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GOV.UK: new government site built with open source software, £70 million cheaper

digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk

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Re: GOV.UK: new government site built with open source software, £70 million cheaper

#11

Post by meaty »

nicholassmith wrote: post #9
meaty wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So every fad platform you could possibly imagine. I reckon that the savings are up front but will cost a fortune in the long run and there are virtually no staff in the UK who can support it.

Really? Aside from Scala and RabbitMQ I know at least a dozen developers with skill sets in the rest of the technologies, and that's in my very small neck of the woods in the darkest North East England.

Demand is greater than supply in London, which is a big issue. It turns people towards high salary bidding wars, which to be honest offsets the saving.

Re: GOV.UK: new government site built with open source software, £70 million cheaper

#12

Post by Nursie »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #10
Nursie wrote: post #2

Awesome. Except for loading in google analytics. I'd really rather that my interactions with my government were not reported to a US based megacorp.

This is pretty important point IMO. Why couldn't they use a local analytics system? Perhaps partner with one of the OS analytics like Piwik? Edit: Um, I just looked, they don't appear to be using GA but a local system already?

I've sent site feedback on this issue now.

If I was a twitterer I might tweet about it too, but I'm not so I won't.

Re: GOV.UK: new government site built with open source software, £70 million cheaper

#13

Post by duiker101 »

Nursie wrote: post #2

Awesome. Except for loading in google analytics. I'd really rather that my interactions with my government were not reported to a US based megacorp.

Specially considering one of the best analytics services is in the UK, http://bango.com

Re: GOV.UK: new government site built with open source software, £70 million cheaper

#15

Post by weego »

arocks wrote: post #4
cangencer wrote: post #3

For the curious, here is the tech stack: http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/govuk-launch-colophon/

> The majority of our applications are written in ruby, based on either Ruby on Rails or Sinatra. > A few components are written in Scala and built on top of Play 2.0 > We’re running Mapit from MySociety which is built on top of Django Thank god it is not another Drupal based government site!

Thank god the people who consistently failed to deliver large websites based around whatever the stack is didn't manage to get involved. The ones I had to work with all seemed to gravitate around education budgets, but I'm sure it's not the only dept (I'm looking at you SchoolsWeb).

Re: GOV.UK: new government site built with open source software, £70 million cheaper

#16

Post by arocks »

andyn wrote: post #6
arocks wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The majority of our applications are written in ruby, based on either Ruby on Rails or Sinatra. > A few components are written in Scala and built on top of Play 2.0 > We’re running Mapit from MySociety which is built on top of Django Thank god it is not another Drupal based government site!

To be fair, Drupal et al. are great for throwing at non-technical users and letting them create their own content.

Absolutely agree. But for an entity like the UK govt having plentiful resources, it would be sheer laziness to go with a solution like Drupal due to ease in initial setup. Besides, most Drupal sites look sort of kludgy in appearance.

Re: GOV.UK: new government site built with open source software, £70 million cheaper

#17

Post by Nursie »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #10
Nursie wrote: post #2

Awesome. Except for loading in google analytics. I'd really rather that my interactions with my government were not reported to a US based megacorp.

This is pretty important point IMO. Why couldn't they use a local analytics system? Perhaps partner with one of the OS analytics like Piwik? Edit: Um, I just looked, they don't appear to be using GA but a local system already?

Err... Still there when I look at the page source for the front page at https://www.gov.uk

Re: GOV.UK: new government site built with open source software, £70 million cheaper

#18

Post by benblack86 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #10
Nursie wrote: post #2

Awesome. Except for loading in google analytics. I'd really rather that my interactions with my government were not reported to a US based megacorp.

This is pretty important point IMO. Why couldn't they use a local analytics system? Perhaps partner with one of the OS analytics like Piwik? Edit: Um, I just looked, they don't appear to be using GA but a local system already?

Why is it important to use a local system? What is wrong with using the best system for the job wherever in the world it comes from?

Re: GOV.UK: new government site built with open source software, £70 million cheaper

#19

Post by weavejester »

meaty wrote: post #11
nicholassmith wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Aside from Scala and RabbitMQ I know at least a dozen developers with skill sets in the rest of the technologies, and that's in my very small neck of the woods in the darkest North East England.

Demand is greater than supply in London, which is a big issue. It turns people towards high salary bidding wars, which to be honest offsets the saving.

I haven't noticed a huge shortage of Ruby on Rails devs in London, and the average salaries don't reflect a major shortage either. According to itjobswatch.co.uk, the average Ruby salary is the same as the average Java salary in London.

I also thought the idea of hiring cheap, sub-par developers as a way of saving costs was somewhat discredited by now.

Re: GOV.UK: new government site built with open source software, £70 million cheaper

#20

Post by nicholassmith »

meaty wrote: post #11
nicholassmith wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Aside from Scala and RabbitMQ I know at least a dozen developers with skill sets in the rest of the technologies, and that's in my very small neck of the woods in the darkest North East England.

Demand is greater than supply in London, which is a big issue. It turns people towards high salary bidding wars, which to be honest offsets the saving.

I know a few aspects of the .gov redev have been held outside of London, so they might look at that as a possibility.

(I think it's unlikely, most uk.gov seems to be focussed on London, which is natural and annoying)

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