[Aust-NZ] Moves to free Australian Public Sector Information

[Rob Atkinson]

This post purports to be about information, but the content is about software.

I think we are confusing two separate issues.  (although its arguable
that availability of software is an enabler for open information).

The best driver for uptake of open source will be available data. But
we wont get the data till we have the technology established in the
mindset - much like the current standard of online access to
government services was kick started by the WWW technology).

I'll be going to FOSS4G with an eye to keeping tabs on how close we
are to being able to drive the debate effectively. At the moment
Google and other online mapping drive much thinking through provision
of base mapping.  What should we focus on?

Rob Atkinson


On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 10:12 AM, Cameron
Shorter<cameron.shorter at lisasoft.com> wrote:
> http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com/2009/06/moves-to-free-australian-public-sector.html
>
> The Victorian Parliament’s Economic Development and Infrastructure Committee
> (“EDIC”) has released a report recommending the freeing of access to Public
> Sector Information. Bruce Bannerman and I tabled an OSGeo
> <http://osgeo.org/> submission for this report, as did a number of other
> enlightened organisations.
> Anne Fitzgerald summarises the situation well, (note that Anne has submitted
> an abstract about Open Data for the FOSS4G <http://2009.foss4g.org/>
> conference):
>
>   I, Brian Fitzgerald and other research collaborators (including
>   those working within the Queensland Treasury’s Office of Economic
>   and Statistical Research) made verbal and written submissions, which
>   are extensively referred to with approval by the committee
>   throughout its report. This is a very important report, as it is the
>   first in Australia to consider in depth the issue of access to
>   Public Sector Information, and is likely to provide the template for
>   work by the Federal and other [Australian] State/Territory
>   governments. The report recommends that the Victorian Government
>   should establish an Information Management Framework, with open
>   access to Government information at no or marginal cost as the
>   default position.
>
> Donna Benjamin noted on the Open Source Industries Australia email list some
> of the Open Source highlights:
>
>   Recommendation 42: That the Victorian Government require, as part of
>   its whole-of-government ICT Procurement Policy, that software
>   procured by the Government be capable of saving files in open
>   standard formats, and that wherever possible, the software be
>   configured to save in open standard formats by default.
>
>   Recommendation 43: That the Victorian Government ensure when
>   preparing guidance for procurement, ICT personnel should be equally
>   aware of the strengths and weaknesses of both OSS and proprietary
>   software.
>
>   Recommendation 44: That the Victorian Government fully evaluate the
>   Victorian Department of Justice open source software (OSS)
>   workstation trial to assess the potential for wider use of OSS in
>   Victorian public service workstations.
>
>   Recommendation 45: That the Victorian Government examine its policy
>   for ICT Procurement to ensure that it continues to assist the
>   Victorian ICT industry.
>
>   Recommendation 46: That the Victorian Government ensure where
>   appropriate that tenders are neither licence specific nor have
>   proprietary software-specific requirements; and meet the given
>   objectives of Government.
>
>
> For further information, read the press release at:
> http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/edic/inquiries/access_to_PSI/PSI_Inquiry_Media_Release.pdf
> The report itself is at
> http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/edic/inquiries/access_to_PSI/final_report.html
>
> --
> Cameron Shorter
> Geospatial Systems Architect
> Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
> Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
>
> Think Globally, Fix Locally
> Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
> http://www.lisasoft.com
>
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