I have
the excuses already prepared!)

note also that I am not sure of the factual correctness of anything I
have written here -- I may be thinking of state government ... please
correct me and provide references if you can...

-----------
Dear <Minister for IT and/or Telecommunications> [this may need to be
two separate letters addressing the two separate issues that we are
concerned about, depending on the "significantly different ministry"
John Howard's been touting],

Firstly, congratulations on your winning of Government and subsequent
appointment as Minister for IT and/or Telecommunications.

We are IT employees, employers, students, hobbyists, academics,
programmers, systems administrators and users who share a common
interest in Open Source and Free Software. We choose to use this
software in preference to commercial offerings for many reasons,
including cost, quality and (most importantly) freedom. It frees us
from the confines of restrictive (and expensive) software licencing
agreements, and allows us to modify and improve the software we use as
we see fit, thereby benefiting thousands of other users, while we
benefit from their modifications.

However, we are concerned about the some of the directions that the
Government's IT policies have taken in recent years. Three major areas
of concern are:


1) That access to Government online services is restricted to users of
commercial software such as Microsoft Windows with Internet Explorer.
We often find that Government sites block users of other operating
systems or browsers, or that the sites are customised to use special
features of specific browsers, and are unusable unless that browser is
used.

Examples of blocked sites:

Examples of sites that don't work correctly on all (most?) browsers:

We request that the Government adopt a policy that all online services
are accessible to users no matter what their choice of operating
system or browser. This allows more people to use Government services,
and it encourages competition in the software marketplace.


2) That major Government IT contracts are often exclusive, to the
detriment of competition. This includes moves such as standardising on
Microsoft Office software throughout Government departments, with no
possibility for variance, even where a better solution for a specific
problem exists.

Examples:

We request that the Government adopt a policy that all contracts are
designed to foster competition, and encourage the best solution for
the problem at hand to be used, as opposed to requiring a single
solution for all classes of problems. Diversity should be encouraged
in Government IT, for the dual purposes of fostering competition and
developing a more resiliant infrastructure -- it is an accepted fact
that while uniformity can bring some cost advantages, it accentuates
any weaknesses to the point where a single weakness can allow one
virus to cause so much damage in one hit.


3) That Government software projects themselves are usually closed
source. We believe that by encouraging the release of source code for
Government-sponsored projects, not only will the community benefit
from the use of this code, but the Government will benefit from the
community's use of this code. This applies specifically in cases where
the code being developed can have some wider application, but even in
cases where it won't, there is no disadvantage in releasing the code.

We request that the Government adopt a policy that all new (and
preferably old) software projects undertaken by the Government have
their code released to the community under an open licence (GPL or
BSD). This is a situation where the collaboration between Government,
community, and even other Governments would result in a win-win-win
situation.


Thankyou,

Sincerely....

----------

hmmm... that was longer than I meant, and may not be easily read by
politician types... also, I didn't touch on telecommunications issues
-- I think that should be separate anyway, as we could easily get far
broader support for that one...

Anyway, IMHO, the above are the three main Open Source related IT
issues facing government... anyone care to comment?

rr

-- 
Richard Russell
Yellow Goanna Pty Ltd
e: richard@yellowgoanna.com
m: +61 412 827 805
f: +61 8 8462 2362

-- 
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