“Recent years show that openness and collaboration is essential to the generation of innovation in the software sector. Technology increasingly means software. In Ireland, we can see that the production of hardware technology in many, but not all, cases is providing ever diminishing returns. Here we outline some key policy recommendations that are crucial to the fulfilling the vision of making the Irish Smart Economy a reality for the software industry through the adoption and encouragement of Open Source technologies.”
The above extract is from a paper we are submitting to the Innovation Taskforce as requested by the Department of Taoiseach. The draft paper is available at Positioning Ireland as an International Innovation Hub
Please note, we are submitting the paper ahead of the deadline which is Friday the 18th of September. We appreciate any feedback, support or criticisms you may have. Please post them as comments below.
Hi Declan,
Great idea, great paper. 2 typos:
“, that powers their such engine technology,”
and
“co-optition is key in this”.
I’d be happy to add my name to this submission, if it would be useful to you. I was co-founder and CTO of DemonWare, a recent startup success story, and am working on a new venture at the moment (again largely based on open source technology).
Cheers!
Sean
Just a couple of typos:
“Startup software companies have a high tendency to use Open Source tools due to the low of procuring them ”
“Google’s backend architecture, that powers their such engine”
I don’t work in the IT sector, and my knowledge is paltry, but I did FOI the various ministries several years ago to get their software costs with the intention of suggesting a Linux strategy.
Much of the government’s software costs are due to bespoke software developed for particular ministries (the PPARS and PULSE systems are infamous examples, but the Dept. of Agriculture’s software costs was largely a result of bespoke software also). Mandating open standards would help to avoid vendor lock-in on such projects, and ensure that new software needed a change in requirements could be re-tendered to a larger field of potential providers and ease inter-operability with existing systems. You address that in you letter somewhat, but maybe it could talked up a bit?
Please,
“When Tux walks …… ” dosen’t set the requisite tone.
I have been using and promoting OS for years – mosting Linux, Perl, Latex, Lilypond ……..
I think that the saturation of our educational systems by M$ is discusting.
Use my name if you like.
Speaking as someone who works in the Dept. of Agriculture and as someone who uses Linux at home (Mint 7) I would love to see more OpenSource used in the Civil Service. I also use the “bespoke system” mentioned, unfortunately I do not think that there is an OpenSource equivalent that integrates a database and mapping system, however it might be able to be run on Linux but I do not know. I think though some money could be saved if we used OpenOffice and Thunderbird instead of MS Office and Outlook. Also our pc’s run win2000 so must be nearly ready for an upgrade, maybe to Linux if we are persuasive enough.
I think you should emphasize security as in Linux, USB ports can be turned off, securing data, whereas that is not the case in Windows afaik. Also what about mentioning Google, IBM and Oracle who also use Linux
A few comments…
On point (1), To promote .ie as a centre of competence in open source activities, you will need to grow IP experts as well as developers. There are few with legal qualifications that have relevant expertise of open source license minutia and execution in this country, and education is required.
On point (3), Open source does not necessarily reduce the cost of an application or solution when applied to the corporate world. You mention this later on when writing about hybrid solutions and the services/support revenue model. The key aspect is that in many cases, the customer receives more *value* for their spend, including a transparency of process and a level of access that is not available from traditional proprietary license-revenue drive products. It’s generally not a good leader to say the costs will be reduced, as disappointment in budget matters can have a backlash.
On point (4), I think training of this nature is a great idea.
On point (5), don’t mention the languages individually, and don’t add your opinion that they are “easy to learn”. For some people they may be very difficult to learn. The point I believe you need to make here is that a diverse training in the skills that are particularly relevant to open source development and project construction is necessary, starting at secondary level.
On point (6), I think this is a similar point to point (5).
Good start, btw.
Thanks for doing this. A couple of points I would mention:
Open Source expertise is in short supply in Ireland and companies like google/amazon/facebook/… often have to recruit elsewhere.
Focusing on FOSS in education, as well as developing the required skills for industry, is also directly beneficial to the students as there are no barriers to learning as are implicit with closed systems.
Feel free to add my name, though adding groups like ILUG / Python Ireland etc. might be better than individuals?
Hi folks,
A massive thanks to everyone who helped promote this article today and all the excellent feedback. I’m amazed how quickly the responses have flown in as comments, twitter and email.
I have republished the article (note: you may need to delete your browser cache to see it – or maybe not! If you can see the Endorsee list at the end of the article then you are viewing the current latest version).
