Governments are thought of as slow changing, generally conservative, bureaucratic, monolothic and corrupt bodies that hardly ever do anything useful. They bow down easily tothe whims and fancies of special interest groups. After all, governments are run by politicians and civil servants. There trusted and liked by the people only a little less than lawyers.

The British prime minister openly adimitted just before the last general election (Jun 2001) that he was totally computer illiterate. I would not be at all surprised if most of the cabinet are in the same boat. I do not expect the situation to be any different any other government in the world.

Yet the government is a monstrous institution. It was government efforts that saw the rise of the modern computer, the internet and so on. A rich and powerful government like the US government can make or break an industry.

Tender procedures

Most governments use tender procedures for all forms of procurment. This concidered to be transparent, and is meant to keep the governments corruption free. Under these schemes, the cheapest bid that meets the minimum requirements always wins the contract. In theory this should help the open source community. In practice, though, few governments follow tender procedures to the letter. Most often, it is not the lowest bidder that wins, but the one who makes the highest bid to buy the relevant officials.