Cabinet Office written question – answered on 8th September 2011.
The Government require that their ICT should be built on open standards, wherever possible, to improve competition and avoid lock-in to a particular technology or supplier.
Fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) specifications may present some difficulties for the open source software development model in terms of patents and royalties. To deliver a level playing field for both open source and proprietary software, open standards are needed.
Yes10 people think so
No3 people think not
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Annotations
Gerry Gavigan
Posted on 12 Sep 2011 4:46 pm (Report this annotation)
A more interesting answer might have reflected on the increasing legal requirement to interact with government online (e.g., taxes) and therefore if there was an implicit requirement to use software or computers that require the payment of royalties or licence fees which have effectively been imposed by government represented a tax. See for example
www.parliament.uk/deposits/depositedpapers/2010/DEP2010-2374...