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The key bit from: http://www.govtech.net/magazine/channel_story.php?channel=24&id=92827 Government Moves Into the Open Jan 24, 2005 By Tod Newcombe ... Peter Quinn, CIO, Massachusetts, made the same point, emphasizing that his state's lead in understanding and adopting open source was not in reaction to the dominance of one or two proprietary vendors. Rather, it was an effort to face certain key facts in the world of IT and government. First, "the cost of government is not sustainable in its present form," he said. Second, software has increasingly become a commodity. Open source is accelerating that trend. As a result, government no longer should be trapped into procuring expensive, customized solutions, he argued. While open source is attractive because of its lower upfront costs, the real value lies in the collaborative principles on which it has been developed. The more agencies and governments share open source applications, the less likely the public sector will end up having to pay for so many different solutions, wasting taxpayer money. Some have branded the notion of developing and then sharing software for free as some form of communism. But Quinn argued that if one state developed a better electronic licensing system or voter registration system using open source and then shared it with other states, it was an exercise in democracy through the exchange of information in an open society underpinned by reliable technology. As radical as that sounds, Quinn said the Government Open Source Collaborative <http://www.gocc.gov> he founded isn't out to challenge the commercial software industry but to take advantage of government innovation so that "we as technologists [can] finally break the back of the ineffectiveness, the inefficiency and the stupidity of the silos of information in government." ... I've become increasingly convinced that open source is the way to go with e-democracy in government and in the non-profit world. A number of the UK Local E-democracy National Project pilots are experimenting with open source and my sense is that they will open up a number of exciting opportunities. Within e-government itself, I believe that democracy-related services, from constituent communication systems to blogs for elected officials, are an ideal starting point for the creation of sustainable open source models. The key barrier to overcome is the cost to share and document. One government cannot justify subsidizing value for another peer government unless the resources come from the national level or unless a number of governments contribute and accept the notion that free riders are OK, in fact cherished because they build developer momentum for their code base. I still accept the fact that governments can get great value out of proprietary solutions, particularly those that fit niche needs. However, within the e-democracy space where needs are often quite similar across governments, I see great opportunities for open source solutions. Steven Clift Democracies Online http://dowire.org http:// ^ ^ ^ ^ Steven L. Clift - - - W: http://publicus.net Minneapolis - - - - E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Minnesota - - - - - - T: +1.612.822.8667 USA - - - - - MSN/Y!/AIM: netclift UK Office Hours - 1pm - 11pm - - T: 0870.340.1266 Join my Democracies Online Newswire: http://dowire.org *** Past Messages, to Subscribe: http://dowire.org *** *** To subscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** Message body: SUB DO-WIRE *** *** To UNSUBSCRIBE instead, write: UNSUB DO-WIRE *** *** Please send submissions to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** New RSS XML Feed Available: *** http://www.mail-archive.com/do-wire@lists.umn.edu/maillist.xml
