Join us for a breakfast briefing to discuss how the third wave of Open Source Software is poised to impact the development and deployment of software in Government.

Characterised by its adoption-led approach as opposed to traditional ‘procurement-driven’ commercial software, the third wave is expected to deliver wider use of Open Source Software in Government.

In February 2009, the UK Government launched a strategy for the use of open source software and open standards by:

• Revising procurement policies to make open source equal to other options
• Mandating use when it is cheaper than proprietary software
• Encouraging re-use of code by open-sourcing Government solutions

The first wave was about the philosophical argument and legal framework for ‘free’ software creation, distribution and support, led by visionaries like Richard Stallman, Eben Moglen and Bill Joy, one of the founders of Sun Microsystems.

The second wave saw the beginnings of massive adoption of ‘free’ software, like Apache and Ubuntu, aided and abetted by another emerging phenomenon - the Internet.

Following the successes of the first two waves, the third wave is bound to have market changing effects.

In this session, the attendees will explore:

• The evolution of Open Source Software
• The differences between proprietary software and free software, and their implications for Government
• The juxtaposition of “A license describes the environment for a business relationship” and “A license is the constitution for a community”
• The Government policy and the ‘adoption-led’ versus the ‘procurement-driven’ market
• Sun’s position and the formalised business model for the adoption-led market
• Government and Enterprise products in the adoption-led market

We look forward to seeing you there.