open-source cloud systems for running local gov?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mark Dixon on December 10, 2011 at 3:25pm

Rebecca: Accept my friend request and send me a message. I've been working on this for almost 3 years now...the short answer is no, but there are some promising developments in this area. I'd be happy to discuss them with you.

Permalink Reply by Ryan Resella on December 10, 2011 at 4:12pm

Have you checked out Civic Commons ?  

http://civiccommons.org/

Permalink Reply by Rebecca Krause-Hardie on December 10, 2011 at 5:17pm

Thanks for the link.  Their wiki has an interesting list of projects and their work looks great.  So far I've yet to find anything that runs the internal business of gov. on the local level. 

Permalink Reply by Mark Dixon on December 10, 2011 at 5:59pm

You'll be hard pressed to find anything...but there is an emerging trend we can discuss.

Permalink Reply by Wayne Eddy on December 10, 2011 at 5:38pm

I have tried to stir up interest in the concept here in Australia without a lot of success.

http://www.lgam.info/free-open-source-software

I believe that Geospatial ICT are trying to get something happening in South Australia, but I haven't had an update on how that's going for a while.

http://www.geospatial-ict.com.au/solutions.html

Permalink Reply by Tom Haser on December 10, 2011 at 10:04pm

In terms of cloud, you might look into Fairfax County (as in this story). However, I am uncertain as to what extent open source is being used (or created). I am on the County's CIO advisory board and expect to be briefed on their cloud strategy next month.

Permalink Reply by Rebecca Krause-Hardie on December 11, 2011 at 9:51am

Wow that sounds like a very cool system.   Thanks so much for the link Tom. It appears that it is not so much open source as cloud deployed and using 'open government' philosophy.   And the model of providing services to other towns in the county makes complete sense.  Curious what their model is for pricing to the other towns....  

Permalink Reply by Stephen Dixon on December 12, 2011 at 10:24am

Rebecca - I am involved with the Kuali Foundation that has developed an open source model for Universities. A small group (Kuali For Government / KGOV) have done some baby steps on Open 311 that yo umay find interesting. This work continues and you may be interested to conbtribute. Let me know if I can answer any questions. Cheers!

Permalink Reply by Stephen Dixon on December 12, 2011 at 10:25am

PS - I'm interested to learn what you discover as well.

Permalink Reply by Elizabeth Muggeridge on December 13, 2011 at 12:13pm

Hi Rebecca

I have developed software for governments in Africa using a Joomla extension, so its developed in open source. The software supports making government budget processes performance focused, transparent and supporting stakeholder consultation.

 

The issue about it being an open source product though is a) is it open source so its free and/or b) is it open source so local government and other developers have access to the code and do further work on it?

 

For us we would consider the providing the software either free or at a very low cost, if we could get grant funding to keep working on it, and we are keen to find potential collaborating organisations to work with us, perhaps a user group of government users?  We are based in Botswana and are also working to develop IT capacity in Africa.

 

The other issue about the code being open though is tricky because the software is based on a specific business process, and we have had experiences of people changing code and undermining the business process and therefore the credibility of the software. 

I think we need another model in which users can make changes to the code, but with support from the orginal developers so that the software is not undermined.  I am a budget person, not a technical person, so perhaps someone has already developed this model?

If you are interested I would be keen to explore this further

Liz

 

 

Permalink Reply by Rebecca Krause-Hardie on December 15, 2011 at 9:44pm

Thanks for the reply Liz,

Its a great point you make about security of the core program software.  I was just reading about the drupal policy here: http://drupal.org/node/21778   as an example.

I agree about the 2 approaches you mention - about what constitutes open-source.  I think for security issues, one has to maintain control over the core product, and then have the time and ability to review and approve any additions to that core product.

And a further issue that I'm seeing is that if I've decided that I want to build in Ruby (just as an example) or say  on an ASP.net platform, and you're built already in Joomla, I'm not clear on how one can collaborate.  But this is new to me, so all is not clear  :>)