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back to article Logica salvages gov contracts

Logica has signed an agreement with the coalition government which should save its existing contracts, although it has agreed to some cuts - or "efficiency savings". The reseller said the scale of cuts was within forecasts and therefore its targets for the year were unchanged. Logica said it had been in discussions with …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    UKGOV Secure Software Initiative Needed

    With all the security issues popping out of C-based programs UKGOV could use this opportunity to develop a Secure Software Environment and give unemployed programmers a job.

    Starting points would be SE Linux, Spark Ada and all the research around safe languages and operating systems.

    A full Spark-Ada-based OS with a Linux ABI would be a great achievement, as it would end all those buffer-overflow issues. Get the EU in the boat and make them finance a serious part of it.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARK_%28programming_language%29

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security-Enhanced_Linux

    http://www.baesystems-ps.com/CsLeos/Articles/?jsp=index&section=1&full=true&id=45

    99% of Penguins want to be implemented in Ada.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    How UKGOV Could Save Money And Create Jobs

    1.) Use Open Source (Linux, Postgres RDBMS, AbiWord Writer, TeX, Firefox, Alfresco Document Management System, SE Linux, OpenLDAP Directory Server, Apache Webserver, GNU Ada, )

    2.) Hire British Programmers and Companies to extend Open Source Projects To Suit UKGOVs needs.

    3.) Domesticate Penguins. Hmm, well maybe not.

    This could help Britain at a time of economic trouble and it would help the greater Software Ecosystem in Europe and Worldwide. It could seed Open Source businesses in the UK. It would help *immediately*.

    Canonical& Ubuntu is already A Great British And European Success !

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    1. KitD
      Reply Icon

      I'm just the man...

      > 3.) Domesticate Penguins. Hmm, well maybe not.

      Where can I sign up for the Senior Penguin Domestication Supervisor position ?

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    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      WTF?

      Great idea...

      now all you have to do is migrate all the huge Oracle / SQL / exchange databases, reimage 100s of thousands of machines, rewrite all the custom made software and add ons for said software, retrain millions of staff, chuck 10's of millions of pounds worth of incompatible hardware in the skip.

      Yup, let's do it right now, after all shouldn't cost a penny, after all the software free isn't it?

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      1. max allan
        Reply Icon
        Grenade

        Feckin Eejit...

        Considering the entire IT estate gets changed out about every 5 years or so I completely agree with your plan to skip everything right now and start again from scratch. Big Bang solutions are always so good especially when done across the entire infrastructure like you're proposing.

        As opposed to the obviously idiotic step of having a phased approach where as systems go end of life they follow their natural path to the bin and get replaced with something with "free" software.

        At the same time they can take the people who know how to use a system that's gone and give them the training that they would naturally expect to receive when replacing one expensive system with another (in my experience that's about sod all).

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  3. TeeCee Gold badge
    Grenade

    @StrongType

    Or they could just stick with what they know and reject the humungous retraining/migration/refactoring/interfacing/transitioning/inevitable-huge-fuckup costs associated with that little lot.

    "This could help Britain at a time of economic trouble..."

    I'm not sure that a massive "replace everything" project with an inevitable umpty-something billion price tag on it is quite what anyone needs when they're broke.

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  4. Sheepdog

    How it could save money?

    Its great saying UKGOV could save money using opensource but have you tried telling (let alone training) the end user they have to use something completely different? The mindset in GOV is rather slow in accepting change.

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  5. Red Bren

    @TeeCee & AC

    How much of the gov.uk IT estate is on XP or other "obsolete" proprietary platforms? How much will the humungous retraining/migration/refactoring/interfacing/transitioning/inevitable-huge-fuckup associated with upgrading to the latest versions cost? On top of the licence fees, of course.

    Compare the Total Cost of Ownership, add in the benefits of supporting the local IT industry and keeping the cash within the UK economy, and a FOSS solution can make sense. But there’s no corporate donations to party funds, or cosy directorships to be had from FOSS, so it will never happen.

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  6. Rogerborg

    Or, and here's a thought

    They could devolve purchasing decisions down to the people who actually use the software, rather than forcing them to source it based on trendy ideological criteria.

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  7. JimC

    Actually Open source makes sense for the likes of Logica

    Because it means that the money saved on Licensing is spent on Consultancy. Much as I resent the Microsoft tax, and especially the tax evasion which means they don't pay UK taxes on it, in the grand scheme of cost of ownership it's not that big a deal. And its a damn sight easier to find cah to buy licenses than it is to find talented people to sort out an open source solution...

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