UK Government Defines Open Standards as Royalty Free

New procurement guidance from the UK government has defined open standards as having "intellectual property made irrevocably available on a royalty free basis." The document, which has been published by the Cabinet Office, applies to all government departments and says that, when purchasing software, technology infrastructure, security or other goods and services, departments should "wherever possible deploy open standards."

Mark Taylor, CEO of Sirius IT, a UK open source integrator, who has previouslyled calls for more open source and free software use by government, told The H that the "Cabinet Office's new Policy statement is simply the best of any European Government to date, and a great step forward in levelling the playing field for Open Source software."