Ian Cuddy

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Software being developed by councils to improve online information for citizens should be 'mostly' open source , the Government has now confirmed.

The news follows an e-petition to Gordon Brown concerning the recently-launched Timely Information for Citizens pilot projects currently being run by 10 councils across England.  The list of schemes, funded by CLG, include plans to create online engagement tools, web communities, 'My Neighbourhood' portals and 'one stop shop'-style  websites.

The petition, which amassed 322 signatures in three months, read:

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to ask the Communities Secretary to require that all software produced by councils under the Timely Information to Citizens project be released under an open source licence."

It went on to explain:

"The Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) is running a project called Timely Information to Citizens (TIC). As part of this project, several local authorities are being given funding totalling approximately £1m to develop software and web services to improve local information and service provision. While CLG’s aim is that these projects are incorporated into a “best practice toolkit”, we ask the government to reduce duplication of effort and expense and make this software available for other users at the earliest opportunity by releasing each package on deployment under an OSI-approved open source licence. Though we welcome these projects themselves, as citizens we cannot and do not support this substantial sum of public money being spent to create private, proprietary software."

On Friday, the Government responded thusly:

The Government supports the principle that, where new software is being developed by the Timely Information to Citizens pilots, this should wherever possible be released under open source licence and available for use by other local authorities.

For many of the Timely Information to Citizens pilots, the focus is not on new software, but on how existing tools and techniques can be used to bring information together and present it in more useful and accessible ways. Several of the projects will utilise existing open source software to create new information sources and channels, and will share their experiences of doing so with other authorities.

Where the pilots will result in new software tools, ownership and intellectual property rights will usually remain with the individual local authorities. The Government supports the principle that, where new software is being developed by the Timely Information to Citizens pilots, this should wherever possible be released under open source licence and available for use by other local authorities.

For many of the Timely Information to Citizens pilots, the focus is not on new software, but on how existing tools and techniques can be used to bring information together and present it in more useful and accessible ways. Several of the projects will utilise existing open source software to create new information sources and channels, and will share their experiences of doing so with other authorities.

Where the pilots will result in new software tools, ownership and intellectual property rights will usually remain with the individual local authorities. However, most of the authorities concerned have already made a commitment to make these tools available as open source software, or for use by their partner organisations, and we are working to secure the commitment of the remaining.'

So most - but not all - of the councils involved in the projects have indicated they will take the open source route where developing new software.  An encouraging step, though one which would seem to give the distinct impression of being an after-thought.

Tom Chance, Green Party's intellectual property spokesperson, told PSF the Government's response showed it was 'waking up' to the money-saving potential of open source approaches – and now it needed to 'get off the fence' and start mandating open source licensing.

'Had the Government taken up our policy on open source five years ago, we'd now see every local authority providing RSS feeds, using Twitter, and delivering ground-breaking innovations rather than lagging several years behind the trends', he said.

The person behind the petition was Adrian Short, who PSF readers may recall instigated the Mash The State campaign aiming to get every UK council website to provide RSS feeds.

Giving his reaction to the Government's response to PSF today, he said he saw it as part of 'a continuing culture shift' towards open source across government.

The CLG, said Short, was in a good position to help promote not just open source software but also tools, techniques and an 'open source culture' among councils and their contractors.

'Producing open source packages and working together with other councils and independent developers will be new territory for many councils', he told PSF.  'They'll need to work together to realise the long-term benefits of cost reduction, rapid maintenance and robustness that open source brings, when built in a truly open and collaborative way.'

Though encouraged by the Government's support for open source 'in principle', Short said there was still much more work to do in getting it to see open source as the 'default' option when developing new software.

He concluded: 'Let's hope that there are plenty of councils and independent developers that'll be helping these projects make good on open source's promise.... and that their contributions are welcomed, valued and used.'