Open Source headlines from the Open Government plans

The Obama Administration's Open Government Directive ordered Federal agencies to produce open government plans by April 7th, and while some advocates are disappointed, we have before us a bewildering number of initiatives to improve transparency, collaboration, and participation across the Government. It will not surprise you to learn that I spent some time looking for places … Continue reading Open Source headlines from the Open Government plans →

Open source matters to open government. Really.

"Open source and open government are not the same," I've been reading recently. When discussing the role of open standards in open government transparency projects, Bob Caudill at Adobe, is concerned that open source and open standards are being conflated. He likes open standards just fine, but: "Open standards are driving for interoperability between systems … Continue reading Open source matters to open government. Really. →

Sunlight Week: accountability for earmarks

Earmarks are a notorious vehicle for pork, in part because they lay nestled inside opaque legislative prose. In the FY2010 budget, WashingtonWatch's crowdsourcing effort identified 40,000 separate earmarks -- about 75 for every elected official. There was a lot of talk about earmark prohibitions earlier this week, and each party swears it will be responsible … Continue reading Sunlight Week: accountability for earmarks →

Goodbye Google Reader

So I finally decided that Google had more than enough information about what I liked and disliked, that the laggy Google Reader interface was much more trouble than it's worth, and Google Reader meant a separate and completely unnecessary inbox, which was playing havoc with my workflow. So instead of going for a specialized RSS … Continue reading Goodbye Google Reader →

Developers for Glory

Although it may be simple to conflate the Apps for Democracy and Apps for America contests with the exciting new Apps for Army contest, they really couldn't be more different. Together they represent an exciting experiment in what it takes to pull communities together around a problem. Though they all offer cash prizes to the … Continue reading Developers for Glory →

Failing Faster: Lessons from the Open Source Community

[I first presented this at the GTC Southwest conference in Austin on February 13, 2010.] Hundreds of thousands of open source software projects are capturing an unprecedented amount of innovation and effort from contributors around the world. These projects vary in quality, but represent, in the aggregate, one the largest collective efforts in the history … Continue reading Failing Faster: Lessons from the Open Source Community →

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 … Continue reading What the Open Government Directive Means for Open Source →

What you need to know about the 2009 DOD OSS Memo

In mid-October, the U.S. Department of Defense CIO released a memo on the use of open source software in the DOD. The Clarifying Guidance Regarding Open Source Software (OSS) was hailed as tremendous leap forward for open source software in the US Government. And indeed it is. At its heart, the memo is fairly simple. … Continue reading What you need to know about the 2009 DOD OSS Memo →

Read My Ramblings About CONNECT

Here's a really nice writeup on the CONNECT Code-a-thon at iHealthBeat. They quote me a lot, which is what makes it really nice.

US Courts: Open Source Will Make You Break the Law

Most of you already know about the US Courts' shameful profiteering through the PACER system. They charge $0.08/page for public court documents and in so doing stifle the public's access to their own content. Not long ago, our friends at CITP released an open source project called RECAP. When you install this gem in your … Continue reading US Courts: Open Source Will Make You Break the Law →