[ossig] Govt open source survey finds hidden uptake

[Ditesh Kumar]

>From http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php/id;1448439476;fp;2;fpid;1

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Govt open source survey finds hidden uptake
Rodney Gedda, Computerworld

02/05/2007 16:43:27

The federal government's survey on the perception and use of open source
software throughout agencies is still being finalized, but
representatives from the Australian Government Information Management
Office (AGIMO) are already talking up the results.

The Australian government chief information officer, Ann Steward, said
AGIMO recently completed a survey on free and open source survey which
will be released "soon".

"We had a good response rate and aim to provide the information back to
help others," Steward said.

The survey covers the existing level of usage of open source, the
impact, and how it was adopted inside the agency.

"Why did we do it? It is part of today and our future," Steward said.
"About half of the responding agencies have piloted, or are using, open
source in their space."

Steward said the views of open source among federal government agencies
are "positive" and many will look to deploy it in the future but part of
the barrier is uncertainty over what level of support is available if
they encounter any problems.

The interest in open source at the federal level ties into the move to
more of a shared services model across government departments.

Speaking at the CeBit e-government conference in Sydney, Steward said
the government needs to understand what shared services means because
there are multiple interpretations of it.

"Shared services reduces duplication and exploits existing
capabilities," she said. "Build once, use many times - you've heard it
before - but it is hard to put in place as each department has its own
programs."

To facilitate shared services AGIMO has a business transformation
project to streamline and standardize common processes - a number of
which have already commenced. One area is identity management across the
government workforce.

"There are existing inhibitors, but it also an opportunity to share very
large technology assets, particularly around data centres," Steward
said.

One example of a large project shared services project was the
development of a $10 million national emergency call centre to provide a
single point of contact in the event of a disaster like a cyclone.

This was a whole of government project involving large agencies like the
Department of Defence, the ATO, and Centrelink "coming together and
working together".

A new response process was put in place and the call centre is
distributed across five agencies and can handle some 50,000 calls per
hour. The project was led by team at Centrelink.

For information sharing, the federal government also uses a repository
called GovDex to facilitate business process collaboration between
agencies.

"We have nearly 1000 users and they contribute pages in an active
community," Steward said.

Waugh Partners director Pia Waugh said there are "many strong" case
studies of use of open source throughout the world and it is important
for governments to understand open source for reasons of collaboration,
sustainability, and trust.

-- 
  May your signals all trap                     Ditesh Kumar
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