From andyo at oreilly.com Thu Oct 29 06:26:52 2009 From: andyo at oreilly.com (Andy Oram) Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 07:26:52 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [acquisitions-wg] Five large projects for Open Source for America Message-ID: <8878904.66011256815612021.JavaMail.root@ball.east.ora.com> The day Open Source for America was announced, I published a list of five ambitious projects I thought it should take on: http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2009/07/five-projects-for-open-source.html The list of projects follows. I wonder whether other people on this list think they're worthy, and whether they're an appropriate discussion topic for this list (or perhaps other OSA lists). 1. To encourage all information to be stored in truly open formats. The touchstone of success is whether all the data stored can be retrieved by alternative means. 2. To instill government procedures that are friendly to projects that don't have well-organized corporate backers who can register with the government, and meet standards for liability, etc. 3. To train companies as well as independent projects on how to go through the steps required to be adopted by governments. 4. To encourage the government to develop its own Software as a Service offerings, requiring vendors to use an appropriate free software license, rather than depend on commercial services that were developed for other markets. 5. To join efforts at defining a maturity model for open source software, so governments can evaluate its quality, reliability, and security. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Andy Oram O'Reilly Media email: andyo at oreilly.com Editor 10 Fawcett Street, Fourth Floor voice: 617-499-7479 Cambridge, MA 02138-1175, USA fax: 617-661-1116 identi.ca/twitter:praxagora http://www.praxagora.com/andyo/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From andyo at oreilly.com Fri Oct 30 14:13:34 2009 From: andyo at oreilly.com (Andy Oram) Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:13:34 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [acquisitions-wg] Five large projects for Open Source for America In-Reply-To: <14394594.93481256929957635.JavaMail.root@ball.east.ora.com> Message-ID: <13728663.93541256930014461.JavaMail.root@ball.east.ora.com> I've been exchanging email separately with another member of this list, Justin Seiferth, and I like a big reformulation he made of my suggested project 4: "To encourage the Government to examine all alternatives- commercial, in-house, existing open source, from domestic and foreign so long as they are open-source to fulfill its requirements." Justin, along with some other people I've talked to at other times, points out that we shouldn't discourage private companies and other organizations from offering services. My concern in project 4 is to make sure government gets what it needs. Many commercial services have terms of service or privacy policies that aren't appropriate for government use. But the government doesn't have to re-invent the services; it's capable of negotiating changes. Andy From andyo at oreilly.com Sat Oct 31 08:04:49 2009 From: andyo at oreilly.com (Andy Oram) Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2009 09:04:49 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [acquisitions-wg] Five large projects for Open Source for America In-Reply-To: <28c14eff0910310426n565574e8xa28a5babfab3d0d5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <19199256.101021256994289360.JavaMail.root@ball.east.ora.com> I'm glad you're on the list and can keep us informed of EU projects, David. I know that EU countries (or at least, scattered projects in those countries) are much further along than the US in using open source and open formats. I'm in touch with a few activists and they've written some material for O'Reilly. (I should mention, and perhaps put in a .sig, that I'm just representing myself on this list, not the O'Reilly company.) The cloud computing site at the GSA looks like a good step forward, and more comprehensive than I had originally expected. It covers virtualization, not just SaaS solutions such as Salesforce.com. Most of the solutions on the site, I think, are proprietary software, but it would be possible to list free software there. Andy ----- Original Message ----- From: "David L?pez" To: "Andy Oram" Cc: acquisitions-wg at opensourceforamerica.org Sent: Saturday, October 31, 2009 7:26:59 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: Re: [acquisitions-wg] Five large projects for Open Source for America Hi Andy, I am David L?pez, a spanish lecturer/researcher interested in FLOSS-based business models. I find your first proposal quite related to the efforts that the European Union and many countries are adopting to enforce service and data interoperability: http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/ for instance in Germany, UK, France and Spain (among others) there exist administrative procedures to define which standards