Curt is a fantastic supporter of open Collaboration and loves to share the inside story of the Lab. He’ll be speaking Thursday March 18th at 4 p.m., here’s the abstract:

Inside the Open Source Lab
Curt Pederson, Vice Provost and CIO, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon

Oregon State University has emerged as one or the global leaders in the expanding “open source” movement and an integral part of a growing Oregon movement in support of community based innovation and collaboration. From Oregon resident Linus Torvalds and Governor Kulongoski to the student employees working in the Open Source Lab (OSL), we have a very unique open climate for doing leading edge research, teaching and business in Oregon and beyond.

Curt Pederson will describe Oregon State University’s role in today’s emerging “open ecosystem” and how the OSL has gone from being a spectator to having one of the largest host sites of open source applications and community Linux releases in the world. Curt will also discuss the overall ROI that OSU has obtained by using open source tools versus other commercial solutions.

Yesterday the White House Office of New Media announced it had migrated its legacy system for whitehouse.gov to Drupal.  Let’s be clear that this constitutes a change in plumbing – important plumbing – and not policy – but is a significant and of course highly visible sign that open source software has gone main stream.

Perhaps we can look forward to that day in the future when someone quips “No one ever got fired for implementing Drupal”.

This made yesterday a double red letter day for me and my colleagues in Oregon; an open source application was rolled out in mission-critical environment in government AND it was one the projects supported by Oregon State University’s Open Source Lab (OSL) where I work.  Double the satisfaction.  Although I don’t talk about it much here – where I focus on government adoption of open source – our core activity at the OSL is supporting many significant open source projects through hosting, administration and development as part of our charter to build community.  We’ve been quietly at work since 2003 at this important endeavor.

There is no shortage of news coverage on this event so I won’t rehash here.  I’m focused on the upcoming Government Open Source Conference – GOSCON DC, but wanted to share with you that Drupal Association will be present at the event next week – November 5 at the Ronald Regan Building & International Trade Center.  On-line registration is still open, hope you will plan to join us if you’re in the area (or make the trip, we have colleagues as far away as Japan joining us for the day!)

Not too long ago I attended TransparencyCamp in DC and led a discussion on how to work with government.  The session was intended for technologists and advocates. I was pleasantly

surprised to find one of the participants was a senate staffer.  After listening to much of the discussion she explained that she had worked on a bill that included a

role for open source software which eventually failed to move forward.  Her question to me:  why was that no one from the open source community stepped forward or offered to help answer questions.  Where were they?  Her question gave me pause.

Several moths later, the cavalry has arrived.  Along with the town crier, the

librarian, the community manager, the mayor and a cadre of plumbers.  The newly formed coalition is “Open Source for America”, and I’m pleased to have bee

n a par

t of its founding effort.  Read more at the association web site.

http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dfj65hxm_1404gk5kchg

This un-conference is about convening a trans-partisan tribe of open government advocates from all walks — government representatives, technologists, developers, NGOs, wonks & activists — to share knowledge on how to use new technologies to make our government transparent and meaningfully accessible to the public.

Here’s their focus:

1) Technology development for enhancing government transparency

2) Community building for the transparency in government tribe

3) Talks, workshops and coding sessions to better equip technologists with the skills needed to deliver an Open Government.

I’ll be one of the less technical folks there, but hope to contribute to #2 above, and share what I know from my walk in government shoes.

Although the event filled up some time ago, I encourage you to sign up for their list for the next one (more than likely) or consider a small sponsorship.  The event wiki can be found at https://barcamp.pbwiki.com/TransparencyCamp.

IPA Japan Representatives

I just returned from Matsue, Japan, also known famously as “Ruby City” after the programming language whose inventor lives there.

During my stay there I provided the keynote for a Shimane University-sponsored seminar on Open Source Software, Industry and Academic collaboration.  It was an honor to represent some of the institutions and groups in Oregon, the successes and challenges we’ve faced in using, promoting, developing and supporting a full open eco-system in our somewhat unique state.  Key to my message and encouragement to participants from all sectors of their region was this; if you want to demonstrate the value of open source to non-technical constituencies, identify and collaborate on a project with clear public benefit.

One of the panelists was Mr. Hatta from Japan’s Information-Technology Promotion Agency’s (IPA).  He told me later he changed his presentation as I spoke, struck by the proposition of public benefit projects.  I’ll ask for his presentation and share it here soon.

His wrap-up recommendation: create a public benefit project and the suggestion that project might be an Open Source Election system,  apparently an idea with universal appeal/compelling need.

I’ll come back soon to sharing more about my travels to Matsue City, their impressive open source software initiative, the investment their government has made, and the outstanding collaboration between the university, industry and public sectors.

I’d also be remiss in my public benefit duties if I did not provide a final plug for the February 18th Open Source Digital Voting Foundation’s (OSDV.org)  “TrustTheVote” intro in Portland, Oregon (see prior post for agenda).  I’m looking forward to introducing them to my colleagues in Japan soon, and looking forward to hearing from Gregory Miller and John Sebes, the co-founders, even sooner.

TrustTheVote! intro in Portland, Oregon

Feb 18, 2009, 6:00 – 7:30 p.m.

CubeSpace, 622 SE Grand Ave, Portland

I’ve recently been asked to join as an adviser to the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation.  In my view, this is one of the most important open source projects around for the US system of democracy.  I was deeply impressed by their open standards specification,  public trust approach and the work they’ve done thus far – with little public fan fare – to establish the non-partisan initiative which has become known as “TrustTheVote!”.

