Government IT. Microsoft Open Government - To the Cloud! | Government IT. With the US Government announcing a 'Cloud for Clunkers' migration plan for Cloud computing, and also an Open Government initiative to make agencies more transparent and responsive to the public, this overlap area is a very fertile zone for driving adoption of the technology and new models. Needless to say Microsoft is one vendor offering a powerful solution set for the requirement. They offer a Gov 2.0 resource centre, where there are tools like case studies, news, and articles that explain what Open Government is, and even an implementation plan template so that agencies can document their own strategy and business plan for achieving compliance with the OG Directive.
Their white paper 'The Way to Go Gov 2.0' (22 page PDF) provides a comprehensive overview of what's involved, covering various points such as: Examples of how agencies are using Twitter et al, to deliver news to citizens, and how there are social networks for government works like GovLoop. To the Cloud! Government Cloud Computing. Government 2.0 Club. The Open Government Playbook / FrontPage.
GovFresh - Gov 2.0, open government news, guides, TV, tech, people. Gov 2.0: Open source matters to open government. Really. €œOpen source and open government are not the same,†I’ve been reading recently. When discussing the role of open standards in open government transparency projects, Bob Caudill at Adobe, is concerned that open source and open standards are being conflated. He likes open standards just fine, but: “Open standards are driving for interoperability between systems or applications, while, the goal of open source is to make high-quality software available to the market free of charge.†As an open source advocate, I’m surprised.
What, I have to wonder, is so threatening about open source? Why the effort to take open source off the table? I’ve written on the topic before, and I didn’t think this was controversial — but apparently I was wrong. €œFor those who have been following some of the vintage discussions about government and open source, this will probably sound like a déjà vu. DiMaio couldn’t disagree more. €œâ€¦there is a fundamental flaw in this line of thought.