and technologies are compliant for any given scenario. With regards to project number 4 I have been informed of an initiative, sponsored by the USA administration, to provision cloud-based eGovernment services: https://www.apps.gov/cloud/advantage/main/start_page.do ... From andyo at oreilly.com Sat Oct 31 17:14:21 2009 From: andyo at oreilly.com (Andy Oram) Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2009 18:14:21 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [acquisitions-wg] Five large projects for Open Source for America In-Reply-To: <16557260.103151257025194957.JavaMail.root@ball.east.ora.com> Message-ID: <31059185.103171257027261876.JavaMail.root@ball.east.ora.com> The feedback I got for my five projects, although small, suggests they're good ideas and represent what people on this list want to achieve. The projects are large-scale and need to be implemented through many smaller objectives. I'm sure many people on this list have objectives in mind; this is a good time to talk about them. I was expecting, when I signed up, to receive a message saying what the group is working on, who's leading it, etc. I didn't get that mail, so I suspect it's all up to us. We are Open Source for America, the acquisitions working group. It would be great to have a wiki where each of us could post a little bio and why we're on the list, plus what we'd like to work on (or even if you're just hear to listen and learn). -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Andy Oram O'Reilly Media email: andyo at oreilly.com Editor 10 Fawcett Street, Fourth Floor voice: 617-499-7479 Cambridge, MA 02138-1175, USA fax: 617-661-1116 identi.ca/twitter:praxagora http://www.praxagora.com/andyo/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From davidlopezberzosa at googlemail.com Sat Oct 31 06:26:59 2009 From: davidlopezberzosa at googlemail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?David_L=F3pez?=) Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:26:59 +0100 Subject: [acquisitions-wg] Five large projects for Open Source for America In-Reply-To: <8878904.66011256815612021.JavaMail.root@ball.east.ora.com> References: <8878904.66011256815612021.JavaMail.root@ball.east.ora.com> Message-ID: <28c14eff0910310426n565574e8xa28a5babfab3d0d5@mail.gmail.com> Hi Andy, I am David L?pez, a spanish lecturer/researcher interested in FLOSS-based business models. I find your first proposal quite related to the efforts that the European Union and many countries are adopting to enforce service and data interoperability: http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/ for instance in Germany, UK, France and Spain (among others) there exist administrative procedures to define which standards and technologies are compliant for any given scenario. With regards to project number 4 I have been informed of an initiative, sponsored by the USA administration, to provision cloud-based eGovernment services: https://www.apps.gov/cloud/advantage/main/start_page.do II hope it helps. Regards: David L?pez On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 12:26 PM, Andy Oram wrote: > The day Open Source for America was announced, I published a list of > five ambitious projects I thought it should take on: > > http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2009/07/five-projects-for-open-source.html > > The list of projects follows. I wonder whether other people on this > list think they're worthy, and whether they're an appropriate discussion > topic for this list (or perhaps other OSA lists). > > 1. To encourage all information to be stored in truly open formats. > The touchstone of success is whether all the data stored can be > retrieved by alternative means. > > 2. To instill government procedures that are friendly to projects that > don't have well-organized corporate backers who can register with the > government, and meet standards for liability, etc. > > 3. To train companies as well as independent projects on how to go > through the steps required to be adopted by governments. > > 4. To encourage the government to develop its own Software as a > Service offerings, requiring vendors to use an appropriate free > software license, rather than depend on commercial services that were > developed for other markets. > > 5. To join efforts at defining a maturity model for open source > software, so governments can evaluate its quality, reliability, and > security. > > -- > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > Andy Oram O'Reilly Media email: andyo at oreilly.com > Editor 10 Fawcett Street, Fourth Floor voice: 617-499-7479 > Cambridge, MA 02138-1175, USA fax: 617-661-1116 > identi.ca/twitter:praxagora http://www.praxagora.com/andyo/ > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > _______________________________________________ > acquisitions-wg mailing list > acquisitions-wg at opensourceforamerica.org > http://opensourceforamerica.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/acquisitions-wg > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: