GDS comments on the NHS’s choice to back away from Open Source. Terence Eden keeps reporting on the NHS’s misguided decision to shut down access to its open-source repositories after vulnerabilities were disclosed through Project Glasswing. The Government Digital Service has now entered the discussion with a piece on AI, open code, and vulnerability risk in the public sector, published on May 14th. Their main recommendation: Laat het standaard open. Making all content private incurs extra costs for delivery and compliance, while also limiting opportunities for reuse and external review. Openness ought to be the default position, with any closure applied only sparingly and with clear intent. Although they avoid naming the NHS directly, Terence employs typical civil-service phrasing and views the statement as a significant escalation. In the UK Civil Service, people sometimes refer to „being invited to a meeting without biscuits“. It suggests a rather cold and tense conversation, devoid of the usual polite formalities found in a standard meeting.
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