[LINK] World first Government open source guide

[Marghanita da Cruz]

I have scanned through the document and have some experience in 
interpreting and implementing co-ordinating agencies other policies 
(federal government's outsourcing and NSW government's blueprint) at the 
agency level.

There is much reference to the general IT sourcing guide - which makes 
sense because a lot of the stuff applies equally to open source or 
proprietary software - there seems to be an overemphasis on licensing 
and inadequate emphasis though there are references to business 
objectives and change management.

The guide provides some  useful background reading however, I don't 
think it addresses the issues on which open source challenges the 
current procurement models - which are based on an assumption of 
proprietary ownership of software licenses. There also seems to be a 
reiteration of the  perenial requirement to get the code in machine 
readable form - which I thought was a given with Open Source.

I think there could be more discussion about the role/services provided 
by open source vendors - rather then references to software websites.

Open Office seems to be missing from the list of useful sites on page 50.

Marghanita

Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
> Avi Miller wrote:
> 
>>Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
>>
>>>Is there any particular reason that no-one - apart from that
>>>amorphous body the Federal Government - gets any credit?
>>
>>No public servants are ever credited in internally produced reports:
>>at least, none of the ones I've ever seen. I've certainly never been
>>credited for any of the stuff I've written while being directly
>>contracted to an agency. This doesn't cover reports that are
>>specifically tendered out to a consulting firm, though.
> 
> 
> If you look at the famous ANAO Audit Report No.9 2000–2001, Performance
> Audit there is a page that has the following:
> >>
>>No public servants are ever credited in internally produced reports:
>>at least, none of the ones I've ever seen. I've certainly never been
>>credited for any of the stuff I've written while being directly
>>contracted to an agency. This doesn't cover reports that are
>>specifically tendered out to a consulting firm, though.
<snip>
-- 
Marghanita da Cruz
Director, Ramin Communications Pty Ltd
http://www.ramin.com.au
ABN 28-089-713-084

Chair ACS Governance of ICT Committee
http://www.acs.org.au/governance

Telephone: 0414-869202
mailto:marghanita at ramin.com.au