UK Government Manual Outlines Open Source Approach
March 28, 2013
The U.K. addresses its workers on the issue of open-source software in the Open Source section of its Government Service Design Manual. The site is still in Beta as of this writing, but the full release is expected in April. These prescriptions for when and how to use open-source resources contain some good advice, pertinent even to those of us who don’t report to a U.K. government office.
For example, on preparing developers, the document counsels:
“Ensure developers have the ability to install and experiment with open source software, have environments to easily publish prototype services on The Web, have convenient access to a wide variety of network connected devices for testing Web sites, and have unrestricted access to collaboration tools such as GitHub, Stack Overflow and IRC.”
It is worth noting that the text goes on to recommend giving back to open source projects, as well as citing any open source code used. The document also notes that, where security is concerned, open source software actually has an advantage:
“Separation of project code from deployed instances of a project is good development practice, and using open source enables developers to easily fork and experiment with multiple development, and operations to quickly spin-up multiple test and integration environments. . . . A number of metrics and models attest to the quicker response to security issues in open source products when compared to closed source equivalents.”
See the clear and concise document for more of its perspective on open-source software. The conclusion also points to the site’s Open Standards and Licensing page for more information.
Cynthia Murrell, March 28, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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