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Open or Closed? New Report on Open Source in Local Government

August 6, 2009

To mark the launch of UKGovOSS, today we’re publishing our new report looking at the state of open source software activity in local government.

Open or Closed? is based on research we carried out late last year to examine the adoption, perceptions and experiences of open source in councils across the UK.  Our thanks to the 168 local authority managers and staff who took part.

Some headlines from the survey:

  • 64% believe their council needs to increase its use of open source software (27% agreeing strongly)
  • Around half say their council will increase its open source use by 2011
  • 370 local government open source deployments identified
  • Software licensing costs represent 30-40% of some councils IT budgets
  • Why do councils go open source? 75% put lower cost as #1 factor
  • Office software is where open source will impact most in local government over the next three years
  • 65% believe perceptions of open source being ‘too risky’ stops councils from using open source more widely.

That’s just a taster of the report, which has been kindly sponsored by Bull Information Systems and One Point Consulting.  We hope this report is useful and welcome your comments on our findings.

Download a PDF copy of Open or Closed? here (5.5MB) or learn more about the report.

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