Recognizing a large, active OSS community exists in Oregon, the OSDV is coming to Portland on February 18th to introduce their project.  Although the meeting content is designed for a technical audience, the project overview and progress-to-date would be of interest to many.

Here’s a description of the event.  You can also view details including a map to the event at Portland’s CubeSpace on Yahoo or Calagator.  If you’re in the area, hope to see you there!

TrustTheVote! intro in Portland, Oregon, Feb 18, 2009

Discover this imperative “public digital works project” of the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation. The OSDV Foundation is a Silicon Valley based public benefits corporation whose mission is to work to restore trust in how America votes through the design, development, and demonstration of open source digital voting technology.

Join us to learn details about the “TrustTheVote Project,” a well funded non-profit effort which has been under the radar for 2 years. The OSDV Foundation is now raising public awareness, and expanding efforts including a planned development center in Portland, Oregon.

Our guests are two executives of the Foundation including its Chief Technology Officer. Their presentation will:

• Introduce the project, its motivation, founding, and development efforts to date;
• Walk through the TrustTheVote technology road map and review major projects underway;
• Discuss development philosophies and approaches including experience-driven design and test-driven agile development;
• Review opportunities for systems architects, software developers, SDQA/test specialists, and user experience designers;
• Cover plans to expand the volunteer developer teams, future opportunities for senior members of technical staff, and opportunities for you to get involved.

Presenters:
Gregory Miller, Chief Development Officer
E. John Sebes, Chief Technology Officer

event on: Yahoo or Calagator

The one of the early pioneers of community source model is Dr. Brad Wheeler at Indiana University.  In late 2006 the Open Source Lab management team interviewed him by video conference to extract some advice for others on creating governance for a community source project.  I came across the resulting  debrief and thought I’d put it somewhere it could be shared more broadly.  Here it is for download:

“Community Source” Project Governance:
The Sakai Project as a Potential Reference Model for Public Sector Community Source Development

I think it’s valuable to consider that the model of shared development suggest benefits beyond sharing the cost and resulting application, such as sharing business practices and processes, knowledge base and documentation.  But I digress.  We’ll share more from the experts from our Open Government Collaboratives 2008 panel as soon as we get the conference media through GOSCON post-production.

I promised to share information on the webcast when it became available.  Here it is:

Government Open Source Conference (GOSCON),  Oregon State University

and the World Bank’s e-Development Thematic Group

invite you to join via live webcast a
videoconferenced Global Dialogue between Portland, Washington DC, Moscow,
Colombo, Dakar, Accra, Kigali and Brasilia on:

The Impact of Open Source Software on Transforming Government

12:00 – 3:00 pm (Washington DC time), October 20, 2008

LIVE WEBCAST: http://www.worldbank.org/edevelopment/live

Preregistration is recommended at the webcast site.

See web site for participating speakers.

Event Abstract: Government transformation and information and communication technology
dignitaries from around the world will convene in person and via video
conference for a Global Dialogue on “The Impact of Open Source Software on
Transforming Government”. The discussion will include 6 countries on five
continents, presenting a range of initiatives, opportunities and experience on a
range topics which are of critical importance to governments everywhere.  This
executive panel represents an outstanding global, non-technical  view of the
impact of Open Source Software based on their direct experience. The workshop
will explore both the business case and real-world applications for open
technology to deliver the next generation of government services. The US has
valuable experience in open source software development, at the federal, local
and academic level. The speakers assembled in Oregon will provide a very rich
base for the policy dialogue with policy makers from our client countries. This
is also a great opportunity for South-South dialogue on this important topic for
governments worldwide.

All materials will be available on the GOSCON web site.

About e-Development Thematic Group

e-Development Thematic Group is a global forum and community of professionals
interested in the role of ICT in development,  open for participation by both
World Bank staff and external clients and partners. The e-TG is hosted by Global
ICT Dept in collaboration with ISG, WBI, PREM, and other partners. Visit us at
http://www.worldbank.org/edevelopment to download materials for this and all
previous e-development seminars (over 120 since 2001). Watch some of the recent
events sponsored by the e-Development Thematic Group if you missed them (with
links to videos, slides, speaker profiles, exclusive interviews, background
materials etc.)

ICT Applications for the Public Sector http://go.worldbank.org/YLBJQROJZ0
Government Enterprise Architecture as Enabler of Public Sector Reform
http://go.worldbank.org/NNEZOTX020
Next-Generation Organizational Models for e-Government
http://go.worldbank.org/2LA3GGGEA0
India’s Emergence as a Global IT Player: The Role of NASSCOM
http://go.worldbank.org/B6DF3R8L60
The Potential of Global Sourcing of Services for Growth
http://go.worldbank.org/QFF0GUTSF0

Today I’m pretty thrilled that GOSCON has been approved by the Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) for up to 4.5 contact hours of continuing education credit towards renewal of the CPHIMS credential.

Sessions approved for credit include:

• Executive Panel: Macro Trends Set the Stage for Open Source in Public Health
• Applying Open Source Methodologies to Build Public Health Software Collaboratively
• Health Atlas Ireland: Integrating data sets, GIS, statistics for health service planning, epidemiology, and incident management.
• Transitioning from Proprietary to Open Source Software: Issues and Lessons Learned through OpenELIS

GOSCON staff and volunteers have put a great deal of effort in putting together a fantastic track focusing on Open Public Health IT and we’re honored to be able to bring this extra value to our professional health care IT attendees.