On 31st March the British Standards Institute (BSI) submitted an updated vote of approval, on ISO 29500 (MS OOXML). The move surprised many, myself included. In September 2007 the BSI had voted ‘No - with comments’, attaching a long list of reasons. The response had been prepared in the open over the web, using the BSI OOXML Wiki. It was applauded by many, including members of other national standards bodies, a BSI report to the All Party Internet Group (APIG) stated:

BSI has been making its scrutiny process transparent by assembling comments on the Web in public view, and is recognised as leading the international scrutiny effort. The German standards body DIN are adopting a similar process, and one US standards committee member has written “when I compare [our process] to the BSI’s excellent work developing detailed comments on a publicly-readable Wiki, I think we in the US should be ashamed …”

The wiki hasn’t been substantively updated since October 2007. I’ve been unable to find any stated reasons from the BSI for the reversal of their position or in fact any announcement by BSI of their final vote. On 30th April the UK Unix Users Group (UKUUG) requested judicial review of the BSI’s reversal. In June this application was rejected by a Judge. On the 19th UKUUG appealed, the BSI made no public comment. Unless it becomes public record in court, their reasoning will remain secret. This post isn’t about the BSI or ISO 29500/OOXML.

Open Politics

I’ve come to the opinion that the UK Government systemically favours large, closed, all encompassing IT projects. They are institutionally closed source. These projects nearly always go over budget, beyond their deadline or under deliver. Government IT is a running joke. The civil service and the UK political establishment is wedded to the closed source model of software development. Project decisions are made in private by a few blessed individuals, then published as a fiat accompli. Opportunities for public scrutiny are rare, it takes parliamentary questions to drag basic details out of whitehall. I believe the civil service and the government would function far better by adopting open source development techniques and culture. The following practises would improve the quality and value of software delivering our public services:

  1. Design, debate & decision making regarding public IT conducted in public, on the record.
  2. Development of public documents in public, versioned repositories.
  3. Development of services and systems in small increments, with new features deployed early and often.
  4. Public bug tracking, where this doesn’t compromise privacy.

I’m not talking about adopting Free/Open Source software in the UK public sector, though this would help. Instead I am arguing for a change of mindset, from the big closed-cathedral like practises we now follow, to a messier & more open bazaar model.