Re: Open Source Software in the Government
hi. On Jan 15, 2009, at 3:56 PM, Bradley Holt wrote: Jim, Help educate them on why free/open source software and open standards should be part of their selection criteria. If it's a web application, then open standards should be an easy sell as it will help them reach the broadest audience. Free/open source software can: * help them avoid vendor lock-in; * allow them to customize the software by hiring internal staff or external resources; and * let them share the burden of maintenance across a bigger group. This is an excellent list, Bradley, thanks for posting it. Please let me build on your foundation here. As you point out, F/OSS is not about cost. It is about many things, but cost is the least of them. To me, F/ OSS is about learning, sharing information, and building on the shoulders of others (instead of trying (and failing) to invent it all from scratch). Proprietary software is really about the opposite: keep it secret, don't share, invent it all (over again) by yourself. Now, though you might accuse me of information overload... I recently felt the need to research some of the differences of philosophy between the way that businesses and business people (and by extension) government think about F/OSS in the USA. In general, they all seem to be under the impression that it is just about cost. They haven't seen the benefits we, as users, developers, and early adopters have seen. I encourage everyone on this list to read David Wheeler's excellent survey and analysis of Why Open Source (if you have not already): http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html Of particular note, is the section on Europe, and a little later on Government. On Europe--- where the EU is really holding M$ feet to the fire--- the following explains some of the reasons they have a much greater adoption of F/OSS. See: http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/ict/policy/doc/2006-11-20-flossimpact.pdf as the kind Mr. Wheeler points out. DARPA and many military contracts favor F/OSS, because they want to avoid vendor lock-in. Governments have a habit of outliving corporations. (At least, they did before the change in Copyright Law of 1996, and the DMCA, call me crazy...) If they pay for something to be custom developed then they can (and should) license the code to be used by other organizations with similar needs. There is no cost to them, only the upside of helping others. This can only be done if they insist on an free/open source license (or copyright transfer) from their vendor. Hope this helps! have a day.yad jdpf
Re: Open Source Software in the Government
I encourage everyone to stop thinking about cost and start focusing on freedom :-) I like that. - balu I like it too... but could you phrase that in a way that would help me 'sell' it to a town committee that's looking for the best, most sustainable option, and has plenty of grant money to spend on a good solution, free or not?
Re: Open Source Software in the Government
You can always use something like this The free open source community provides a safe and secure environment that can be custom tailored to our needs (provide examples) the reduction of cost also provided allows us to allocate more capital towards (secondary project needing funding) and gives us a system that is being constantly being updated daily to new security threats that emerge. On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 2:22 PM, Jim Carroll j...@maplesong.com wrote: I encourage everyone to stop thinking about cost and start focusing on freedom :-) I like that. - balu I like it too... but could you phrase that in a way that would help me 'sell' it to a town committee that's looking for the best, most sustainable option, and has plenty of grant money to spend on a good solution, free or not?
