A new quality mark to help local authorities gauge the
openness of IT systems has been unveiled by the Open Source
Academy.
The academy, a partnership between local government bodies and
open source experts, has launched the Certified Open programme to
help local government IT managers make procurement decisions based
on the openness of products and services.
It aims to avoid the risk of lock-in, where future IT
development or integration with other systems is hampered by
restrictive proprietary formats or lack of interoperability.
The Certified Open programme uses a self-assessment system, with
suppliers assessing their own products or services against a
framework and marking it gold, silver or bronze depending on the
extent to which they comply with open standards.
The framework has been drawn up by a Certified Open council,
which will also oversee a code of conduct for organisations and
individuals using Certified Open standards.
If purchasers believe that a supplier has made false claims
about a product or service, they can appeal through the programme's
administrators, OpenForum Europe and the Institute of IT
Training.