On Thursday the 18th of November, the WLUG was privileged to have RodneyHide, the leader of NewZealand's ACT political party, address us. See the MeetingTopics.2004-11-18 page for an outline of this enjoyable meeting.

Rodney is interested in open source software and told us about the powers of an opposition MP to ask questions of government departments regarding their use. He has offered to submit ParliamentaryQuestions on our behalf, which are written questions that must be answered within five working days. Rodney will endeavor to assist us in formulating these in the most effective manner.

Please note that the WLUG are not affilliated with any political party (and don't even have a leaning). This is not a "Government bashing" or "Microsoft bashing" exercise; this is a method to further the goals of the WlugCharter in advocating Linux and OpenSource software.

Also, anyone can edit this page - if you're going to discuss this project, doing so on this page ensures that everything you say can be taken on board and included in the process.

Notes on the process:

• Questions should be as specific as possible, especially with respect to dates. This makes evading the questions difficult.
• The original answer documents can be requested if there is a suspicion that the provided answer may be male bovine fecal matter.

With that in mind:

RodneyHide asked us what questions we'd like various government departments asked. This page is where we can discuss questions and talk about rewording them before their submission. Each question is made into a title so that the discussion about that question can happen underneath.

How much money has this department spent in the last financial year on commercial proprietary software products?

Does this relate to maintaining/maintenance charges, or to purchase of new products? Suggest modifying to 'How much money has this department spent in the last financial year purchasing new commercial proprietary software products for which a viable open source alternative exists.'' - PaulL

This has the door open that they can claim out that an open source alternative isn't viable. if you want an answer, you have to make sure that they can't redefine terms on you :) -- PerryLorier

Also suggest specifying particular categories of open source software - lets not get into the argument about products like eAI tools that do not have a good and well accepted open source alternative. So perhaps 'How much money has this department spent in the last financial year purchasing new proprietary web servers where Apache web server offered a viable alternative.' etc etc. Perhaps also focus on the dollar figures spent on operating systems (we can safely include maintenance here, as we are making the point that if they moved to open source they wouldn't have this cost), and on desktop and productivity software in an environment such as a front-office application, where obscure toolsets aren't typically required - a front-office app usually requires only Office apps, browser, 3270 emulation and e-mail - PaulL

How many machines within this department are running Linux or other OpenSource operating systems in production as of today?

How many internal applications within this department are currently written in a way that are not immediately portable to other operating systems?

This question sounds a little vague... maybe 'internal applications' should be better defined -- JohnMcPherson

Suggest making it more specific by tying to a date (removing the argument that open source wasn't seen broadly as viable before a particular date), and by specifying custom developed applications rather than just 'internal applications.' Suggest rewording to 'How many custom developed applications for which development commenced after 1 Jan 2000 that are currently in use or under development within this department or by organisations contracted by this department are currently written in a way that is not immediately portable to other operating systems.' - PaulL

How much money has this department spent in the last financial year on protecting against and recovering from worm and virus infections?

How much downtime has this department experienced in person hours that was due to a loss of service caused by worms and viruses?

Why does this department consider it safe to publish .doc files on its public website?

This question needs to be targetted only at the departments that do the above :) References:

• http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/23.27.html#subj6
• http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/23.50.html#subj7

Perhaps amusing facts can be found in these doc files revision histories which can be rephrased in form of a question.

(zcat notes: searching for files of type "doc" with no search string works better than looking for the string ".doc" and then excluding the department of conservation.. :-)

Why does this department not have versions of its files available for download in a more open format such as pdf or html?

(Paired with the above question where appropriate)

Given the availability of openoffice, is the format of the document really an open source issue? I would suggest focusing on the high value questions where clear dollar figures can be pointed to - PaulL

Yes it is important. OpenOffice isn't 100% at reading files. Posting doc files on the web is considered bad practice, even by microsoft. Also, there are devices which are unlikely to ever run any office software, eg, a cellphone. Having the document available in html means anyone can read it anywhere on anything. If it's a document that needs to be printed (a form perhaps to be mailed back if an online version of the form isn't feasible for some reason eg, requires signatures) then PDF is obviously the right answer (it always prints as intended where office documents won't print reliably the same between different versions of word). -- PerryLorier

How much of the last round of funding body (FRST?/TBG?) projects gone towards development of Open Source Software as defined by http://www.opensource.org/?

When awarding contracts for software application development, would the department consider favouring Open Sourced solutions as being in the best interests of NewZealand citizens? If not, why not?

Why does FRST? not consider the production of Open Source software to be a valid objective for funding especially in the light of high quality software like MozillaFirefox being produced in New Zealand?

Where new applications are developed within this department using components of open source software, does this department have a policy of contributing to the improvement and support of that open source software, and allow their staff to devote time to that purpose?

Other things we need to phrase into questions:

• Microsoft in Schools
• ComCom? & ADSL in New Zealand?
• Māori language translations/interfaces (eg gnome 2.6 and kde have some 'mi' locale support). Educational software that has a US focus rather than NZ? (video/audio accents, history (think 'Oregon Trail', etc)

Something I think needs dicussing is the idea of Government (Tax Payer) funds being used by IT Contractors to develop custom appliations that are licensed under a proprietory license. I think all "new code" developed from Governmental organisations should be licensed under an Open Source license. We as tax payers paid for the software, we should own the software.

Agree with this one - generally the larger govt departments require that IP in any applications developed vests in the govt, it is worth a bash to convince them this should in turn be put in the public domain. A point of consideration is that many IT organisations would embed pre-existing proprietary code in the developed application, and generally give the Govt body a license to use these components and sell the application in its entirity. To make the software available as open source would make the individual components accessable - which might not be viable from a commercial perspective.

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