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from the stop-throwing-good-money-after-bad dept.
The European Union's interoperability page reports:
The Dutch government must increase its use of open source software, recommends the country's parliament. It wants to make open standards mandatory and use open source when equal to or better than proprietary solutions for all [Information and Communications Technology] projects over 5 million euro.
The government must enforce compliance with its existing policy on open source software and open standards, the parliament recommends in its final report on failures of government ICT projects. Enforcing the 'comply or explain' policy is to become a [task] for a new agency, overseeing all government ICT projects.
"The government has already agreed to opt for open source and open standards, wherever possible. Only, in practice, this happens too little. This has to change - open source and open standards can result in major cost savings, but they also open the door to dissenting voices", the parliament writes. Such criticism is to be encouraged, and one of the ways to achieve this is to use open source, enabling outsiders to think along.
[...]The parliament wants the government to report the savings it realises by using open source. This is to become part of the annual business reports of the government.
[...]The Dutch government has been encouraging the use of open source and open standards for over ten years. There was an action plan, two government programmes, a board, an expert forum and a report by the Court of Audit, the committee's report summarises. "Recent years, however, have been pretty quiet."
Robert Pogson put a finer point on this:
The Netherlands, alone, has seen billions of Euros squandered each year due to failed ICT projects. It is so easy to sign a cheque and hope problems will disappear, but that abstraction allows a lot of waste such as paying for permission to run computers the government owns outright.
By using FLOSS, a huge slice of costs is eliminated. Better management will take care of the rest, but opening ICT projects to competition surely reduces costs and promotes local businesses boosting GDP and tax-revenue.
ICT that is a revenue generator rather than a cost is the pot of gold for governments everywhere. ICT should not be a conveyor-belt of money flowing to M$ and "partners". That's not the purpose. Finding, modifying, creating, and distributing information as efficiently as possible is the only valid justification for money spend on ICT.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Wednesday October 22 2014, @09:30PM
The problem (for Microsoft) is that as soon as you start using open formats you no longer require Microsoft Office. This is important, as when you don't need Office, you really no longer need Windows (in many cases) and you start to be able to allow people to use Linux, OSX, etc. Using open formats is probably the most important step is getting out of the Microsoft lock-in.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday October 22 2014, @09:49PM
Using open formats is probably the most important step is getting out of the Microsoft lock-in.
Exactly my point.
But you don't have to fight that Microsoft vs Linux battle. Too much gunfire from deep pockets, too much wailing and gnashing of teeth and moaning about retraining costs.
Just fight the little battle of required storage format. Its quiet, local, and under the radar. Once they realize Office provides no functionality not already available form OO or LO, they will stop buying Office.
Maybe they will choose to stay with Windows, Maybe not. Who knows, Windows 10 might be a pretty good OS. But the key is breaking up the issue into small win-able battles.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.