Ian Gilfillan: Australian Democrats News Release

To assess the degree of interest in Open Source Software in Government Agencies in

and Eire .

1. That the Parliament of South Australia immediately pass legislation to prohibit the commercial release of genetically engineered crops in South Australia as a measure to ensure the preservation of our GE Free agricultural products.

2. That the State Government aggressively promote the use of Open Source Software in SA public agencies.

22^nd July 2003

Met with Dr James Easthope who is the Technology Manager of the Police IT Organisation. We discussed the issue of open source software as it applies to policing in the United Kingdom.

Dr Easthope is a scientist seconded to this project. The unit has been established under the Home Office and consists of some 500 personnel. The project is currently focusing on identifying opportunities for using open source software at this stage. They are forming a model which will be put out to the public domain in about 6 months. The Government are taking this potential use of open source seriously and it is estimated that open source systems will be introduced into the police force within the next 2 to 3 years.

Marks & Spencer is one of the

's leading retailers and trades worldwide. With a turnover in excess £8 billion it is a key player in the retail of clothing, foods, homeware and financial services. Estimates indicate that weekly in their 30 stores within the

United Kingdom

they serve some 10 million customers.

I visited the company in particular to gain an insight into the companies position on genetically engineered foods. Consumer rejection of GE food still runs very high in the

with Tesco and Sainsbury both being GM free. Marks and Spencer supermarkets are very sensitive to this and as a result their organic food sections are specifically marked as non-GM. Further to this they’re delivery semitrailers display prominent advertising that indicates their food is GE free.

A copy of the advertisement found on the side of Marks & Spencer Deliver lorries.

The company commented, as did other outlets queried, that the GM food issue has not arrived on the shelves yet, but all are organic outlets and this is a fast growing sector which emphasise no GE ingredients.

We're not anti-science but in 1999, after our customers had expressed very strong concerns about eating GM foods we took the decision to move towards non-GM ingredients and derivatives. We reviewed our entire catalogue of 3500 foods, checking over 5000 individual ingredients made from soya and maize and making changes to 1800 recipes. Our technologists travelled the world to find non-GM sources of raw materials, and set up traceability schemes to enable us to track every ingredient from source to shelf. All whilst retaining the flavour, quality and food safety our customers expect from us.

If we couldn't find a non-GM source, we stopped using the raw material, or in some cases withdrew products from shelves altogether. We also recognised how important it was to give our animals non-GM feeds.

All our fresh raw beef, chicken, lamb, pork, farmed salmon and eggs are now reared on non-GM diets, and milk producing animals supplying English stores. We hope to be able to make further improvements on non-GM diets for milk production over the next few months.

Marks & Spencer are seeking to extend this GE free policy to their beauty products. While they acknowledge that in the case of a small number of ingredients there is currently no alternative they maintain that they are committed to formulating all new products without GE ingredients.

I visited the Office of Government Commerce (www.ogc.gov.uk), there I met with Mr Andrew Bowen who heads the office. Discussing OSS with him he spoke of the work that the OGC is doing in compiling case studies. He sees great opportunities for OSS in website design and servers and is intrigued by the possibilities of moving desktop software to open source. The OGC at this stage is fairly neutral though not compelled by arguments for overall adoption of open source. He did however mention that their involvement with open source gave them a very effective leaver when negotiating with Microsoft.

Mr Bowen indicated that in his opinion some open source products were better than their proprietary cousins and he dismissed concerns that adoption of open source will involve extra training as a red herring.

I was grateful for the opportunity to speak with him and he referred me to the Government Open Source Special Interest Group.

Office of Government Commerce Policy on Open Source Software use within UK Government

The key decisions of this policy are as follows:

UK Government will consider OSS solutions alongside proprietary ones in IT procurements. Contracts will be awarded on a value for money basis.
UK Government will only use products for interoperability that support open standards and specifications in all future IT developments.
UK Government will seek to avoid lock-in to proprietary IT products and services.
UK Government will consider obtaining full rights to bespoke software code or customisations of COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) software it procures wherever this achieves best value for money.
UK Government will explore further the possibilities of using OSS as the default exploitation route for Government funded R&D software.

