This is an important publication so I am quoting the press release in full.

For non UK readers JISC is the Joint Information Systems Committee. JISC works with further and higher education by "providing strategic guidance, advice and opportunities to use ICT to support teaching, learning, research and administration."

"Supporting institutions, informing choice

JISC sends guidance on open source software to all colleges and universities

24th Feb, 2006. JISC today issued a briefing paper to all colleges and universities in the UK to raise awareness of the issue of open source software. With almost every further and higher education institution in the UK making using of open source software, and with the European Commission and the UK Government giving their support to its development and deployment, it has become a central issue for institutional management of IT systems and services in education.

‘Open source’ refers to software whose source code is openly available to be modified by end-users, in contrast to proprietary software. While such software is already in use in colleges and universities, it is rarely yet part of institutional policies and strategies and there are still a great many misunderstandings concerning it.

The new briefing paper comes after guidelines issued last year by JISC for its projects and follow from the Government’s published policy which, in 2004, set out guidance for the exploitation of publicly funded software development. In its latest guidelines, JISC – supported by its advisory service OSS Watch - advocates the use of open source as the default for software development as well as providing guidelines on copyright, licensing, trademarks, patents and development practice.

Colleges and universities spend millions of pounds on ICT and, with open source increasingly being considered a viable and cost-effective option, they are looking for independent and informed guidance on the choices open to them.

Niall Sclater, VLE Programme Director at the Open University, which recently selected the open source Moodle as a core component of its VLE, said: “By fully engaging in the Moodle open source community we are pooling our resources with other developers working across the world to enhance the software by adding new tools and features, and improve its accessibility, robustness and scalability. While continuing to utilise commercial software, we see open source software (and the skills to exploit it) as an increasingly necessary component in our overall systems architecture.”

Co-author of the new guidelines Sebastian Rahtz, director of OSS Watch, said: “Including open source as an option in ICT keeps the focus where it should be – on technical and end-user requirements for ICT solutions, and not on who has the glossiest sales pitch.”

JISC’s Development Director (Systems and Technology) Bill Olivier, said: “JISC sees open source software as an important component in developing a sustainable ICT infrastructure for UK higher and further education. This briefing paper sets out JISC’s position clearly, providing institutions with the information they need to make informed choices. JISC also emphasizes the separate but complementary role of open standards which is key to enabling institutions to integrate both open source and commercial products in their ICT infrastructure according to their priorities, needs and available budgets.”

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