Open source in government IT: It is about savings but that's not the whole story The mood in governments around the world has swung behind open source and open standards, but the shift is not being driven by cost cutting alone. The US government spends about $6bn per year on software licenses and maintenance, according to the Office of Management and Budget. Given the scale of that spending, it's understandable that the US, like other administrations around the world, is considering open-source software and open software standards as a way of saving money. But more than just seeing the move to open source as a cost-effective alternative, public officials worldwide view it as a means of speeding up innovation in the public sector. In August, the US government issued a new federal software policy (see http://ift.tt/2fYT9mJ) that aims to improve efficiency, transparency, and innovation across government by promoting the use of open source. "You create a lock-in situation, where company X created it and they are the only ones who know how relationships in the data and database itself work well enough to maintain it," says Kane McLean, a public-sector technology consultant and co-chair of Open Source for America. As governments disseminate increasingly more information and offer more services online, they need to connect new websites and applications to older ones, as well as across departments. To avoid having to rewrite old software code to function with new apps, governments are encouraging developers to use software with built-in open standards. The primary goal of employing open source in government is to facilitate the transfer of data as smoothly as possible. Open-standards proponents say this approach would lead to more innovation within government and better citizen services. Open Source for America's McLean says his organization is… http://bit.ly/2fKSJ4l
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