An institute that aims to promote the national use of open-source software was launched at the Houses of Parliament on Monday.
The National Open Centre (NOC), backed by the National Computing Centre, has won the support of the European Commission and members of parliament.
The NOC, which will be based in Birmingham, aims to help form public policy on the use of open-source software and open standards, acting as a think tank for discussions. The centre is currently running a programme of seminars to bolster knowledge of open-source products and services.
The concept of the NOC was originally touted in October, when the National Computing Centre outlined its plans to develop the concept with Open Advantage, a West Midlands-based open-source development centre, and Birmingham City Council, which began an abortive £500,000 Linux project in 2005.
The group originally planned to launch the NOC in January, but the launch was subsequently delayed until this week. The NOC is seeking further funding, and is currently seeking an award from Advantage West Midlands, a regional development agency.
Although the NOC will be based in Birmingham, it is keen to maintain a national remit and develop links with key suppliers, business users, MPs and the European Commission. It will be run by a 26-strong unpaid advisory board.
Talkback
Before accepting Noc's conceited claim as a 'landmark unique programme' or the 'national focal point' for the debate around open source, it's worth looking at the track record for each founding partner:
1) NCC - retired their Open Source Lab in 2006 in favour of a Microsoft / Dell sponsored Proof-of-Concept laboratory (see press release at http://tinyurl.com/35c73a).
2) Birmingham City Council - initially pursued ambitious plans for an 'Open Desktop' in Birmingham's Central Library. Despite the best intentions of library staff, their plans were scuppered by the amateurism of the Council's IT department. BCC spent £500,000 on deploying OpenOffice and Firefox on a handful of Windows desktops (see http://tinyurl.com/2smsm2).
3) OpenAdvantage - funded by the same regional development agency behind Noc, OpenAdvantage's impact on the adoption of open source in the region has been limited to distributing branded merchandise at Linux World and running Joomla! courses.
4) University of Central England - a curious institution largely responsible for forming OpenAdvantage.
5) Digital Birmingham - an initiative set up by Birmingham City Council and BT that brings with it no obvious open source expertise.
6) Open Forum Europe - tellingly not referred to in the publicity around Noc but known by many industry insiders as the key driving force behind the scheme. Backed by numerous proprietary software vendors, Open Forum Europe first came to prominence in 2003 when they signed an industry resolution calling for the EU to allow software patents. After claiming to represent the open source community's view on the subject they incurred the public wrath of Bruce Perens (http://tinyurl.com/b3gc) and Michael Tienmann (http://tinyurl.com/2t4f3j). Since then Open Forum Europe have secured public funding for projects such as the Open Source Academy (failed) and ToFE (failing).
The motivations for Noc are opaque and can be only speculated. But with the rather lacklustre launch of ToFE's 'Certified Open' scheme still a vague memory I, for one, don't believe in coincidences. Perhaps Noc is to Certified Open what the OEM is to Microsoft Vista - a mechanism for forcing an unnecessary but potentially very profitable 'upgrade' on an unsuspecting public?
John Pugh's comment is well noted:
"Open source has its enemies and its enemies are very close to government. They are very close to the top of governments and they are intending to stay there"
Unfortunately, sometimes enemies pose as friends.
The founders of the 'National' 'Open' Centre are:
Birmingham City Council - what motive could they possibly have other than the promotion of 'Open Source', after all they are well know for successful projects and for a report highlighting it's benefits.
NCC - whose 'Open Source Lab' quietly dropped from view after the Microsoft and Dell sponsored lab took it's place. Surely a coincidence.
OpenAdvantage - The running out of its funding is surely just another coincidence.
Many organisations will welcome the founding of this new 'national' initiative. Becta and the BBC will not be the only ones.
Strong opinions from ZDNet's readers here. It looks like several of you have concerns about some underlying issues affecting the National Open Centre. We'll be keeping a close eye on some of those concerns.
It's also interesting to see the number of times readers have clicked the cross at the foot of the article. We're interested in knowing why this is. Is it because you think there's more to explore with this story, or did you not like the story itself? Or is it picture stories that you don't like?
We'll be following the National Open Centre as it tries to expand through 2007, and any feedback you have we'll bear in mind when we write the next story update.