Over the past few months, governments in Europe and elsewhere have paid increasingly close attention to the possibilities of open-source software for lowering costs and promoting the free distribution of software innovations. Several European governments have passed or are considering bills that at least require open-source software to be considered alongside proprietary software, while the German city of Munich recently moved to replace nearly 14,000 desktop PCs with Linux computers. Several studies in recent months have found that open source was well-suited for public-sector use, and fitted particularly well with the needs of developing countries. However, open-source software in general and Linux in particular are seen as a threat by many companies. Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer recently identified Linux as the company's chief threat. Mitre, a not-for-profit engineering and IT organisation that works with the US federal government, in a report last autumn found that open-source software was essential for the running of the US Department of Defense, and recommended that in some cases the use of the GPL should be encouraged in order to speed up software development. "The combination of an ambiguous status and largely ungrounded fears that it cannot be used with other types of software are keeping FOSS from reaching optimal levels of use," the Mitre report said. The draft policy on the use of open-source licences with government-funded software is part of a broader policy on open source published last summer by the Office of Government Commerce (OGC). In this policy, the government said that in all future IT developments where interoperability is an issue, it would only use products that support open standards and specifications. Furthermore, it said it would follow a European Commission policy document that suggested exploring the open-source route for all government-funded software research and development. The government is expected to conduct a broad public consultation on the draft policy later this year. ZDNet UK's Matt Loney contributed to this report.
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