State American blacklisted because OpenSource policy

The movement of a lobby group in the United States get a sneer. The problem is, countries with policies such as Indonesia Open Source just want to be included in a 'black list'.

Obama enforces trade embargo against open source

The Obama Administration has forced Sourceforge to deny service to its anti-terrorism sanction list.
In practical terms this means people in Cuba, North Korea, the Sudan, Syria and Iran get “403 forbidden” messages when they try to access sourceforge.org addresses. (Here’s how the Armenian Private School in Toronto, Canada displays 403 errors.)

What the Open Government Directive Means for Open Source?

On the heels of the Open Government Memo of January 21st, 2009, the Obama Administration has issued the Open Government Directive. The Directive tells agencies what they must do to meet the expectations set by the Memo. The directive names many deadlines for agency compliance, most of them around reducing FOIA backlogs and increasing the amount of agency data released to the public. This isn’t surprising, since the Memo names transparency, collaboration, and participation as the guiding principles. Transparency is the easiest to articulate and implement — just get the data out there in a useful form. Josh Tauberer’s Open Data is Civic Capital: Best Practices for “Open Government Data” is an excellent handbook for doing this. If you want to track agencies’ progress, the Sunlight Labs folks have produced the outstanding Open Watcher.
What’s most interesting to me, and my friends at Open Source for America, though, are the more ambiguous orders. Although the Directive does not use the phrase ‘open source software’ at all, many of the principles and methodologies described are obvious references to open source. Many of these orders stand out as opportunities for open source developers, in the public and private sector, to demonstrate how our development model can help the Administration also make good on the last two principles: collaboration and participation. As Macon Phillips, the White House New Media Director said, “Open Source is… the best form of civic participation.”

San Francisco’s official open source policy

The city of San Francisco has made public it’s open source policy for software purchases. In a blog post by the city’s mayor, the new policy requires that the city equally consider open source software while making software purchases.

The highlight of the post was the realization that new and innovative technologies have been created with open source technologies when the government released all its data in open and machine readable formats.
One of the most interesting new applications has been the city government’s integration with Twitter and how it is leading the city government to receive reports about broken civic amenities and fix these problems in realtime.

Source: The Indian Digital Government

USA: Proposed Guidelines For Open Government Plans

Open Source for America (OSFA) represents more than 1,500 businesses, associations, non-governmental organizations, communities, and academic/research institutions who have come together to support and guide federal efforts to make the U.S. Government more open through the use of free and open source software. We applaud the Obama Administration’s Open Government Initiative and the December 8th Directive requiring all federal agencies to promulgate Open Government Plans. We offer the following recommendations for essential elements that belong in every Open Government Plan:

U.S. Open Source for Open Government

In December the U.S. White House set guidelines for an open and transparent administration. The Open Source for America (OSFA) organization is now following up with tips for a governmental move to free software.

USA: Open Source Clouds On The Rise

The U.S. government is an early adopter of cloud computing and a proponent of open source, two trends that are about to intersect. Cloud computing has the potential to transform how government agencies tap into IT services, and open source is an underlying technology in several of the early government clouds that have been developed.

Open Source Promoted in New California Policy

California has officially accepted open source software (OSS) as a viable option for state government, and while the move won't exactly deliver the state from its multibillion dollar deficit, departments will have access to free software, which could save a few million dollars, said state Chief Deputy CIO Adrian Farley.
In the official letter issued Jan. 7 from the state CIO's office, the policy establishes the use of OSS in California state government as an "acceptable practice." Farley doesn't know of any other states with similar OSS policies, but he said it's consistent with policies done by the U.S. Department of Defense and the UK government.

Open Source Has Nothing to Do with Open Government

One of the interesting consequences of the Open Government Directive has been a burst of enthusiasm by some of the open source software proponents and vendors (see here and here) who have immediately established a link between the use of open source and the directive.

E-Gov Versus Open Gov: The Evolution of E-Democracy

How is the Obama Administration’s Open Government (Open Gov) initiative different from the Bush Administration’s E-government (E-gov) initiative? There are many people who use the two terms interchangeably but this paper argues that although they are distinct initiatives in the United States, they are also part of the same E-democracy maturity continuum. Thus while they should not be handled totally separately, they should not be combined either. This paper provides a short history and terminology discussion and then compares and contrasts the two initiatives.

By Jenn Gustetic, Associate, Phase One Consulting Group

PDF: Read more

Gov 2.0: Obama Team Details 'Open Government' Progress

At the Gov 2.0 Summit, federal deputy CTO Beth Noveck detailed what is being done to make government data more widely available.

Open Government Laboratories of Democracy

"It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system," Justice Louis D. Brandeis wrote in 1932, "that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country." The Obama Administration is taking unprecedented strides toward creating the most open and accountable government in history. And in so doing, we’re learning from those states and municipalities, which are undertaking exciting experiments to bring transparency, participation, and collaboration to the way they work as well.

Coalition to Lobby U.S. Government to Promote Open Source

A large group of vendors and U.S. universities organizes to boost awareness and advocate more governmental use of open-source software to save money on application development.

White House opens Web site programming to public

A programming overhaul of the White House's Web site has set the tech world abuzz. For low-techies, it's a snooze — you won't notice a thing.

The online-savvy administration on Saturday switched to open-source code for http://www.whitehouse.gov — meaning the programming language is written in public view, available for public use and able for people to edit.

Open Gov Directive Coming in 'Weeks'

WASHINGTON -- Aneesh Chopra, the nation's first federal CTO, pledged this morning that the government will issue a sweeping open-government directive within "literally weeks," making good on the oldest promise of the administration.

The day after his inauguration, President Obama issued the first edict in his new office. It was his open government directive, calling on his yet-to-be-named chief technology officer to coordinate a plan with the various agencies within 120 days to marshal Obama's charge to make the mechanics of Washington more transparent, participatory and collaborative.

Intel: Open Source and Government

Over the past week or two, there have been several announcements about open source use within the United States Government. The one getting the most attention is the announcement about whitehouse.gov moving to Drupal; however, I think that the memo from the Department of Defense (DoD): Clarifying Guidance on Open Source Software is a much more important and interesting story. The guidance in the memo doesn't give preferential treatment to open source software (OSS), but it does clarify some misconceptions about how open source can be used to meet government needs, and it helps to ensure that open source software is given appropriate consideration along with any proprietary solutions being evaluated. According to Jim Stogdill on the O'Reilly Radar blog, "the memo is intended to clear up common misconceptions and make it easier for DoD program managers to include OSS in their programs. Its goals are to improve agility, eliminate lock in, and reduce cost." In other words, open source is one of the many possible choices available when the government is evaluating software needs.

Ahol a Linux lenyomhatja a Windowst

A netbookok piacának megítélése óriási mértékű fejlődése ellenére is minimum kétséges: az operációs rendszerek között itt vérre menő verseny folyik – állítólag.

Open Source for America Promotes FOSS for Government

As the US struggles with a continuing recession, both the private and public sectors are looking for ways to cut or mitigate operating costs, particularly in the arena of information technology.

Starting today, a new coalition of technology industry companies, organizations, and academic institutions will be actively promoting one sure way of cutting IT costs: using open source software and open technology solutions.