Open source: Your lifeboat

Simon Mitchell says the channel should be cognisant of some painful new realities and use them to help companies do more with less

In March 2011 a British Computer Society event in Covent Garden caused a sea change in the way organisations look at open source software.

As a direct result of that public sector event and an initiative that followed, blue-chip organisations are now confidently assessing where, when and how it can help them do more for less.

We approached the Cabinet Office subsequently and proposed to review government SIs to establish which were truly ready to deliver open source. We found much less resistance than we anticipated, although the shift in development and business models can erode revenue from off-the-shelf software, and many had less experience architecting and integrating open source.

However, like most organisations, SIs recognise they have to adapt to market demand. Yet a survey of several councils, NHS trusts, police forces and other organisations suggested a lack of procurement guidance, concerns about licence obligations and intellectual property, as well as a poor understanding of open source's maturity and its developer ecosystem.

They were often aware of what the government IT strategy espoused, and in some cases why there was less confidence in how, when or with whom to work as a result. But if they don't know what to ask for, no one will give it to them.

So I told my lead consultant that organisations wanted to be able to assess whether they could benefit from open source, and if not, to understand what they needed to do to get to that point.

A readiness assessment that evaluated the current state, envisioned the desired future state and showed them how to get there would create a savvy customer, empowered to choose.

He said it was a non-starter because CIOs and CTOs don't care whether software is open source. They care about features, price and warranty - and most importantly, the peace of mind that comes from doing what they know best. As they say, no one ever got fired for buying IBM, after all.

Having been told that my idea was a turkey, I set about creating this readiness assessment anyway via consultation with the Cabinet Office and local government. Since the end of 2012, we have delivered the Open Architectures Readiness Assessment (OARA) successfully on numerous occasions, and now have almost 20 councils, police forces and NHS Trusts lined up.

Of course, my consultant was absolutely right; it's not principally about open source or even open standards. Every organisation doing our OARA has been asked about their motivation, and most simply want to do more with less, surviving the austerity measures without collapsing into chaos and catastrophic systems failure.

Yet without fundamental change there is only so much more that can be done for less, and then people and systems start to fail. "More for less" typically aims to deliver a rationalisation programme - reducing headcount while increasing productivity.

How can you expect to increase productivity when your IT team is living in fear of redundancy? This type of re-engineering more often than not undermines morale and destroys the social fabric of the organisation.

Open source means you really can do more for less - rather than just spread resources more thinly. It allows organisations, be they from the public or private sector, to hold on to good people and release them from unnecessary licence and support costs. A licence will never deliver as much competitive advantage to a business as a fully engaged and loyal employee.

When a ￡0.5bn financial sector organisation wants an OARA, it is because it has to find a way to do more for less without destroying its foundations. The company has realised that it can reduce reliance on proprietary software and improve operational efficiency, reduce the budget, and yet retain the people who make a difference.

It seems clear that organisations are not undertaking this assessment to move themselves towards a positive situation, but to move themselves away from a painful one. And pain associated with that move can be minimised by following an approved path.

We all need to reduce costs and here's a way of doing it without cutting any arteries.

Simon Mitchell is executive director of LinuxIT