In this regard, the council members state in their resolution: "The IT department must act to break its dependency on a single software vendor" and added that "(The lock-in) exposes the city to certain operational and financial risks. For example, the IT supplier can dictate the license fees and it controls the file format of the city's documents."
The council members asked the IT department that they want a continued support for a vendor independent suite of office productivity tools, either OpenOffice or LibreOffice. This open source software alternative must be maintained and updated regularly.
The proposed action is relatively inexpensive, as the council notes. It adds that it will greatly help in bringing down the price of proprietary licences, which the city is about to renew and that will cost millions.
"Keeping LibreOffice up to date is really the minimum that we ask", comments Johanna Sumuvuori, a city council member who initiated the resolution. She said that last week the city's IT department had told her again that they would suspend the support for the open source office tools, due to their cost.
The council resolution is a response to a proposal by the IT department. In April 2012, the IT department wrote to the council that the costs of rejecting IT vendor lock-in are too high. Changing the office suite would ripple through the entire IT system, taking a lot of time and money. Instead, it has been offered to make more and more of the city's datasets publicly available.
Helsinki's trials with open source office suites began in 2011. A city council resolution, also initiated by Sumuvuori, had called for a pilot project.
Further Information:
- Original Source - City council resolution (in Finnish)
- Joinup related news item - Helsinki aims for open data but resigns itself to IT vendor lock-in
- Joinup related news item - Council member: Helsinki's OpenOffice use should help reduce costs
- Joinup related news item - FI: City of Helsinki to start open source desktop pilot
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Gijs Hillenius
Quelle/Source: epractice, 20.07.2012
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