While the UK's Office of Government Commerce (OGC) points to the savings possible using OSS and warns against high lifecycle costs of proprietary software, its cousin organization, the National Health Service (NHS), indulges in an expensive renewal of proprietary software licenses.
It looked like the UK had finally joined the long list of countries opting to sit on the fence in support of Open Source Software (OSS). So it was a pleasant surprise for the OSS community when Whitehall recently woke up to the benefits of OSS in public programs and civil procurement.
The UK's powerful buying arm, the Office of Government Commerce (OGC), pronounced in a well-researched and clearly articulated study, that OSS is a "viable and credible alternative to proprietary software for infrastructure implementations, and for meeting the requirements of the majority of desktop users". Reporting to the Secretary of the Treasury, the OGC helps guide and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of central civil government procurement in the UK.