Re: Open Source Software in the Government
I encourage everyone to stop thinking about cost and start focusing on freedom :-) I like that. - balu On 1/15/09, Bradley Holt bradley.h...@gmail.com wrote: Jim, As Josh pointed out earlier in a related thread, free software and free markets can co-exist quite well. While certainly worthwhile things to do, you do not need to give away your software at no cost or start a non-profit in order to compete with *proprietary* software. I use the word proprietary here as opposed to commercial - proprietary software is the enemy of FOSS, not commercial software. I know it may seem like I'm splitting hairs, but I think this is a critical differentiation. We recently built a custom web application for a UVM department. This was an application that we were paid to build. However, we took several steps to make sure the application was non-proprietary and as open as possible. This was *not* a stated customer requirement, but something we felt was very important because of our believe in the importance of FOSS and open standards. We: * built the application using an open source web framework (to which we are a tiny contributor); * followed existing and well-documented coding standards and practices; * licensed all of our code to them under the New BSD License; and * used open standards in order to ensure the application works in all web browsers and did not require any proprietary technology in order to run. These steps were done to avoid vendor lock-in and to make sure the customer had an application that they could maintain even without using the original vendor (us). Again, these were steps we took on our own without customer prompting. In fact, these are issues that few customers think about until a few years after their application is installed and it has become unmaintainable. I bring this up as an example of how FOSS and commercial software (albeit not in the way you may typically think of commercial software) can co-exist. FOSS isn't about not making money or giving our code away for free. It's about software freedom and all of the great potential benefits that come out of that software freedom (maintainability, extensibility, branching, etc.). So, as I've said many times before, I encourage everyone to stop thinking about cost and start focusing on freedom :-) Thanks, Bradley On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 12:02 PM, Jim Carroll j...@maplesong.com wrote: I hope that that is something that you all find helpful, regardless of your political orientation. It's going to be a really fun next few years as Obama starts putting his principles in action. I'm having a little trouble giving away FOSS related products and services locally. I've offered the local Hinesburg Ride Share committee my volunteer services to put together a little web-based database for carpoolers... with some Google maps that would help us find matches. I've actually already done all the web development proofs-of concept.. and now I just want to tailor it to fit the needs for privacy that have been identified. The Hinesburg Rides committee wants to wait before we offer it to locals who have already filled out a carpool form, because the state might pay lots of money for something better, and they wouldn't want to have a free, custom-tailored, stop-gap solution, just in case it wasn't sustainable (which I'm taking to mean that it's something that they know they can do forever.) It's funny, but from our perspective there's nothing more sustainable than open source software, but somehow that doesn't ring true for the decision makers. In my couple of committee meetings I haven't even used the words open source... I just mention that the very worst case is that I'm no longer available, and they would have to find a consultant to make future changes that they require. At most they would have to pay for a better-than-average web hosting plan if they needed more hosting horsepower than I can provide. They haven't said no yet... but there's definitely some hesitation while they wait for something commercial to be put in place by the state. I think they want the state to adopt Maine's http://www.gomaine.org/ site, which seems pretty minimal to me. I *think* we have to (if we really want to advocate open source) join in the slow political process at the state or county level, and see if we can (in the minds of the committee members) compete with the commercial offerings. This probably means forming our (non-profit?) organization that really has legs, and can respond to any need for open source consulting in a way that is truly professional. Does anyone else on the list feel the urge to volunteer some tech time to get some great open source solutions implemented for the state? Is there a more direct route than volunteering? -Jim -- http://bradley-holt.blogspot.com/
Re: Open Source Software in the Government
Jim, Help educate them on why free/open source software and open standards should be part of their selection criteria. If it's a web application, then open standards should be an easy sell as it will help them reach the broadest audience. Free/open source software can: * help them avoid vendor lock-in; * allow them to customize the software by hiring internal staff or external resources; and * let them share the burden of maintenance across a bigger group. If they pay for something to be custom developed then they can (and should) license the code to be used by other organizations with similar needs. There is no cost to them, only the upside of helping others. This can only be done if they insist on an free/open source license (or copyright transfer) from their vendor. Hope this helps! Thanks, Bradley On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 2:22 PM, Jim Carroll j...@maplesong.com wrote: I encourage everyone to stop thinking about cost and start focusing on freedom :-) I like that. - balu I like it too... but could you phrase that in a way that would help me 'sell' it to a town committee that's looking for the best, most sustainable option, and has plenty of grant money to spend on a good solution, free or not? -- http://bradley-holt.blogspot.com/
Re: Open Source Software in the Government
The Hinesburg library has gone Open Source, you could get input from them. -- Anthony Carrico signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Open Source Software in the Government
I thought it might be useful to know that if an idea gets enough votes on Obama's site, he (supposedly) reviews it. Here are the ideas related to open source software. http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/search/SearchResults?str=open+sourcesearch.x=0search.y=0search=Submit I hope that that is something that you all find helpful, regardless of your political orientation.
