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The UK Post Office should have insisted on an open source system (www.bbc.co.uk)

submitted 1 day ago by yak@lemmy.sdf.org to c/opensource@lemmy.ml

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The UK Post Office should at least have considered open source software for Horizon to enhance transparency, empower users, and avoid vendor lock-in, which could have prevented or mitigated the scandal’s impact. People like Richard Moorhead, Christopher Hodges, Alan Bates, and the long running Computer Weekly coverage all underscore the need for transparency and accountability, indirectly supporting open source principles, although direct advocacy is rare. For future systems, the Post Office and similar organizations should prioritize open source to prevent such injustices.

The establishment narrative often focuses on individual accountability rather than systemic issues like software design. But this overlooks how proprietary systems enabled the Post Office to deflect responsibility.

Open source software aligns with ethical principles of justice, autonomy, and resource stewardship, making it a compelling alternative for future public sector IT projects.

Thoughts?!

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[-] killeronthecorner@lemmy.world 2 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

Someone defined the process at some point though, and often it's documented. I've worked at several banks and large financial institutions and have had plenty of people tell me "I don't know how X works" but never "Nobody knows how X works".

I currently work at a bank and I'm yet to encounter anything that someone couldn't at least send me documentation for, however apocryphal.

The problem here is that it's fairly clear that the post office allowed Fujitsu to both define and implement the processes such that they are not compelled to provide the blueprint for them as part of the contract and they are now held to ransom over it.

This is the kind of colossal fuck up that heads should roll for, no less so as it is happening in the shadow of one of the biggest corruption scandals in British history.

[-] tiramichu@lemm.ee 2 points 11 hours ago

I agree that it's a huge fuck up, my comment wasn't in defence of the post office, just a related story :)

Whenever I have delivered code for a client it has always been in a way where the client has complete ownership of the code and can maintain it themselves later (or ask a different company that isn't us to come do it) because that's the only sustainable approach, and all companies should absolutely demand that all work done for them is done this way.