[OSGeo-Discuss] What Open Government can learn from us Open Source folks

[Marc Vloemans]

Hi Cameron,

Great to have such comprehensive argument in writing. The deadline of 15th March allows me only to jot down some quick notions. 

The business/market side of things is relatively underrepresented, while being essential for project sustainability. Could I suggest the following.

Open collaboration on eg code in/by governmental bodies requires explicit interaction with ‘the market’. And that is precisely where gov bodies/agencies usually are or feel or should be hamstrung.

This is entails some notions (some of these touched upon, but may need to be made more explicit);
- most gov organisations simply don’t have the tech skills in-house to participate on a technical level with (or instigate) Dev communities
- or capabilities to otherwise engage with communities
- these orgs have to rely on external experts; most notably service suppliers
- or build their internal expertise, which will be difficult, expensive and not the ‘core business’ of government 
- in any case, gov bodies have to go beyond traditional supply-demand interactions
- while safe guarding pre-competitive behaviour
- OS foundations usually provide that environment of necessary vendor-neutrality (besides the elements of meritocracy etc you mention) and pre-comp interactions 

I feel your doc would benefit from the extra angle where you address public-private collaboration with a particularly view as to the ‘how’. The ‘why’ and ‘what’ of the argument depend on that. Unless the practicalities are addressed it is (too) easy for sceptics to just say ‘no’. 

My two cents

Kind regards,
Marc Vloemans


> Op 27 feb. 2018 om 00:18 heeft Dirk Frigne <dirk.frigne at geosparc.com> het volgende geschreven:
> 
> Cameron,
> 
> Nice initiative.
> Now it is a bit to late for me, but if you can grant me review access, I
> will review and comment tommorow.
> 
> Dirk.
> 
>> On 26-02-18 22:52, Cameron Shorter wrote:
>> The Australian Government has asked for feedback on how they are going
>> at Open Government, and I've started a draft response. I'm really keen
>> to make sure that this response is well constructed because I think that
>> if listened to, understood, and acted upon, then we can make a huge
>> difference to the effectiveness of Open Government worldwide - and by
>> extension, to Open Source as well.
>> 
>> If you have a chance to read and provide review comments, I'd be very
>> grateful. Email me directly to get review access.
>> 
>> (It will take ~ 10 minutes to read. Longer if you take time to think
>> about how things should be reworded and consider what is missing and
>> should be included.)
>> 
>> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jNdh4_A_cIpaHqLRFOgpvAY3JSo0Ueraam39UHFOGHs/edit#heading=h.5zu4u4o3l7zi
>> 
>> 
> 
> -- 
> Yours sincerely,
> 
> 
> ir. Dirk Frigne
> CEO @geosparc
> 
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> 
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