EURIM Working Group Minutes

Working Party:	Theme 01/ Working Group
Ref:	03-T02-Min05
Minuter:	Emma Fryer
Date:	10/04/03
Circulation:	Attendees and Apologies
Queries to:	Emma Fryer, Tel: 0191 384 0282 Mob: 07714 803 650 Emma.fryer@eurim.org

Minutes of EURIM’s Modernising Government Meeting

To Review the Sub Group draft paper on Open Source

7^thJuly 2003, kindly hosted by Intellect, 20 Red Lion Street

Summary

Meeting Outline

The Modernising Government group was given the opportunity to review the draft paper on Open Source that had been produced by a small drafting group. Comments were received from a wide variety of perspectives. A number of amendments were tabled and agreed.

Main points of agreement

1. The structure of the document was appropriate

2. The purpose of the document was to inform, not to make recommendations or judgements.

3. The document needed to make more of OS as a new business model.

4. The OSS perspective needed to be presented accurately in the document

5. Perceptions should be acknowledged in the document, even if they were mistaken.

6. It was important to reflect the arguments of the various parties, even if they were contentious.

7. The document to be circulated when finished in .rtf format

Main Actions Agreed

1. DR to submit a paragraph on the social / ethical aspects

2. EF to adopt the amendments agreed.

3. EF to incorporate other suggested amendments in line with the amendments agreed at the meeting.

4. EF to liaise with GT on presenting the OS perspective in a way that would not antagonise them

Date of Next Meeting

The next meeting was scheduled for 23^rd July, from 10.30 – 12.30

Note: venue for meeting will be Intellect’s Russell Square offices at Russell Square House, 10-12 Russell Square, London WC1B 5EE. For directions see: http://www.intellectuk.org/img/map.pdf

For further information on EURIM’s Mod Gov group, back minutes, documents, agendas, etc, see: http://www.emma.fryer.btinternet.co.uk/

