Hi Chris,
I think this is a fairly poorly written article form a technical point
of view, which is fine. It is just highlighting us to the costs, not the
why's.
First of all, Microsoft agreed a pricing package to continue to support
Windows XP for the likes of the NHS. If I remember correctly this had to
be done due to their software only running on IE6, so moving all those
computers to open source would not fix the problem. And the NHS has a
dreadful history in regards to IT projects, and has wasted far more in
failed projects that the costs of supporting the old systems.
Secondly, Government seem far happy outsourcing the whole problem to
systems like Office 365, despite legal issues like the US CLOUD act that
in theory would give US Federal agents the right to access HM Gov's data
if they could persuade a US judge to sign a warrant.
Thirdly, open source software comes with no warranty, and that scares
civil servants who want someone else to blame.
To be brutally honest, the problem is between keyboard and chair. At all
levels. We are not just talking about contracts being handed to
companies with a history of past failures, but also a complete lack of
understanding at policy level of what could, and should be done. And
there is an upside to that. If Government actually got their act
together they could actually spot so many crimes financial simply by
linking everybody's records together and looking at what doesn't add up
and applying Unexplained Wealth Orders. Of course, my inner conspiracy
theorist says that is why they haven't got their act together, but
that's a rabbit hole for a different day...
Even just the simple rule that all government issued documents should be
in ODF, and all software should be ODF compliant is ignored by pretty
much everybody. I was on the Land Registry site the other day. Could not
find a single ODF version of a form. Even one that dates form 21 June
2021 is in Word format. It's either ignorance or incompetence.
Mr Wall, meet Head. Head, meet Brick Wall.
As someone who has clients who have to fill in IT audit forms to work
with government bodies (and I include bodies like the NHS in that
description) I am appalled at the level of incompetence, like emailing
my a macro-filled Excel spreadsheet. Like I am really going to open
that. And being asked how I check my tape backups. Yes, really. It is
but a small window into those people's day to day lives, some of whom
think tape backups are still a regular thing in the real world.
I once had a conversation with a major ministerial insider about CE
marking and applying it to software That there should be the same sort
of requirements to comply with standards as a fridge or washing machine.
I was told it was a trading standards issue. They did not see the
problem of software claiming to but not actually complying to well
established and published standards. I mean I am talking about basic
things like SMTP in network scanners missing whole chunks of the
standard, and therefore having to hack your mail server to accept the
botched headers.
Oh dear, this seems to have turned into a rant...
:-) Marco
On 06/08/2021 11:17, Chris Bell via GLLUG wrote:
Hello,
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58085316
is an article about the £2.3bn government spend on patching old computers and
systems compared with the £4.7bn total government IT spend. There are also
several comments below.
I do not know how much is spent on desktop system replacement, but there is an
argument raging about the security aspects and costs of writing replacement or
upgraded software systems.
There is one comment about existing specialised hardware such as an MRI
scanner built by a company that no longer exists but would be extremely
expensive to replaced, (although replacement FOSS may already exist).
I am not a developer, but would be interested in the implications and costs of
writing and maintaining government software systems using Free Open Source
Software compared with Microsoft.
I assume that high level languages could be used, and I know what I would
prefer, but that does not always convince the decision makers who are probably
not IT experts.
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