I believe that it is also worthwhile to note the justifications for this policy;

There is a need to always procure a solution that gives value for money. This may be an OSS solution, or proprietary one, or a mixture of both. Decisions should be made on a case by case basis
There is a need to ensure that interoperability of systems is provided and maintained. The e-GIF is mandated across the public sector and compliance with that is essential to the provision of e-services and joined up government.
Every effort should be made to reduce the cost and risk to government systems. Adopting this policy helps achieve that by:
purchasing best value for money solutions
removing the reliance on individual IT suppliers
providing more flexibility in the development, enhancement and integration of systems
vesting the ownership of bespoke and tailored software code with Government.
Security of government systems is vital. Properly configured OSS can be at least as secure as proprietary systems, and OSS is currently subject to fewer Internet attacks. A balance needs to be struck between the availability of security administration skills and the advantages of many diverse systems. In some cases mainstream proprietary products may be significantly less secure than open source alternatives (see Gartner report Nimda Worm shows you can’t always patch fast enough dated 19/9/01 by John Pescatore).

Following up on Mr Andrew Bowen’s (Office of Government Commerce) recommendation I met with Ms Caroline Halcrow who is the Chair of the Government Open Source Special Interest Group.

This is where I found some real enthusiasm for OSS . The Group was set up by the Office of the E-envoy as a unit of the cabinet office. It comprises 150 people.

She sees OSS as an interface with the world and links with OSS in Europe . She believes it offers a level playing field. She says there are applications possible in Treasury and Local Government. The Group board meets every two months. Ms Halcrow has undertaken to keep me informed on developments.

I met with the Rt Hon John Gummer who is a former Minister for the Environment in a Conservative Government in the

. Mr Gummer has strong opinions on GE crops and foodstuffs, generally I find myself in agreement with him on the issue.

He makes the point that it is not yet the time to introduce GM crops and or food as the market is still very wary and the science is still far from secure. In due course he believes there will be some applications of benefit to others than just the corporations which have developed the products.

Mr Gummer also referred me to a former Labour Minister for the Environment, Micheal Meacher, who had resigned largely on the issue of GM crops.

Discussion with dairy farmers, visiting stores and markets assessing the attitude to GM crops. I was directed to an article in the “Ecologist” July edition

, which proved to be an extensive resource on GM.

I contacted with the Rt Hon Micheal Meacher, former Minister of State for the Environment and Privy Counsellor from May 1997 to June 2003. Mr Meacher resigned from the Ministry largely on the issue of genetically engineered crops. He is not convinced of the safety of the foods produced from these crops and believes that the science of GMOs is still clouded in uncertainty. I am continuing to correspond with Mr Meacher.

While in Dublin I met with Ms Trish King at the Beaumont Hospital . The Hospital is located within the Northern Area of the Eastern Regional Health Authority and provides acute care services across 54 medical specialties. The hospital is the national Irish referral centre for Neurosciences and Renal Transplantation.

We discussed the Open Source program and development used in the Hospital. The hospital has moved from using Microsoft to the open source Star Office. Star Office is a fully featured office suite, provided by Sun Microsystems and available under an open-source licence. They have also successfully moved their Desktops from Windows to Linux and run their email operations on OSS . The quality of most of the programs is excellent and they have found that very little extra training was required.

This move has assisted the Beaumont Hospital in developing a “Nursing Management’ program which has now been adopted by the Adelaide Hospital which is another major hospital in Dublin .

Met with Mr Oison Clarke who is the Executive Vice President of Cúram Software of Dublin . Cúram Software was founded in 1990 and has offices in the

United Kingdom

United States of America

and

India

while it’s head office is in Dublin . The company works in developing software specifically for Human and Social Services Agencies.

I discussed OSS with Mr Clarke as well as his companies current negotiations with the Commonwealth Department of Veterans Affairs in Canberra .

That afternoon I met with Mr Mervyn Taylor T.D. the Minister for Equality and Law Reform. We discussed anti-discrimination legislation, they have drawn heavily from

Australia

for legislation in Eire .

I also met with a representative of a company currently anonymous seeking their interest in establishing in

Australia

. I am having ongoing contact with him to encourage him to establish his company in Adelaide .

Assessing GM acceptance in

Italy

. There is no sign of GM product in the stores visited but a strong and growing organic demand which is aggressively anti GM crops and foodstuffs.