Meeting Notes

			Action
1		Chairman’s Introduction
	1.1	CG welcomed everybody and outlined the purpose of the meeting:- to review the draft paper that the group had produced, obtain input from a broader set of perspectives and, if necessary, amend the paper to reflect these.
	1.2	CG reiterated the objectives of the paper:- to inform the parliamentary community and, in doing so, to raise the quality of debate. Informed debate would reduce the tendency for politicians to politicise and polarise this issue.
	1.3	Software and associated IPR issues underpinned business and it was important for parliamentarians to understand the issues and desist from using OSS as a political football.
		Review of the document Part I – Generic Points
2		Structure and balance
	2.1	GT felt that the structure of the document was sound. He was keen for the paper to give an unbiased view and currently the OS perspective was under-represented. OS should be seen as a new business model rather than a tool or technology. The document was a little long and introverted, tending to focus on academic issues rather than business issues.
	2.2	CG agreed but felt that this was partly a reflection of the intense introversion of the debate. He agreed that the document needed to be shortened. First they needed to get it right.
	2.3	It was agreed that more explicit reference would be made to the importance of OS as a new business model, the way that the focus was moving away from code itself to services and the impact on the developer, user and supplier communities. There were more issues than just lower cost. GT agreed to provide research so that there points could be qualified when incorporated in the paper.
	2.4	Since GT was in the best position to represent the views of at least part of the OS community, it was agreed that EF would insert the revisions agreed today and then forward the paper to GT for his contribution, since he had a large number of detailed comments. EF and GT agreed to liaise closely to ensure that GT was aware of the sections over which detailed negotiations had already been conducted and that these were taken into account as far as possible in the subsequent revisions.	EF / GT
3		Recommendations
	3.1	PV noted that after seeing what had been done in Germany, the paper could include several recommendations:- that politicians should make themselves aware of what was going on elsewhere, that the OGC should consider, when developing licences to meet the requirements of UK government whether they should also provide a guide to what licences meant, and their implications. GT noted that the OSI was unhappy that both German and Dutch governments had felt it necessary to define their own licence terms so this presented an opportunity to work with OSI on a European basis.
	3.2	CH noted that the recent OeE consultation on the possible use of OSS for government funded R&D would shortly circulate their conclusions and recommendation, which would inform the future development of OS policy. However, she felt that recommendations should not form part of this paper, which was for information.
	3.3	It was agreed that the paper was not an appropriate vehicle for recommendations. If necessary, a separate, linked document could make recommendations.
4		Ethical perspectives
	4.1	DR noted that it might be worth making more explicit mention of the social and ethical dimensions that were becoming drivers to uptake. SN agreed - a recent conference had concluded that OSS had to be considered from four perspectives – legal, technical, business and social/ethical. The importance of the latter had been underestimated and work was still underway.
	4.2	CG felt that it was difficult to view an operating system ethically and was wary of attributing it an ethical dimension it did not possess
	4.3	GT observed that many saw OSS in an evangelical light and whilst this was not a point of view that most businesses accepted, the document needed to acknowledge the existence of this perspective. Some governments had taken what they described as an ethical approach to open source and this too should be acknowledged.
	4.4	SN continued that the ethical perspective was a consideration for those evaluating OS as an option. ML agreed that people had ideological and political motivations as well as business but questioned whether it was fair to describe them as ethical, since this depended on one’s perspective. OS was increasing moving towards a professional situation related more closely to commercial companies and was therefore becoming a business model that competed with other commercial offerings.
	4.5	DR noted that there was a human dimension to this beside business, technical. Some people took the view people that commercialisation of software was wrong. ML noted that the paper did mention this but was happy for this to be made explicit. CG suggested that DR submit a paragraph summarising this.	DR
5		Definitions
	5.1	The use of the term “commercial” rather than “proprietary” software was raised. CG explained the rationale behind this. For instance, Java was proprietary but not commercial. It was agreed that neither term was perfect and that if the work commercial was to be used, it must be clearly qualified in the glossary.
	5.2	GT noted that the concept of dual licensing also needed to be explained in the paper.
	5.4	It was agreed that the licensing section would overtly refer to the OSI website which defined different licences and their terms in detail.
	5.5	EF referred to the glossary that she was producing to support the paper and noted that many of the definitions therein were sourced from Webopedia and referenced accordingly. She asked whether anyone had any objection to overt reference to this source in the paper. It was agreed that the Webopedia could be referred to as an information source.
		Review of the document Part II – detailed points
6		Detailed amendments
