David Cameron champions "Open Source Software"

Tory’s and Free Software

I have blogged before on the Tory’s attitude to Free Software:
http://www.jonathandavis.me.uk/2007/03/08/torys-want-open-source/

Like PerfDave I too am slightly sceptical, but it’s a step in the right direction, and at least they’re not promising to sign up to more Microsoft contracts or anything daft like that. There are plenty of people in management where I work who are now looking into free software as a consequence of speeches like this, and although what they’re hearing may not be completely accurate, they can now at least approach people like ourselves for clarification and further info…

As an aside, I’d be interested to know if any parties do have a reference to Free Software in their manifesto. Green’s perhaps?

Jonathan

Don’t Believe the Hype

Cameron says an awful lot of things. You have to judge by the actions of his party, not by the words. For example, the Tories claim to be in favour of the environment, but they want to increase spending on roadbuilding instead of improving public transport infrastructure.

It’s pretty clear that he (or his speechwriters) doesn’t understand what he’s talking about. “Mainframe” solutions aren’t antithetical to open source. In fact, in many situations, some kind of thin client solution with some hefty servers at the backend can improve maintainability and lower costs.

Until this appears as a manifesto commitment from the party, I wouldn’t describe this as a “historic step forward” or a “firm stance”. Even then, I wouldn’t expect them to actually do anything about it if they got into power.

–PerfDave