Here is some big news (a couple days late)! United Kingdom Cabinet Office Minister (for digital engagement) and Member of Parliament Tom Watson, in a statement released a day or so ago, said the British government will accelerate the use of open source software in its public services. The government will now place open source software on a level playing field with proprietary software such as Windows, and they’ll adopt open source software "when it delivers best value for money." This is timely as the the Obama Administration begins to figure out how to use technology to reboot our government.

Whenever possible, the government has decided to avoid proprietary software for public services. The government will require its agencies to adopt open source software when "there is no significant overall cost difference between open and non-open source products" because of its "inherent flexibility." In a report on the announcement, the BBC quotes open source advocates as saying the shift from proprietary standards could save the government up to £600 million a year.

Watson said that the government had been experimenting with open source for the past five years, and that they’ve found that it can be best for taxpayers by providing better public services. Watson adds that they need to increase the pace of the open source approach:

1. We want to ensure that we continue to use the best possible solutions for public services at the best value for money; and that we pay a fair price for what we have to buy. 2. We want to share and re-use what the taxpayer has already purchased across the public sector – not just to avoid paying twice, but to reduce risks and to drive common, joined up solutions to the common needs of government. 3. We want to encourage innovation and innovators - inside Government by encouraging open source thinking, and outside Government by helping to develop a vibrant market. 4. We want to give leadership to the IT industry and to the wider economy to benefit from the information we generate and the software we develop in Government.

The BBC report quotes an open source support vendor as saying that the U.K. government's action plan “had ‘more teeth’ than policies being adopted in other countries because the plan was tied into policies regarding how IT managers procure new software.” Charles Arthur, writing at the guardian.co.uk’s Technology Blog, makes a somewhat cynical yet likely apt observation. “Not that this means that all those Windows boxen are going to be ending up on a scrapheap any time tomorrow, though you can bet Microsoft's salespeople to UK government will be on their phones right now talking to key people.”

Last week, Stephen Carter, the U.K. government’s minister for communications, technology and broadcasting, released an interim report on the state of Britain’s digital capacity with recommendations for enhancements. The report, “Digital Britain – Interim Report,” is the result of a review Carter launched in October with the mandate of providing a comprehensive analysis of Britain’s digital economy.

Bill Thompson, BBC technology columnist, criticized Carter and his agency for producing a report lacking public engagement and that “reflects an approach based around control and secrecy.” Thompson points out that it’s 72 pages into the report before the authors added an invitation with an email address (digitalbritain@berr.gsi.gov.uk) for interested citizens and organizations to offer suggestions and join the discussion. Thompson added that it would be up to Carter and his Digital Britain team to follow up on these expressions of interest, “which is nice of them, and we must just hope that Carter and his expert panel will be carefully reviewing every blog post and online comment to ensure they don’t miss anything important.”

Tony Hirst, an Open University academic and author of the OUseful.info blog, realized it didn’t need to be this way. He twittered the question, had anyone put the report into an online environment that would allow comments and discussion. Joss Winn, a technology officer at the University of Lincoln in the U.K., twittered back that the WordPress theme CommentPress would be a good application for breaking down and commenting on the report paragraph by paragraph.

Earlier today, Hirst reports, that “two evenings (incl. a rather late night, last night), a lunch break and morning coffee later, Joss has WriteToReply.org up and running (I got in the way not getting Daily Feeds working;-), a CommentPress site for commenting on public documents.” And the first report they posted is Carter’s Digital Britain, of course. The site allows users to comment in considerable detail, with texts broken down into their respective sections for easier consumption. The site encourages users to comment on specific paragraphs, rather than comment on the text as a whole. Users can subscribe to the feed of comments, as well.

The concept is similar to Sunlight’s Public Markup, an experiment to open up bills online, such as last fall’s Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. Kudos to the authors of WriteToReply for harnessing the power of collective action and providing greater transparency.