GOSCON AWARDS for Open Business Use in Government Nominations are now being accepted for the 2009 Excellence Awards for Open Source Business Use in Government.

It’s true.  After five years of operation of the Government Open Source Conference, we’re looking forward to recognizing government employees who have made significant accomplishments in the application of Open Source Technology to meet government business or mission requirements.

To nominate a government employee or project, visit www.goscon.org/awards for information and an on-line submission form.  Deadline is Friday Oct 23 2009.

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

Matsue City is a beautiful and remote city located in the Shimane Prefecture of Japan. The region has drawn national recognition for the Matsue “Ruby City” project, a highly innovative initiative to promote open source software through a collaborative partnership created by local industry, academia and government.

I was very fortunate to have been invited to participate in a number of events in early February to help share what the state of Oregon, industry, government and the Open Source Lab (OSL) has learned though its years in supporting the growth of the Open Source Community. The visit included meetings with Shimane University’s President Honda; Matsue’s mayor; Shimane Prefecture’s governor; keynoting at a seminar for industry and government; addressing the 37th Open Source Salon of the Open Source Software Society Shimane; spending time with colleagues from Japan’s IPA Open Source Lab (their national referendum on OSS); National Applied Communication Labs and Mr. Inoue and Matz; touring historic and scenic sights in Matsue – a beautiful blend of historic and traditional architecture and modern as well – and enjoying many wonderful meals courtesy of my hosts.

Many thanks especially go to Mr. Doi from the City of Matuse, to Mr. Noda of Shimane University, and especially to Mr. Tansho my host and translator – and of course to Shimane University which sponsored my visit. The dedication of these three individuals to this project is amazing as is the commitment of everyone I met from all sectors – education, private industry and government.

BTW plans are underway for a “Ruby for Business” conference fall of 2009 in Matsue, drop a line if you are intersted in talking with the organizers.

I have not been tracking  Oregon’s Health Record Bank (HRB) project closely the last several months after it slowed progress, but current documents are now available for this project.  Oregon’s Department of Human Services Office of Medical Assistance Program (DHS OMAP) was granted $5.5mm as transformational technology in 2007.  Open source technology and Oregon’s local resources and domain expertise where named in the original grant proposal.  I think this is an important project because it distinguishes itself from most other HRB projects in that the information is patient centric.  Under the proposed approach, the patient, not the provider, is the owner of their own medical information.  Score one for  individual information rights, with a difference that can truely mean life and death.

The project was scheduled to let a Request for Proposal (RFP) this month, February 2009.  Oregon’s DSH has a big challenge on their hands as they must consider the simultanious replacement of their thirty year old (yes – 30) Medical Management Information System (MMIS) at the same time, presenting both an opportunity and a challenge.  More information is available at the official project web site.

You and also click on the architecture slide below to download the current project overview.

Download current project overview

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

Lecture, participate in Shimane University’Project: “Stabilization and Business Models for Open Source Software through the Cooperation of Industry, Government, Academia, and the Software Developers’ Community”

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.

Although a press release certainly isn’t a peer-reviewed paper, it does reflect and validate what us government folks have known for some time; government agencies have been earlier-than-usual adopter of open source and are using it extensively.  This according to the Open Source Census project.  Their initial data points suggest that government agencies are amongst the largest users of open source software, if not the biggest. From the release:

Initial Data Points From The Open Source Census
…this initial set of data, which is expected to grow over time as more computers are scanned, shows:

I like this project and encourage signing up to increase participation.

Here’s the press release in full:

Open Source Census Tracks Enterprise Use of Open Source Globally

Initial Census Data Shows Highest Use of Open Source Software in Europe, Within Financial Services and Government Agencies

BROOMFIELD, Colo. September 30, 2008 – The Open Source Census, a global, collaborative project to collect and share quantitative data on the use of open source software, today announced in just six months more than 300,000 open source package/project installations have been discovered.

“We’re excited about the growing pool of data The Open Source Census is collecting,” said Kim Weins, senior vice president of products and marketing at OpenLogic. “By participating, these enterprises, for the first time and at no cost, are able to identify what open source software is already installed on their computers and benchmark themselves against others in their industry. The Open Source Census publishes aggregated information to show emerging trends in open source usage. In fact, early results show interesting patterns that parallel trends in our paid customer base, such as high open source usage within financial services companies. The open source adoption data from the Census helps enterprises to evaluate open source options that can reduce IT costs.”

Initial Data Points From The Open Source Census
The Open Source Census continues to uncover interesting trends on the global use of open source software. Launched just six months ago, this initial set of data, which is expected to grow over time as more computers are scanned, shows:

For more information about The Open Source Census, please visit osscensus.org.

About The Open Source Census
The Open Source Census is a global, collaborative project to collect and share quantitative data on the use of open source software in enterprise. Founded by OpenLogic, the Open Source Census has a number of sponsors including OpenLogic and IDC. The Open Source Census initiative has open source tools designed to scan individual enterprise computers for all installed open source software. The results of these scans can then be contributed anonymously to the Open Source Census, where the aggregate data is published.

Founding members include: IDC; CollabNet; Holme, Roberts & Owen LLP; Navica; Olliance Group; Open Solutions Alliance; Open Source Business Foundation; and Unisys. Microsoft and Oregon State University Open Source Lab are additional sponsors. “Friends of The Open Source Census” include ActiveState, EnterpriseDB and OSAlt.com. Finally, the Open Source Census also solicits advice from community leaders, including Jim Jagielski, Chairman of the Apache Foundation and Tony Wasserman, Director, Software Management Program at Carnegie Mellon West.

About OpenLogic
OpenLogic is a leading provider of open source solutions that enable enterprises to safely acquire, support, and control open source software. OpenLogic provides enterprises with a certified library of open source software that encompasses hundreds of the most popular open source packages via OpenLogic Exchange (OLEX), a free web site where companies can find, research, and download certified, enterprise-ready open source packages on demand. With the broadest open source coverage in the industry, OpenLogic offers indemnification; updates; and enterprise-grade technical support backed by the OpenLogic Expert Community. OpenLogic also provides solutions for open source governance and to automate the integration and deployment of open source components — reducing the risk and maximizing the cost savings associated with using open source software. For more on OpenLogic, go to www.openlogic.com.