Public policy colleagues: A proposal instructing U.S. federal government agencies to release some source code as open-source has been issued for public comment. The core bit is to aim to release 20% of the custom code they develop, for a three-year pilot period.
The proposal and invitation for public comment is here: https://sourcecode.cio.gov/ The proposal is 15 pages if viewed as a PDF. It comes from the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) which can coordinate/instruct the other agencies.
Comments are invited in a github-issues format: https://github.com/whitehouse/source-code-policy/issues This, helpfully, means one can review how other people see the issues of interest.
Today is the last day for comments. I will be commenting favorably. The proposal has simmered and struggled for a long time; the main hope is to move forward with something. Anything. (I used to think it was better for agencies to decide for themselves, but this didn't work. I have watched for ten years in horror. So now it may be commanded centrally. So be it.)
I think the key thing to comment is that for the government staff to officially join in with existing projects like Wikimedia ones is not difficult and potentially very productive. Whereas, to release own big unique custom projects is (a) administratively hard, and (b) not broadly useful, since they aren't part of a previously established open-source ecology with a known demand for them.
I will be very interested to see the views of others on the comments list or by email. -- peter meyer / user:econterms / Wikimedia DC
thanks for the update, peter!
lodewijk
On Mon, Apr 11, 2016 at 3:26 PM, Peter Meyer peter.meyer@wikidc.org wrote:
Public policy colleagues: A proposal instructing U.S. federal government agencies to release some source code as open-source has been issued for public comment. The core bit is to aim to release 20% of the custom code they develop, for a three-year pilot period.
The proposal and invitation for public comment is here: https://sourcecode.cio.gov/ The proposal is 15 pages if viewed as a PDF. It comes from the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) which can coordinate/instruct the other agencies.
Comments are invited in a github-issues format: https://github.com/whitehouse/source-code-policy/issues This, helpfully, means one can review how other people see the issues of interest.
Today is the last day for comments. I will be commenting favorably. The proposal has simmered and struggled for a long time; the main hope is to move forward with something. Anything. (I used to think it was better for agencies to decide for themselves, but this didn't work. I have watched for ten years in horror. So now it may be commanded centrally. So be it.)
I think the key thing to comment is that for the government staff to officially join in with existing projects like Wikimedia ones is not difficult and potentially very productive. Whereas, to release own big unique custom projects is (a) administratively hard, and (b) not broadly useful, since they aren't part of a previously established open-source ecology with a known demand for them.
I will be very interested to see the views of others on the comments list or by email. -- peter meyer / user:econterms / Wikimedia DC
Publicpolicy mailing list Publicpolicy@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/publicpolicy
FYI here's a comment we submitted on behalf of Creative Commons. https://github.com/WhiteHouse/source-code-policy/issues/149 timothy
On Mon, Apr 11, 2016 at 7:02 AM, L.Gelauff lgelauff@gmail.com wrote:
thanks for the update, peter!
lodewijk
On Mon, Apr 11, 2016 at 3:26 PM, Peter Meyer peter.meyer@wikidc.org wrote:
Public policy colleagues: A proposal instructing U.S. federal government agencies to release some source code as open-source has been issued for public comment. The core bit is to aim to release 20% of the custom code they develop, for a three-year pilot period.
The proposal and invitation for public comment is here: https://sourcecode.cio.gov/ The proposal is 15 pages if viewed as a PDF. It comes from the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) which can coordinate/instruct the other agencies.
Comments are invited in a github-issues format: https://github.com/whitehouse/source-code-policy/issues This, helpfully, means one can review how other people see the issues of interest.
Today is the last day for comments. I will be commenting favorably. The proposal has simmered and struggled for a long time; the main hope is to move forward with something. Anything. (I used to think it was better for agencies to decide for themselves, but this didn't work. I have watched for ten years in horror. So now it may be commanded centrally. So be it.)
