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Legalbrief   |   your legal news hub Sunday 01 September 2024

Governments slow to move on open source software

While many governments across the globe are considering open source software as a means to reduce cost and encourage local software innovation, a study has found that little has been achieved in the form of concrete policies.

A draft study released by the Centre for Strategic & International Studies, found that while more than 45 nations have had some level of public-policy initiatives or discussion about open source, ‘slightly more than half of the initiatives never went beyond the proposal stage’. According to InternetNews, the report also found that where there was an approved policy or initiative, there had been little tangible action toward an actual migration to open source. Indicative of the seeming lack of concrete policies to enforce open source migration, the report found that even in cases where governments actually mandated the use of open source, none of them had been ‘entered into force’. In addition, no government had forbidden the use of proprietary products thus far. The report concludes that what the initiatives had achieved was essentially produce ‘technological neutrality’. Full InternetNews report [url=http://www.csis.org/tech/OpenSource/0408_ospolicies.pdfDownload the draft study[/url]