Here's What's Missing from the 'Technology Manifesto' - Open Enterprise

"Last week I wrote about the Labour Party's increasing flirtation with technology policy. That's obviously to be welcomed, since politicians have tended to regard the shift from analogue to digital as a mere detail that leaves the underlying dynamics of life, business and government unchanged, or at most requiring a tweak here and there. In fact, the transition from the old analogue world to the new digital one is not just once in lifetime, but once in a civilisation - something that only needs to be done once (assuming that civilisation does not collapse, in which case we'll have to do it all over again.) It's therefore good to see external groups offering their thoughts on what future policy for the UK (and more widely) should look like. Here's one from Policy Exchange, entitled simply "Technology Manifesto" ... The report, which is freely available as a single page or PDF, has three broad sections: those dealing with individuals, business and government ... Although it's good to see open standards in there, it's disappointing that the Policy Exchange did not go further and call for open source, which is the most effective way of implementing those open standards. Simply mandating open standards allows lock-in through inertia - the argument being that the re-training costs etc. etc. make moving to new implementations of open standards too expensive. That's a ridiculous way of looking at things, because it pretty much ensures that the status quo is maintained. What the Manifesto should have called for was a default use of open source software throughout government, unless there are compelling and clearly-articulable reasons not to take that route ..."