Zzzoot

A colleague of mine is having some difficulties getting an Open Source solution to be made available within his government organization. In providing support to him, I've collected the below resources. Of particular interest is the 2007 Government Open Source Policies from the Center for Strategic and International Studies , listing the Open Source policies of hundreds of national, state/province/territory and local governments (including Canada's). 2009 The DoD and Open Source Software. Oracle White Paper 2009 Open source software could save millions (Scotland) 2009 Open Source Vendors welcome new UK Government policy, but want more action 2009 Liam Maxwell The High Cost of government IT 2009 Guide to Open Source Software for Australian Government Agencies 2009 D.Gatto & J.Herzfeld. Department of Defense Debunks Myths and Endorses Use of Open Source Software 2008. The acquisition of (open-source) software A guide for ICT buyers in the public and semi-public sectors (Dut...

I am sad to hear the Canadian government will be cutting the office and position of the National Science Advisor. Dr. Arthur Carty will be retiring in March 2008. He was first appointed in April 2004. In a country where there is a distinct lacuna in the area informed political decision-making about and around science, the loss of this office seems an unfortunate step backward. It may be that the science advisor office/position overlapped too much with the recently announced (Oct 2007) Industry Canada Science, Technology and Innovation Council . While this might be the case, it is not clear if the watering down of science into this council is the best thing for science in Canada.