Please help to write the Government's paper "Open Source Options for Government": http://etherpad.fsfe.org/zaKDgMacMd

This paper will be used in the UK public sector to:

a. Inform the design of new IT solutions b. Suggest opportunities for IT service or solution refreshes c. Challenge a proposed solution that does not use open source technology

The Home Office has asked FSFE to contribute our expertise. Here we a have an opportunity to add compelling evidence for Free Software applications which could influence future UK public sector procurement decisions. In short, the better this paper is, the more likely it is that public money could be spent on using Free rather than proprietary software.

FSFE's UK team has already done preliminary work on version 0.1 of the document, but more is needed, particularly details of real world deployments of applications which are already listed, and also Free Software alternatives to dominant proprietary systems in particular fields (medical record management, for example).

It's authors at the home office have unfortunately chosen to use Google Docs as the drafting platform, and I don't want to encourage people to register with Google in order to make their contributions. Therefore I have created an FSFE hosted etherpad to collect your input at the address above.http://etherpad.fsfe.org/zaKDgMacMd

I will later submit the contributions that are made on the etherpad to Tariq Rashid (Lead Architect at the Home Office) so that he can add them to the Google Document.

Kind regards,

Sam.