Alfresco Presentation Template 2.0

Public Funds in the UK: Open Source for Document and Content Management?

Will Abson, Alfresco Software Ltd.

Five Years Ago... at Alfresco

Alfresco development begins on 4th January 2005

First Release Candidate on 12th July

First 1.x release on 31st October

Use of Open Source methodology was key

What is Alfresco?

The Open Source Alternative for Enterprise Content Management

Provides Document Management, Records Management, Web Content Management, Collaboration and more

Community and Enterprise Editions

Active communities world-wide

Built on Open Source components Spring, Lucene, Hibernate, OpenOffice.org, etc.

Five Years Ago... in Government

UK Government publishes Transformational Government agendaMore on this later

UK Freedom of Information comes into effect on 1st January 2005Deals with access to official information

Gives individuals and organisations the right to access this information from any public authority

Similar legislation implemented in over 85 countries world-wide

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/opensecrets/2010/01/wills_defends_queen.html

FOI at Islington Borough Council

Approx 4000 staff, 50-100 core records systems

Difficult to process FOI requestsExample: 419 days to respond to a single request

Implemented Alfresco as EDRM solution across the organisationProject started 2006, Go-Live March 2007

Would not have been possible without OSSAllowed a solution tailored to the council's needs

Elimination of licensing and CALs

Barriers to OSS at Islington

Resistance to OSS in generalConcerns over maturity of solutions and supportability

Overcome through education of key stakeholders

Resistance to changed working practicesAlfresco's support for Microsoft networking protocols allowed users to continue using shared drive methodology

Overcome through open standards

More informationhttp://www.islington.gov.uk/Council/councilstructure/Access_to_Information/EdrmInThePublicSectorEvent/default.asp

UK market in 2010

A few early adopters dominate the UK landscape

Sadly, UK remains 2-3 years behind progress in other territoriesU.S. is strongest single market

Performance in other Western European counties

But, encouraging signs among public sector and system integrators

Reasons to be positive

Updated UK Government procurement policy on OSS, Feb 09Open source to be chosen in preference to proprietary solutions where solutions are equal

(Leaked) Government ICT Strategy, Dec 09And Conservative Make IT Better response...

Renewed focus on value for moneyIT will be the focus for efficiency savings in 2010

Government 2.0 and Open Data

Value for Money

UK has seen fastest increase in level of indebtedness of all G20 countries

Yet spends one of the highest amounts on public sector ITIT de-skilling within Central Government

Historical preference of proprietary solutions

Domination of market by a handful of suppliers 5 top integrators have 80% of market

More informationCPS Paper It's Ours by Liam Maxwell, RBWM

ICT Spend in the European Public Sector, 2005

Government 2.0

Defines methodologies for improving service deliveryc.f. Transformational Government agenda

Key themes: Transparency, Participation, Collaboration

Utilise Web 2.0 tools such as wikis, blogs, social networks

OSS a common factore.g. http://www.whitehouse.gov/open/innovations

More informationhttp://radar.oreilly.com/2009/08/what-does-government-20-mean-to-you.html

http://www.slideshare.net/timoreilly/gov2-senate

Open Data

Supports objectives of Gov 2.0Transparency, Accountability, Participation

Growing acceptance of openness as a defaultClimate data released by Met Office

MPs Expenses

data.gov, data.gov.uk, London Data Store

Ordnance Survey data sets consultation

Cross-party support in UK

Open Source and Open Standards as key enablers

Where are we now?

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)http://www.axicom.com/blog/?p=616