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chris.hankin

User Profile Image chris.hankin
Member since : May-28-2009 (Verified)
0 Ideas, 2 Comments, 16 Votes

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chris.hankin 9 months ago
Your lead point is essential -- from a technology perspective, US citizens, suppliers, and partners should have non-discriminatory access to government websites, electronic services, forms, and documents. The Norwegian government has accomplished this by requiring the use of open formats as follows: HTML for publishing public information on the internet; PDF for documents that need to maintain their original appearance; and ODF to publish documents which the user may need to download and fill out. It would seem fair, and "technology neutral" to steal a grossly overused term, to have:
1) US procurement policy encourage open formats, so that governments retain access to and control over their electronic documents and records without discriminatory reliance on the software application on which the documents or records were first created. ODF should be considered as the default format for editable documents.
2) US procurement policy and research grants encourage the development of affordable, productivity-enhancing IT solutions for persons with disabilities by leveraging open source software and communities.
chris.hankin 9 months ago
security -- The U.S. military and intelligence agencies for years have leveraged OSS, recognizing its security advantages. They see the availability of source code as essential to in-depth security review and audit, plus there is the ability to more rapidly adjust to changing situations and threats.

Also, as you note, there are other important advantages to oss to be leveraged to realize open government and save tax payers money. A great example of successful leveraging of its advantages is the NHIN Connect pilot recently conducted by HHS, DOD Military Health, SSA, and others. These agencies were able to quickly - and and inexpensively develop a pilot solution that enables multiple federal agencies to securely link their existing systems to NHIN, allowing for the beginnings of a true electronic healthcare record exchange. The pilot was developed with no need for long procurement cycles or massive costs since the entire software backbone is 100% open source. (The pilot was an excellent example of the “adoption-led approach”. In this approach, developers select from available OSS and try the software that fits best in their proposed application. They develop prototypes, switch packages as they find benefits and problems and finally create a deployable solution to their business problem. At that final point, they seek out vendors to provide support, services and more.)

From a policy standpoint the U.S. government is trailing other national governments. The Dutch, the Danes, the Brazilians, the Malaysians, and others have adopted strong national policies on both OSS and open standards. The UK is the most recent convert, having just published “Open Source, Open Standards and Re-Use: Government Action Plan”
(see http://www.cio.gov.uk/transformational_government/open_source/index.asp).
This UK Action Plan features assertions and actions that the US Federal Government should emulate. The Plan asserts that the government will:
- actively and fairly consider open source solutions alongside proprietary ones;
- consider exit and transition costs as well as the total lifetime cost of ownership;
- pick open source where it doesn't cost more;
- insist proprietary vendors explain exit, rebid and rebuild costs;
- expect proprietary licenses to be transferable throughout government; and,
- expect public sector solutions to be re-usable

and combines these assertions with actions that include:
- develop clear and open guidance for ensuring that open source products are evaluated and considered equally (action 1);
- keep and share records of approval and use of open source (action 3)
- challenge suppliers to demonstrate that they have capability in open source and that open source products have been actively considered in whole or as part of the business solutions being proposed (action 5);
- work to ensure that government information is available in open formats, and it will make this a required standard for government websites (action 8); and,
- general purpose software developed by or for government will be released on an open source basis (action 9).