It's great to see this article on BBC news (also on Ars Technica) reporting on the UK governments latest promises regarding considering open source software. Though, I'm sure this sort of thing has been said before, we're definitely seeing more and more reports of governments having a look at open source (see an earlier article on it, specifically mentioning Obama's government), however cagey their promises may be. I'm sure that this isn't the end of the story since, as anyone who attended Patrick Harvie's talk at Akademy 2007 would know. He reported on some of the tactics that he'd seen Microsoft employ in order to prevent the idea of open source alternatives gaining mental footholds in the minds of people in power. For me, the most important part of the BBC article is that it tells of how both of the interviewed expect the proprietary firms to react: "I am absolutely certain there have been communications extremely high-up in proprietary vendors with management high up in government," said Mr Shine. Mr Phipps added: "Measured over the short term traditional vendors will cut prices back, end load contacts and do everything to appear cheaper. "But the real value with open source comes from giving users a new flexibility." Finally, it's good to see more high quality, non-FUD reporting about FOSS where it's treated as a sensible thing and not as some hippy idea. I look forward to any further concrete news on this.