	6.1	CG proposed that they delete “to an unhealthy degree” in both the introduction and conclusion. This was agreed.
	6.2	It was agreed that the word “albatross” be replaced with “burden to the arbiter”
	6.3	It was agreed to change “unique” to “final” arbiter on Linux, although there was no evidence that Linus had ever been put into, or put himself into, that position.
	6.4	GT felt that the paragraph describing the background to OS needed revision as it represented a commercial perspective of the OS community. This was agreed.
	6.5	It was agreed to change “potential bottleneck” to “in theory this might be a bottleneck whereas in practice it had not yet appeared to be one. The sentence of disadvantages would remain as balance.
	6.6	It was agreed to change the word “hacker” to “developer”, not because it was inaccurate but because of its perceived implications.
	6.7	The words “road block” should be replaced with wording similar to that used earlier – “it could be seen in theory to be a bottleneck but in practice it has not yet appeared to be one.”
	6.8	EF agreed to make initial revisions along these lines and liaise with GT on further revisions to this section to ensure the OS perspective was properly represented.
	6.9	It was agreed that “inevitably” should be inserted before “better” in “that one model was better…”
	6.10	It was agreed that “attempt” should be inserted in the conclusion, so that the sentence read:- “govt and politicians should not attempt to pick winners and losers”.
	6.11	NG noted that in the last section point e) should be moved to become point a). This was agreed.
	6.12	NG asked for Fujitsu rather that Fujitsu Services be named as contributor. This was agreed.
	6.13	SN suggested that in the introduction, “at no charge, under a licence defined by the OSI” should be amended to read ”at no charge under a licence consistent with principles defined by the OSI…” This was agreed.
	6.14	SN suggested (P4) that the word UNIX be extracted from “Apple Computers’ use of the free BSD UNIX Kernel”. This was agreed.
	6.14	ML suggested the insertion of “it had been noted” before “ among commercial firms “ on P4. This was agreed.
	6.15	PV tabled a number of detailed amendments that had been received anonymously. EF agreed to take account of them when making amendments in line with other comments received. This would not be easy, firstly because many of the comments were not linked to specific points in the document so it was not possible to establish to what they referred, secondly that although they identified errors they did not suggest any alternative wording and thirdly the anonymity of the contributor meant that these things could not be checked at source.	EF
7		Table of Arguments and counter-Arguments
	7.1	EF noted that there were gaps in the table and asked for help in completing it.
	7.2	The primary concern amongst users was due diligence (who do I sue when it goes wrong?) and this should be noted as an argument against OS
	7.3	GT proposed that a “why?” column be added to the table. This was agreed.
	7.4	NG suggested that points relating to open standards should be at the top of both tables. This was agreed.
	7.5	Higher maintenance and running costs were unlikely to be an issue if the contract was with established packagers like SAP. GT noted that arguments became parochial in this area because it was easy to find instances that appeared to “prove” both extremes of the argument. Views differed but much depended on the individual cases. The balanced approach was to stress the need to consider all the constituent costs on a case-by-case basis.
	7.6	CH noted that for the purpose of the audience it was important for the paper to reflect and present common views, those positions most often cited. The general perception was that OS generally had lower cost.
	7.7	GT noted that the issue of documentation was diminishing as OS solutions became more mainstream. Lack of documentation was one of the main reasons that suppliers had come up with dual licensing, with documentation available as part of an added value package for those who wanted to pay for it.
	7.8	Independent development was diminishing as an issue as OS was becoming a standard option for an increasing range of servers.
	7.9	Re: Security - security flaws were exposed to peer review and were less likely to be exposed. Proprietary software had to be available for peer review.
	7.10	GT noted that research showed that people considered OS solutions because of cost and fear of proprietary lock in. Even if lock-in was no longer really applicable it was obviously still an important perception among decision makers. These issues had to be declared, even if they did not seem rational. This was agreed.
8		Next Steps / Proposed circulation
	8.1	EF agreed to revise the paper in line with comments received and to circulate to group members in time for a second review meeting on 23^rd July.	EF
	8.2	It was agreed that John Pugh MP, Richard Allan MP and Ian Stewart MP should be invited to review the paper when ready.
	8.3	CH noted that the e-Envoy’s team, headed by Anwar Choudhury, was following the paper so it would be circulated within the Departments.
	8.4	GT suggested that when it was finally circulated, the document should be in .rtf not .doc format, since the latter would antagonise the OS community. This was agreed.
9		Date of next meeting
	9.1	It was agreed that the next meeting would be held on 23^rd July, from 10.30 – 12.30, at Intellect’s other premises, Russell Square House, 10-12 Russell Square.	EF

Attendance – 7^th July 2003

F name	Surname		Organisation		Email
Chris	Godwin		IBM
Matt	Lambert		Microsoft
Nig	Greenaway		Fujitsu Services
Caroline	Halcrow		OeE
Elizabeth	Kanter		Nortel Networks
Lord	Renwick		EURIM
Philip	Virgo		EURIM
David	Keech		BSI
Graham	Taylor		Open Forum Europe
David	Rose		The Open Group
Steve	Nunn		The Open Group
Emma	Fryer		EURIM
Apologies
Beatrice		Rogers		Intellect
Brian		White		MP