I have often written about governments and open source alternatives, today I found an organization that is trying to encourage open source software use in the US government:

Open Source for America (OSA) is an effort to raise awareness in the U.S. Federal Government about the benefits of open source software. We hope to encourage the government’s utilization of open source software participation in open source software projects, and incorporation of open source community dynamics to enable transparency.

…

Open Source for America includes a diverse cross-section of technology industry leaders, associations, non-governmental organizations, communities and academic/research institutions.

I just learned about this open letter to President Obama, asking him to consider open source for governmental initiatives.

Open-source software brings transparency to software development. There are no “black boxes” in open-source software and therefore no need to guess what is going on “behind the scenes.” Ultimately, this means a better product for everyone, because there is visibility at every level of the application, from the user interface to the data implementation. Furthermore, open-source software provides for platform independence, which makes quick deployments that benefit our citizens much easier and realistic.

For these reasons, we urge you to make it mandatory to consider the source of an application solution (open or closed) as part of the government’s technology acquisition process, just as considering accessibility by the handicapped is required today (as defined by section 508).

I can’t wait to see where this goes.

I recently gave a demo for a special library and they wanted to know what open source was being used by the government in order to convince their IT staff that open source was a viable option. This request upsets me on so many levels - the fact that professional information technology employees need to follow the government’s IT instead of just reading and learning that open source is a secure and viable option. But, that’s not the point of my post. I wanted to share a bit of governmental open source news with you.

A while back I wrote about the GSA choosing open source because of it’s transparency. Today I can tell you that our new president is interested in researching open source as an option for government systems.

Could the federal government be going open source? The BBC reports that President Obama has asked former Sun CEO Scott McNealy to report on the relative benefits of open source software. Imagine that: a president who has heard of open source software.

Also, and a bit more impressive to me is the fact that the Defense Department has set up a repository for their open source initiatives:

The dam holding back U.S. federal adoption of open source just burst with the introduction of the Defense Department’s Forge.mil.

Forge.mil is an open-source project repository built in the image of SourceForge.net, Federal Computer Week reported Friday.

Despite being based on SourceForge’s technology, Forge.mil has one significant difference: security. As David Mihelcic, chief technology officer for the Defense Information Systems Agency, told Federal Computer Week, the Department of Defense’s code repository has been “upgraded to meet DOD security requirements,” with smart cards used to provide log-in credentials.

There are only three open-source projects hosted at Forge.mil so far, and it’s initially restricted to the Defense Department’s technology community, but I suspect this number will soon increase as various federal agencies discover it and ask to collaborate on code through it.

All very promising news on the open source front!!

This is one of those common questions I get about open source - and one that was addressed in the open source tracks at Computers in Libraries. I always say that it’s no more risky than other software options - in fact I think it’s less risky - and apparently I’m not the only one:

Casey Coleman, chief information officer for the U.S. General Services Administration, said in a speech this week that the GSA heavily relies on open source to drive down costs, increase flexibility of IT dollars, and reduce risk.

…

Coleman cited some excellent reasons for deploying open-source software:

“By using open source, the agency won’t be locked in to using a proprietary software program, at least for the duration of the contract.

Not having sunk costs in a commercial software program also means the agency can move to a new program more quickly should its needs change. The general openness also means the agency could become a collaborator in the further development of the software itself.

‘You get much more transparency and interoperability, and that reduces your risk,’ she said.”

Awesome!! Read more here.

Yes - you read that title correctly! How awesome is that??

Argentina’s congress is actively considering a bill that would require all government offices to use open-source software. It’s partly a cost-saving move, and partly a way to bring the Argentine government into compliance with its software licensing

Found via The Open Road.