

GOV.UK: new government site built with open source software, £70 million cheaper - bfirsh
http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/2012/10/16/gov-uk-the-start/

======
chaz
Great to see.

But the headline is misleading. There's some cost savings from software
licensing, but it appears that the real savings is the transition from in-
person services to web services. The article below cites how the "Digital by
Default" initiative (which kicked off gov.uk), is partially responsible for
the DVLA cutting 1,213 jobs. These are regional offices where people stand in
line to get licenses and renew registrations.

[http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/2189527/dvla-
cut-213-job...](http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/2189527/dvla-cut-213-jobs-
embraces-digital-default-agenda)

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Nursie
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.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
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?

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

~~~
andyjohnson0
Edit: Ignore this, its wrong. I was looking in the wrong place. Should have
been <http://gov.uk>.

I've just (17:10 utc) at the source for <http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/>
and [http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/2012/10/16/gov-uk-the-
st...](http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/2012/10/16/gov-uk-the-start/) there
is only one occurrence of the string "google" in the page, and that is is link
to a font called 'cabin':

<link rel='stylesheet' id='linen-accent-font-style-css'
href='<http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Cabin:bold> type='text/css'
media='all' />

Doesn't look like they are using google analytics to me, at least not now.

~~~
Flenser
"We track usage of the site with Google Analytics, using their API heavily to
build dashboards"

<http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/govuk-launch-colophon/>

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

~~~
arocks
> 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!

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

~~~
arocks
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.

~~~
Pwnguinz
You do realize the "appearance" of a site has nothing to do with the
underlying stack, right? A Django site can appear like a Rails site can appear
like a Drupal site can appear like a ...

You can argue for differences in behaviour, sure; but appearance?

~~~
debacle
I disagree. Drupal makes it hard to do easy things, creates a lot of
unnecessary HTML, and makes it very hard to do things not The Drupal Way.

------
bfirsh
(Reposting a comment from yesterday for background)

This is part of a larger government initiative to curb outsourcing of IT
projects. Traditionally these sorts of things would be built by large software
companies at enormous expense to the taxpayer. Gov.uk has been built by a
(relatively) small in-house team, by people who genuinely care about what they
are building. They embrace the fact that they are building tools for the good
of society rather than just satisfying a contract.

Also as a citizen, I love that I can open a pull request on my government's
website ( <https://github.com/alphagov/calendars/pull/1> ). We've got the ball
rolling in opening up government data on the internet, but this is a great
example of how technology can enable citizens to get involved in government.

------
devb0x
Great, where's that money gonna go now..

~~~
philjohn
reducing the deficit?

~~~
Ntrails
Inconceivable.

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npongracic
This is great... except it looks like an empty domain page. The design is
horrible.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
I liked the old design with search first and foremost. They should bring that
back.

~~~
intranation
It didn't test well:

[http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/2012/10/03/why-weve-
chan...](http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/2012/10/03/why-weve-changed-the-
homepage/)

