Dr Mark Thompson is lecturer in Information Systems at the Judge Business School at Cambridge University. This week he delivered to George Osborne his report on delivering better value for money in government IT procurement.
Computer journalists calling me in the office, lobbyists bombarding me with emails – that’s the price you pay for getting involved with politics, as I did when the report I wrote for George Osborne on open source software was published earlier this week. I’ve got to say though – it was definitely a price worth paying.
George had asked me to write a report on open source software in the run-up to his speech on open source politics to the Royal Society of the Arts. He wanted to know how government IT procurement could be made more efficient – and how to go about creating a level playing for open source software. As someone who’s long been appalled by the waste and inefficiency of government IT procurement, I was more than happy to accept George’s invitation.
Before I go any further, I should probably just explain what open source software is – and why it matters. It’s software that’s typically developed by a community of developers, and whose source code is made openly available to licensed users, making it possible for them to tailor the software to their needs and make continuous iterative improvements. This not only makes for software that is often cheaper than traditional proprietary software, but it is often more secure and more effective too.
So – what did my report conclude?
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