Appendix II - Open software and public administration
The public administration mission consists, in time of peace, on providing a military system capable of protecting the country, providing law and public order, and taking care of the welfare and well-being of the nation. In a time of war, public administration has to be able to furnish maximum support to the military machine, battlefield damage repairs in the home country and the basic needs of population.
Consequentially, being high paying war targets the industrial military economic complex, while generally other governments targets are not that high of a priority, the public administration has also the duty of providing supplemental services like communications, engineering, civil protection and support to reconstruction to the industry and the population, and to provide for its own survivability capacity, including all major services to the population.
In the above light, and from the standpoint of the highest public deficit in history, it appears obvious that the resources for this enormous challenge have to come from “self financing” instead than from the usual, and so loved by all economists, symbolic cow of public debt, that may end up not working as well for times of war, or times with an exceptional number of catastrophic events like the Katrina hurricane.
To help accomplish the above goals without adding burdens on budget, few logical solution appear obvious:
Deferring operational life of equipment can save precious funds to redirect to different contingent priorities, as an increasing number of national emergencies will arise off of a cycle of warming affecting the Atlantic regions.
Open software has today the capability of using 1998 and sometimes even older hardware, with comparable performances in terms of speed and products with today machines loaded with today's proprietary operating systems and applications, even if giving up a few 'modern' multimedia features, (which most public offices should not have anyway, unless they are the Press Information office or Public Relations office).
Telecommuting capacity of government agencies is also a very important step toward reduction of public spending (reducing cost of maintenance of real estate and operational fixed costs like energy and equipment).
Recent statistics in Canada show that 50% of public servants would choose to work from home if they could:
http://www.telcoa.org/id179.htm
However, no additional financial burden should be expected, like “double taxation” in interstate transactions, or specific software requirements. YOU CAN NOT IMPOSE YOUR EMPLOYEES TO USE A CERTAIN BRAND OF SOFTWARE AT THEIR HOME, IS UNFAIR AND IS UNCOSTITUTIONAL.
Telecommuting will also increase the survivability of government agencies (and private as a matter of fact, if they just would like to listen for once), if designed right. For example, the agencies in the WTC would have suffered much less of a loss if they had been dispersed on a company P2P network, with 50% telecommuters.
Proprietary software, primarily that written by Microsoft, is the target of most malaware, viruses and spy ware on the Internet. Generally speaking people at home have kids downloading all day junk from the Internet, and will never have firewalls costing ten thousand dollars each or more (they pay out of pocket for their equipment, not via the cash cow of government agencies).
Consequentially, the reality of telecommuting in government requires employers to step away from proprietary software, toward a software anybody can afford, that performs regardless of hardware, and offers maximum un-compatibility with malicious software. The software that meets these requirements at this time is open source-based.
Profound changes on legislation will be needed to make telecommute a reality in the government sector:
Public administration should go toward open software anyway, because it has the constitutional duty to be inter-operable with all systems and to serve all citizens, not only those who choose to run a particular operating system. Government, being neither church nor a private company, should not be exempt from applying non-discrimination rules. Failure to provide cross-platform services equates to discrimination against those impacted.
A large number of experts agree to this day that open software is better than proprietary. Would it not seem logical after institutions like the Parliament of France have adopted Linux as their operating system of choice, giving more consideration to open operating systems ?
Open software can cost anywhere from nothing to 10-20% of the price of corresponding proprietary products.
Why the migration to open software is not happening fast enough in the US, should be object of a congressional investigation, and politicians in Washington should explain why government on-line services are discriminatory towards citizens not using Microsoft or Apple products.
The web is full of forms on plenty of Government sites, whereas the only way to get the information, is trough the use of proprietary code or programs. Citizens are discriminated on the access of public services, on the base of what operating system, browser and media player they use.
The private industry is following the above (bad) examples, due to proprietary software's ubiquity One ironically is even to fill up the on-line application for the Geek Squad using a “non-Microsoft” OS (seems to work on Linux with Netscape 7.2, however the unsupported OS notification on the page prevents users from certainty that their application may be actually filed).
Here some interesting considerations on browsers from 2001, the situation does not seem to be any better now:
http://www.strum.co.uk/webbery/browser.htm
The matter of a 'one and only choice' is serious, and is impacting both national productivity and security. The possibility of a net “infection” / “poisoning”, causing most or all systems of a certain kind to be down for an indefinite period, should be enough of a reason to start considering the maximum redundancy of products, instead of restricting the choice to one provider.
