Why the Post Office paid £600m to stay shackled to the faulty Horizon system
www.bbc.co.uk
Not owning crucial code has meant it has been unable to replace the system that led to a scandal.

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?!

    • RoundSparrow @ .ee
      1•15 days ago

      All-time Botposting Greatest Hits

      How is that? can you show that they are popular top hits? Is there a ranking somewhere, a top 40 of the week? Or do you just make 5-word Twitter-length replies on social systems like Twitter users do / Elon Musk fanaticism that everyone copies in April 2025 as discourse?

      I find the All-time Botposting Greatest Hits to be “LOL”, “you dumb”, “you stupid”, “you idiot”, “everyone else is idiots”, “Donald Trump orange skin”, “Donald Trump poopy diapers”, shit like that.

      I don’t actually believe there are that many “bots” as much as people crave very repetitive hate others messages like you see on Rupert Murdoch’s media systems, Fox News and such. What seems removed or absent entirely is messages like: “We need more preachers like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr”, or “We should all listen to Malala more, she has good ideas!”, those seem to be the lowest-performing messages or have been outright deleted by moderators or something. Far more common to see “go kill those you disagree with” messages as All Time Top Hits for comment sections.

       

      ::: ____________
      “Social media, that little narcissism machine, the easiest way we have ever had to place ourselves on a pedestal of vanity, also is the mechanism that most efficiently breaks you up.” ― Peter Pomerantsev, This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality, 2019