by Llewellyn Gush, Ukhahlamba District Municipality
The Department of Public Administration (DPSA) through the national Government Information Technology Officers' Council (GITO) has formulated policy that makes it a requirement, that open source software should first be considered when any software solution is being procured. Only when this software has been demonstrated to be unsatisfactory for the particular implementation, may proprietary solutions be procured and implemented.
It has been noted that many users of information technology (IT) solutions have made extensive use of a single vendor's proprietary applications. This has led to the creation and storage of documents in these proprietary packages’ default file formats. This has led to a situation where anyone wishing to access and use these files must first purchase a copy of the relevant proprietary application software. This state of affairs has created issues that need clarification and understanding.
- It has led to no effective competition existing in the software marketplace and due to the non-competitive nature of the market, there are no real choices available resulting in only a single vendor being considered when procuring operating system software. This situation may even be questionable in terms of the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA).
- In terms of risk management this is considered to be a most unhealthy situation as all government’s intellectual property is vested in the goodwill of this single vendor.
- Use of such software by government forces any other citizens communicating with government to purchase a copy of the relevant proprietary software. This effectively removes the right of the citizen to free choice.
- The requirement for the use of such proprietary applications, infringes citizens right to choice.
- Due to the lack of a public, standards-based approach, access to these documents shall always rest with the proprietary vendor, and the public shall always have to rely on the goodwill and commitment of any such vendor for long-term access.
- Government has an obligation to preserve any documentation for a long time, and the content must always remain available and accessible.
In order to ensure such availability GITO has decided that it is imperative that an international standards-based approach must be followed. To this end the South African government, through GITO, has decided to begin with the implementation of the ISO 26300 standard for the creation and use of working documents. The time line for this implementation has been set as follows:
- All government departments must be able to read Open Document Format (ODF) documents by March 2008.
- All departments must be able to read and write the ODF documents by September 2008.
- The use of ODF in the South African government shall be mandatory by March 2009.
Challenges
Desktop environment
In compliance with these published policies, the Ukhahlamba District Municipality agreed to the partial implementation of some open source software. Currently OpenOffice.org (OOo) has been implemented on the desktops of all personnel, however senior management complain that many of the documents received by them from other government departments are often saved in a proprietary file format, and despite the best efforts of the coders that wrote the filters, many large and complex documents do not display well as some of the formatting cannot be accurately translated. Thus a proprietary application suite is installed on these computers.
In spite of the published policy directives many national and provincial government departments are simply ignoring the timelines, and in fact the situation is worse, in that these departments have all upgraded their proprietary installations to the latest versions that by default saves another proprietary format. Many of the users of software seem to have no knowledge of file formats, and when asked to change format will simply “rename” the file extension. A senior manager has commented that “when another national or provincial department sends me the first ODF document, I will consider using OOo full time”, and by all accounts that will not happen soon.
A major issue as far as users are concerned is that with the use of OSS they are being forced to use an inferior product. Brand name power is something that must never be underestimated. It is also a fact that many computer users have been exposed to other applications from school through to college, and other corporate work environments. This has the cumulative effect that the learning of a new system is resisted, and often such resistance is fought through political channels, if these are available, making it very difficult for someone lower in the rankings to justify the use of OSS.
Just about the only positive in these environments is the fact that proprietary solutions cost more than the budget can afford to allocate. The policy directives and other reasons are largely disregarded by senior management as they remain convinced of the superiority of proprietary applications.
It must be pointed out however that OSS software in most environments is able to compete and deliver whatever is required with the same functionality and quality as other proprietary counterparts. There is nothing that can be done with proprietary applications that cannot be done with OSS systems, however it has to be done differently, and herein lies the problem.
Many users take modern software solutions and push them beyond the original design intentions. Spreadsheets are created that are huge, complex beasts that rely on multiple outside links, many levels of sheets, and very complex formulas. This in itself is a risk that has on occasion come back to haunt the user, with system errors creating meaningless datasets (sometimes the users don't even notice). Some spreadsheets are even beyond the average PC’s ability to load and use. So we go back to the days of waiting an interminable time for such files to load and update every time they are changed. Business would be better served if the right tools are employed for the right jobs.
Server environment
This is an easier environment in which to deploy open source solutions, as the use of services is transparent to the user, and as long as the functionality is satisfactory, the system will not be criticised.
There are many applications that are suitable for use in this environment:
- Mail services
- Internet services
- Proxy services
- Database
- Calendaring
- Application services
- Firewalls
- Backups (disaster recovery)
- Geographic information services
In fact if the content of the Minimum Interoperability Systems Document (MIOS version 4.1 of 2007) is scrutinised it will be noted that all new software development should be focussed in the server environment and away from the local PC. This will lead in the longer term to operating system agnostic software, and can only be of long-term benefit.
Conclusion
While it is commendable that the DPSA has embarked on this course, it must be recognised that it will be a long and arduous road that will have many obstacles. Proprietary vendors are concerned and resistant, as they have shareholder value to protect, and these policies are a direct threat to their value chain.
Users must be informed and taught that OSS is not inferior to other proprietary applications, and that it is only the new learning that is an issue. Management must be informed as to the choices that they need to consider and pressure should be brought to bear on departments resisting change until they comply.
I believe that in the South African context, the choice to embrace this software has many benefits, not least the cost of deployment of applications. There are many other benefits that will only become evident in the long term. However this may only happen when a proprietary vendor ceases to exist and their products have disappeared from the shelves, leaving government with huge volumes of essentially useless data as it will have become inaccessible. There are just too many examples of this having happened in the past, and it is not a case of “if” this happens, but “when”.
Contact Llewellyn Gush, Ukhahlamba District Municipality, Tel 045 979-3070,
llewellyn@ukhahlamba.gov.za
