According to the San Francisco Examiner, there’s a new policy proposed in the city to encourage open source software in government:
The policy says departments must “consider open source software equally with commercial products when purchasing new software.”
Open source software allows the public to access government information and the ability to make creative use of it. The software delivers “shorter implementation times and lower costs for the City, as seen with DataSF.org, RecoverySF.org and the City’s 311 integration with Twitter,” the Mayor’s Office said.
Uhh… Note to the author: that’s not at all what “open source “means. If you chose an open source solution for some governmental function, that just means the IT employees for the city have access to the source code. Now it’s possible an open-source solution does decrease implementation times compared to buying closed software, but in no way does it have any effect on the public’s ability to access government functions or write applications that make use of them. For example, a webservice to display the most recent criminal activities in a zip code could be built with or without open source software, and from the public’s perspective (and more specifically, that of a public developer who wanted to use it in an application) it wouldn’t make one whit of difference which was used. The public features and functions would be identical.
I’m all for the Mayor’s Office encouraging the consideration of open source software for the city, but do it for the benefits it actually can provide: quicker development and implementation of governmental software and services. A vehicle for any sort of “transparent government” it’s not.