I think the key thing to comment is that for the government staff to officially join in with existing projects like Wikimedia ones is not difficult and potentially very productive. Whereas, to release own big unique custom projects is (a) administratively hard, and (b) not broadly useful, since they aren't part of a previously established open-source ecology with a known demand for them.
I will be very interested to see the views of others on the comments list or by email. -- peter meyer / user:econterms / Wikimedia DC
Publicpolicy mailing list Publicpolicy@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/publicpolicy
Publicpolicy mailing list Publicpolicy@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/publicpolicy
How successful has https://www.govcode.org/ been?
"Open Source First: Simply put, any solution developed using taxpayer dollars should be in the taxpayer’s domain (open source). At GSA, we believe that all code we developed should be shared under an open license so others may benefit from it. In addition, we will give priority to using open source software as we design now solutions"
-- US GSA CIO David Shive http://gsablogs.gsa.gov/innovation/2014/08/01/our-guiding-principles/
Please see also:
https://github.com/18F/open-source-policy/blob/master/policy.md
and
https://cio.gov/delivering-customer-focused-government-smarter/
It's not all roses. This got taken down: https://web.archive.org/web/20150529033655/http://www.darpa.mil/opencatalog/...
The Foundation can really use some of that stuff, too, e.g.,
"The Broad Operational Language Translation (BOLT) program is aimed at enabling communication with non-English-speaking populations and identifying important information in foreign-language sources by: 1) allowing English-speakers to understand foreign-language sources of all genres, including chat, messaging and informal conversation; 2) providing English-speakers the ability to quickly identify targeted information in foreign-language sources using natural-language queries; and 3) enabling multi-turn communication in text and speech with non-English speakers. If successful, BOLT would deliver all capabilities free from domain or genre limitations."
Program Manager: Dr. Boyan Onyshkevych
Contact: boyan.onyshkevych@darpa.mil
Should the Foundation mount a campaign to rescue BOLT from whomever took it down from the DARPA site?
Sincerely, Jim
On Mon, Apr 11, 2016 at 1:15 PM, Timothy Vollmer tvol@creativecommons.org wrote:
FYI here's a comment we submitted on behalf of Creative Commons. https://github.com/WhiteHouse/source-code-policy/issues/149 timothy
On Mon, Apr 11, 2016 at 7:02 AM, L.Gelauff lgelauff@gmail.com wrote:
thanks for the update, peter!
lodewijk
On Mon, Apr 11, 2016 at 3:26 PM, Peter Meyer peter.meyer@wikidc.org wrote:
Public policy colleagues: A proposal instructing U.S. federal government agencies to release some source code as open-source has been issued for public comment. The core bit is to aim to release 20% of the custom code they develop, for a three-year pilot period.
The proposal and invitation for public comment is here: https://sourcecode.cio.gov/ The proposal is 15 pages if viewed as a PDF. It comes from the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) which can coordinate/instruct the other agencies.
Comments are invited in a github-issues format: https://github.com/whitehouse/source-code-policy/issues This, helpfully, means one can review how other people see the issues of interest.
Today is the last day for comments. I will be commenting favorably. The proposal has simmered and struggled for a long time; the main hope is to move forward with something. Anything. (I used to think it was better for agencies to decide for themselves, but this didn't work. I have watched for ten years in horror. So now it may be commanded centrally. So be it.)
I think the key thing to comment is that for the government staff to officially join in with existing projects like Wikimedia ones is not difficult and potentially very productive. Whereas, to release own big unique custom projects is (a) administratively hard, and (b) not broadly useful, since they aren't part of a previously established open-source ecology with a known demand for them.
I will be very interested to see the views of others on the comments list or by email. -- peter meyer / user:econterms / Wikimedia DC
Publicpolicy mailing list Publicpolicy@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/publicpolicy
Publicpolicy mailing list Publicpolicy@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/publicpolicy
-- Invest in an open future. Support Creative Commons today: http://bit.ly/19IjSKl
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