Bruce Miller wrote:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/23413.html

The interesting part of this story about the government "embracing*" open source is that, once again, the beancounters have provided the motivation for any hint of change in a typically prehistoric British organization. (Never mind that open source fits perfectly with New Labour's professed "communitarian values"---sometimes they can't even do ideology properly...) "Yes, the "UK Government will seek to avoid lock-in to proprietary IT products and services", but the bottom line here is... well... the bottom line. The increased used of open source solutions will come about because they're cheaper than closed source software." I predict the following. First the cave-dwellers of Whitehall will use open source as a big stick with which to beat the 800lb gorilla (M$) in order to get a cheaper corporate desktop. Then they will pause between bouts of licence-wrangling to examine the stick more closely and realise they could actually make quite a nice desktop of their own with the same piece of wood. Now you guys can call the metaphor police. *Hey, "embracing"---is H.M. Govt. licensing even its vocabulary from M$ now? -- Damian COUNSELL http://www.counsell.com/

On Sunday 16 December 2001 14:15, Paul Munro wrote: At least its a step in the right direction and the research bit is interesting. If we got to a situation where the Universities were producing increasing amounts of useful OS applications using grants and learning projects it would certainly contribute to the snowball effect and the knowledge base. Unlike the NHS, the Civil Service seem to have had the gumption not to let MS believe they are the only option. I only hope they really are brave enough to call the bluff and at least get Star Office established on the desktop. Just keep lobbying. Regards, -- IanL