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Rationale
21. In the 'Partnership for a Better Scotland', Scottish Ministers made a commitment to deliver first-class public services. One important factor in helping to achieve this was seen as the use of ICT to deliver services more effectively; sharing best practice and following common standards that allow interoperability and the delivery of cost-effective solutions. The OSIAF covers the UK Government's e-Government Interoperability Framework ( e-GIF), as well as introducing standards emerging from the Scottish public sector. The standards and policies in the OSIAF favour open standards and avoid proprietary lock-in.
22. The Scottish policy is consistent with both UK and European agendas and entirely in line with public service reform. The UK policy was last articulated in version 2 of a policy document published in October 2004 - Open Source Software; Use within UK Government - and the European policy is set out in the European Interoperability Framework ( EIF) for pan-European eGovernment Services, which is available on the IDABC7 website at europa.eu.int/idabc/en/document/3761.
23. There is a need to maximise the returns on, and benefits from, public investment in ICT systems as well as the need to procure solutions that offer best value. In considering FLOSS solutions alongside proprietary ones in ICT procurements decisions should be made on a case-by-case basis but value for money over the expected lifetime of the system must be compared rather than only implementation and migration costs. This may result in a FLOSS solution, or a proprietary solution, or a mixture of both. Further information on compiling a business case for a FLOSS solution can be found in the report 'Building a Business Case for StarOffice or OpenOffice.org' written by Bristol City Council for the OSA, it offers a guide to the critical issues involved in making a business case for office software migration 8.
24. Administrative processes with FLOSS can be simpler than with some proprietary software, as there is not always a need to match software usage against licences and product upgrades can be made as and when required.
25. FLOSS applications tend to run on an increasingly wide variety of computer hardware, avoiding the need to purchase the latest sophisticated equipment if resources are limited.
26. FLOSS has a particularly strong presence in developer tools such as compilers, interpreters and scripting languages, and in software infrastructure such as operating systems, web servers and file and print servers. Many public sector organisations are comfortable making use of FLOSS in these areas but, in order to move forward, should consider the benefits of incremental change by diversifying FLOSS use beyond the server platform to proven products like e-mail, LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol), web and internet browser.
27. The drive for efficiency improvement and shared services suggest that organisations should review the potential for FLOSS, for example in server consolidation, comparing the benefits and costs of FLOSS with proprietary solutions; and investigate the potential costs and benefits of migration to a FLOSS desktop for transaction users, (potentially in conjunction with use of "thin client" architecture solutions).
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