I have also submitted a pdf version of the article to Government Innovation Taskforce so hopefully we’ll hear back from them soon.
I will reply to all the points raised when I get a chance over the weekend or early next week.
As I said, this is only the start, so I hope that we can continue to work on Open Source policy going forward. It’s been interesting to see the different opinions across the different groups in the Open Source community. I think we’re going to get some great ideas out of it!
All the best, and to those of you who are going, have a great OSS Barcamp!
Declan McGrath
[...] Open Letter to the Irish Government on Open Source Driven Innovation “Recent years show that openness and collaboration is essential to the generation of innovation in the software sector. Technology increasingly means software. In Ireland, we can see that the production of hardware technology in many, but not all, cases is providing ever diminishing returns. Here we outline some key policy recommendations that are crucial to the fulfilling the vision of making the Irish Smart Economy a reality for the software industry through the adoption and encouragement of Open Source technologies.” [...]
@Eoghan(Camara) @PaulCampbell @SeanBlanchfield
Thanks for your feedback and your support. I have added you to the revised edition as endorsees
@SeanBlanchfield
Thanks for finding those typos
@Marek
* Thanks for finding those typos
* I have included your statement “Mandating open standards would help to avoid vendor lock-in on such projects, and ensure that new software needed a change in requirements could be re-tendered to a larger field of potential providers and ease inter-operability with existing systems” largely verbatim in the paper. You phrased that point
@Rob
* Agree with you on the difficulty of reworking certain bespoke projects. Also agree with you on the savings. I would envision new projects, especially smaller ones, as great candidates for the government to get comfortable with Open Source
* Regarding security, I did not personally feel qualified to open a security debate. It is certainly something we can look at in the future
* “Also what about mentioning Google, IBM and Oracle who also use Linux”. I hope you got the correct version of my article, in which I put plenty of references to these companies
@JoeMcCool
Regarding “Tux walks in…” doesn’t set the requisite tone, I agree. I have changed my blog subheader to something more appropriate
@OisinHurley
Thanks for the good points you raised.
* On point 1,(‘legal IP competence’), there are a large body of people in the legal sector who have experienced a drop in business as a result of the housing bubble collapse. It is possible that they could be encouraged or retrained in this area. Additionally, there are a lot of Open Source friendly legal groups internationally such as the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) and the Software Freedom Law Centre who may be willing to help shape the direction of such retraining – as well as helping to bridge some of the gap in the interim.
In the companies mentioned in the paper, there are people who currently carry out IP roles – the government may be able to consult with these companies as to what qualifications, skills and attributes are required of such a role. This may help focus any retraining efforts and help educate the government on this issue.
I don’t think that this issue is a blocker – if you can build the OSS sector and increase the amount of development activity and value, the legal companies are sure to follow and upskill.
* On point 3, I have changed ‘reduce cost’ to ‘deliver value’ where appropriate.
* Regarding points 5 and 6 (‘mentioning of specific technologies’), I somewhat agree with your reservations but included them because of the following reasons:
- Languages like Ruby and Python are core to where I think where Open Source can make a difference. They are considerably less complex than many other languages and if we can get them adopted more in education it means that more people will be able to program
- More programmers means that more people will be able to code on problems that need solving. Businesses will get more done with less errors and bugs. I do believe that it is fair to say that these languages are easy for someone interested in programming to learn
- Mentioning specific technologies will also help make the reader of the paper aware of those technologies such as MySQL – I want to provide specifics rather than a woolly paper that talks of lofty ambitions without saying how. A focus on practical and pragmatic suggestions
However, playing devil’s advocate to the point I have just made – this paper overall feels more like a strategic paper rather than a tactical one. Hence, mentioning specific technologies may not fit well – especially as a large slice of the audience is of a high level business nature. In the end, I felt that raising awareness of specific software was worth the risk.
@PádraigBrady
Agree with your points on education. There is a deficit in the core skills these companies need and hopefully this will be addressed
Regarding the adding of groups such as Python Ireland and ILUG to the endorsee list, I am hesitant to do that until I can say I officially have the full support of these groups. It was not possible to achieve that in the time frame ahead of the submission deadline. But it will be something we can look to do now and revise the up-to-date online edition of the article with more endorsees
@All
Thanks again to everyone who helped promote this article today and all the excellent feedback. I’m amazed by how quickly this process progressed in the few hours that were available for feedback last Friday and I look forward to building further upon the work we’ve done.