Thanks to Matt Asay for bringing my attention to the United States Navy’s User Guidance Memorandum regarding Open Source [pdf].
The objective of the Department of Defense (DoD) goal of achieving an interoperable net-centric environment is to improve the warfighter’s effectiveness through seamless access to critical information. A key piece in supporting the DoD goal is the ability to utilize OSS as part of the Department of the Navy’s (DON) Information Technology (IT) portfolio.
According to John Scott, this usage document is the first in a series of memorandums regarding U.S. Navy policy on Open Source, future updates will address "distribution" and "development".
June 7th, 2007
…Well, Let’s run it on Transparent Software
That is the philosophy of James Willis, Rhode Island director of e-government services, a nationally recognized pioneer who helped bring Open Source to Rhode Island.
Willis first brought his open-source philosophy to Rhode Island government six years ago, when, as a consultant, he used open-source code to write an application for filing regulations.
The application he wrote was the first ever written for a state government using an open-source code, and it garnered national attention in the governmental IT community.
When he moved into the Secretary of State’s office four years ago, he implemented one of the first open-source initiatives by a state government, making it easier to share information such as meeting notices, new regulations, lobbyist registrations and corporate filings.
Today, many states and municipal governments in the United States use open-source software to disseminate public information and share data across internal departments, and the trend is quickly spreading around the globe. Unlike the proprietary software sold by Microsoft and other private technology firms, open-source software costs nothing and its accessible source code can be modified and freely redistributed.
Starting with a website, and moving it to a LAMP setup, the article outlines how the Open Source philosophy has spread throughout varied governmental organizations, fostering greater collaboration amongst formerly disparate institutions.
Over time, other state departments and agencies also began sharing information in the same way. The phenomenon was a departure from the strongly adversarial relationship that has historically limited sharing information among the silos of state government, Willis said.
In recent months, the secretary of state’s office has been assisting the state attorney general’s office in its efforts to prepare and make public all of its electronic content from The Station nightclub fire trial.
Willis’ open-source initiative also has spread to at least 10 municipalities in Rhode Island, which are syndicating data from the secretary of state’s databases onto their own Web sites.
Willis’ tenure as Director of eGovernment will be over on January 1st, due to a change in Administration, after which Willis plans to return to consulting in New Jersey. Hopefully, Rhode Island will continue using technology to transform democracy, James Willis has certainly set them in the right direction.
December 18th, 2006