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?!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] abeorch@friendica.ginestes.es 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

@Blisterexe Well so many businesses do this because they believe that the vendor will somehow charge less if they can reuse that code... but if its highly customised thats unlikely . it just becomes a case of pushing the costs down the road.

Not many postal banking businesses in the world

[–] colournoun@beehaw.org 4 points 1 day ago

The vendor will absolutely take that custom code and use it to extract maximum profit from a different customer. I’ve experienced it from both sides of the transaction. Open source at least allows the functionality to be “developed” only once.