Because of the taxpayer's interest in efficient government spending and the need of interoperability of software and equipment, open software, as well as open hardware, should be a mandatory requirement for appropriation for any government agency.
Finally, open software opens the road for the government agencies to generate their own operating system and applications. “Government edition” versions of applications and operating systems can be royalty free, and can be distributed with no licensing charge in unlimited quantity, to employees, suppliers, contractors and citizens, maximizing standardization and compliance.
Here are few examples comparing cost of operating systems applications:
Operating systems, Office software and browsers:
|
| x86 | mac | Sparc/x86 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prop. OS | Vista $250 | osx $199 | free Solaris 10 |
| Live OS | limited | limited | supported |
| Linux/bsd | Free | Free | free |
| Live OS | included | included | included |
| Prop. Office suite | Office $550 | Office $ 199 | 25 star office |
| Open Office | FREE OO | FREE OO | FREE OO |
| Prop. browser (different) | Free explorer | Free safari | Free java |
| Mozilla – firefox netscape | Free – same | Free – same | Free - same |
Other issues arise when talking about programming tools and environments, where also open software plays an interesting role. This is the higher portability of code across platforms, and consequent reduction in the total cost of ownership (TCO) of development.
Open Source Development Tools:
|
| x86 | mac | Sparc/x86 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prop. Devel 3gl | Microsoft .net full $600 | Free Xcode limited | Developer suite ($?) |
| Proprietary open software java | Free | Free | Free |
| Gnu – eclipse | Free | Free | Free |
| python – eclipse | Free | Free | Free |
| Prop. Database | SQL Server $500 | none | Adabas (included with Star Office) |
| Proprietary database oracle express | Free | unavailable | Not Free ($?) |
| Proprietary open source Ingres | Free | Free | Free |
| Postgres | Free | Free | Free |
Finally, costs can be reduced using many open source free or low-cost specialized applications rather than proprietary from software houses. For example:
Specialized applications:
|
| x86 | mac | Sparc/x86 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Proprietary photo | Photoshop $839 | Photoshop $719 | Photoshop ($?) |
| Open software gimp | Free | Free | Free |
| Proprietary CAD | Autocad $399 | Autocad $399 | Autocad ($?) |
| Open Software US Army BRL CAD | Free | Free | free |
| Proprietary ERP/CRM | MS CRM $405 MS ERP $2,200 | Daylite $145 Open MFG free | ($?) |
| Open Software ERP/CRM ERP5 - Compiere | Free | Free | free |
Several open software projects are not yet at maturity but are expected to be in the years to come.
Open software is being looked upon by many government agencies as a way to reduce operating costs. As a backlash against proprietary software deepens, open-source software is gaining acceptance in the world community.
Open software is a big player in the United Nations project related to the Millennium Development Goals. The US Department of Defense is already highly involved in open software, and so are agencies like the NASA and its European equivalent, the European Space Agency (ESA).
http://www.ony.unu.edu/seminars/2006/opensource/
http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=89668DCF-D287-48E3-93F0-A0AB7DED24F7
http://opensource.arc.nasa.gov/
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMDV1T4LZE_index_0.html
Kansas City, Paris France, Schoten in Belgium, Gwangju in Korea are running their administration on open software:
http://www.bensoft.com/kansas_city_open_source_systems.html
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1941298570;fp;16;fpid;0
http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/5178/470
http://www.zdnet.co.kr/etc/eyeon/enterprise/0,39
Several libraries are now running on on open software:
http://www.greenstone.org/cgi-bin/library?e=p-en-home-utfZz-&a=p&p=factsheet
The state of Georgia is running 256 libraries on open software, with a long list of others:
Also, the first indications that at a certain point the use of Open Software may become mandatory in specific Countries, is indicating that compatibility to open software is something governments can not afford to ignore any longer, as indicated in the article below:
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-272299.html
All the above leads to believe that closed proprietary software is on the way of estinction, like the dinosaurus, and further public spending in it, with very few exceptions of highly specialized software, is a symptom of poor managerial decision capability at the best, or conflict of interest at the worse.
Note: All prices are approximated, and obtained with “best price” query on google, choosing the lowest offer for full edition products (non academic, OEM, demo's or 'not for resale')
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