Posted 8:49 AM

Its a great day for the Irish

A tip of the virtual cap to Ireland's "e-minister", Mary Hanafin, who has announced that open standards, not open source, will be the backbone of the country's e-government initiative (Open source 'too costly' for Irish e-gov | The Register).

With open standards, all software - whether developed through open source, proprietary, ad hoc or in-house methods - works together so that an organization can pick "best of breed" solutions without worry about non-compatibility.

Ireland also announced plans to scrap e-voting for the time being, not because of fears about "the death of democracy", though. Rather its that old software development problem "creeping featuritis" - the software revisions are coming faster than the government can thoroughly test them! That's something that can, and should, be managed better or another software company brought in. Counting votes isn't rocket science!