Conservatives want opensource

Conservative party leader David Cameron held a speech at the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts on April 3rd. Aside from the usual criticism (not all undeserved) at the current government he talked about the network society and bottom-up collaboration enable by ubiquitous access to IT. He (or his staffer) had obviously read "Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win" by William C. Taylor and Polly G. Labarre. And a good thing too since it is filled with good examples of how to innovate by sticking your neck out and doing things differently.

About three quarters through the speech Cameron very explicitly stated that his government, if elected, would actively seek a greater use of opensource software and mandate the use of open standards for public IT systems. According to him this will enable faster innovation in the public sector while avoiding repeats of the very expensive NHS disaster.

When things like this are being stated by a conservative the idea has arrived. The other political parties will have to follow suit or be left in the dust by the conservatives. I think these are really good ideas and I know they are practical because I advised the Dutch government on a policy plan (full English translation here) last year that was adopted by parliament last year and is being implemented now. Since the publication of the plan that has been a remarkable change in the relationships between many government institutions and their usual software suppliers. They customer is re-taking power by forming interest groups and re-defining what IT-vendors should actually deliver (instead of just waiting what vendors want to sell them). Norway has a comparable policy and France, Germany Italy and Spain are taking concrete steps too. Below an example of the effects such a policy has had on the quality of healthcare and education in the south of Spain: