More than two years later, interest levels remain high but open source is much more easily embraced in public. A two-day conference on government and open source held in Adelaide in January this year as part of the annual Linux.conf.au was awash with examples of departments and agencies deriving real benefit from open source solutions.
Editor's note: On April 8, 2004, NOIE was replaced by the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO).
While legal concerns and implementation issues remain, the consensus is that open source software is now a realistic and frequently preferable solution for many government bodies.
Speakers from a variety of government agencies and departments said that while many managers had initially expressed concern over whether open source products would be properly supported, they rarely complained once effective systems were up and running.
-The way we've done it is really by demonstration," says Graham Williams from the CSIRO.
Williams has helped develop a number of data mining applications for use in Commonwealth health agencies, all of which have made extensive use of open source technologies. In many cases, this functionality would not have been available in existing commercial packages at an effective licensing cost.
Similarly, Williams said that concerns over security in open source platforms were generally misplaced. -Everywhere you go people tell you how insecure Linux is, and it's a huge myth," he says.
Open source in action
When the National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE) sought a replacement for its Internet and intranet publishing systems, an open source solution eventually won out because of its standards compliance.
2%
4%
