Hot on the heels of the events in Sweden, which resulted in the Pirate Bay gentlemen being prosecuted and a swelling of support for the Swedish Pirate Party,  a UK Pirate Party has now been formed. Of particular interest to the FLOSS bods is the reformation of patent law. As I understand, the new party joins other “Pirate Parties” in Finland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Germany.

This led me to perform a quick “web-scan” of the issue of FLOSS in UK politics. The UK Green Party show that they understand it and are explicit about supporting its use in public IT projects. Even the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives (the main opposition parties in the UK) at least talk about it, but they water down their words unnecessarily.

The emergence of FLOSS in the public sector is an issue that interests me more and more…