Re: [Fsfe-uk] OSS Pol. v2 and other stuff

[Graham Seaman]

Hi All,

I finally got a reply from the Cabinet Office to my (non-AFFS) response 
to their OSS consultation document. They say it wasn't secret, everybody 
was invited, etc, so I've posted the whole thing on
http://open.egov.org.uk/index.php/Commentary_on_policy  (and the 
'documents' link near the top of the page).

I'm also posting the reply to this list, below (I asked and was 
specifically told it was ok to do so)

Cheers
Graham
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Graham

Ian has asked me to reply on his behalf, and I apologise for the delay, 
and he thanks you for your good wishes.

Let me clarify the timetable of events and deal with the various issues 
you have raised.

Version 1 of our Open Source Policy (OSS) was published in July 2002. 
This was the result of initially wide and open consultation with 
stakeholders from both the public and private sectors followed by full 
public consultation via our GovTalk website.

In version 1 there was a policy point that left open the question of how 
OSS could or should be developed during R&D research commissioned and 
funded by Government. So in late 2002 we started to have a wide and open 
debate about this particular aspect. We held 3 workshop sessions during 
2003 and invitations went to a long list of 150+ organisations including 
many from the free software community. There was very healthy debate 
during these workshops about all aspects of OSS and its use in R&D 
research and the end result was what we believed was consensus on a new 
draft of that part of the OSS policy. We then proceeded to run a 3 month 
public consultation via GovTalk in accordance with Cabinet Office 
Guidelines. We received several responses during this consultation, most 
of which related to the lack of clarity or ambiguity of the proposed 
wording. So we revised the wording without changing any of the intent or 
meaning and decided it would be right to seek the views of the 
respondents to this clarification. We did not see the need for a new 
open consultation as we had not changed the original policy intention 
and hence were not putting forward a new policy. We are now considering 
the responses to this latest round of comments.

One consistent comment that came back during the open public 
consultation was the need for greater guidance on the interpretation and 
implementation aspects of the policy and we are working on a draft 
guidance note which we will be consulting on later this year. I will be 
happy to add you to the discussion list of that when we issue it.

With regard to the lack of an RIA, we concluded that as the revision of 
the policy was very specific, ie to those involved in government R&D, 
and was non-legislative, an RIA was not appropriate.

So I hope from this explanation you will see that we have been through 
extensive and open consultation on the new version of the OSS policy and 
have taken into consideration views from all within the OSS community 
and more particularly those involved in running R&D projects within 
government. We have not attempted to be secretive or exclusive in any 
way and have had due regard to Cabinet Office guidelines.

Should you wish to discuss this further please let me know.

Regards,

John Borras Director Technical Policy