The UK Government has issued its first policy on Open Source.
While it is undoubtedly a good thing that open source is being acknowledged, the policy ducks the issue of the wider implications of open source. Open source, it argues, needs to be considered in terms of value for money and to avoid vendor lock-in.
Nowhere is the notion of actually contributing open source funding or IP. Nor is there any mention of benefits to be had from giving value back to the community.
The argument for OSS providing better security is watered down with caveats.
"Properly configured OSS can be at least as secure as proprietary systems, and OSS is currently subject to fewer Internet attacks"
Thus the UK Government can rightly claim to have responded to the calls for a policy in this area without having to buy into the open source model per se (and support the development of further open source technology). Better than nothing but no huge incentive for government departments to give up their proprietary software procurement deals yet.