18F (xpost in GD)

I still run into open source doubters in many levels of government throughout the NY area... Here is a great article about the advance of open source collaboration and processes within government:

As open source goes mainstream, institutions collaborate differently

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/as-open-source-goes-mainstream-institutions-collaborate-differently/

Two of my favorite paragraphs from the article (you will need to follow the link to learn what 18F is):

"Healthcare.gov was a watershed moment in the conversion," said Balter. "An inflection point. Geeks in government had been saying for a long time that traditional, heavyweight large dollar, long-term enterprise projects were far less resilient than more modern, open systems. The traditional management playbook has always been to throw more money and bodies at the problem. Healthcare.gov (among other examples) show that that's not the answer. No software is perfect, but today agencies realize that communicating more, not less, working openly, with shared tools, and shipping 0.1."
...

"It used to be that mentioning open source to an agency CIO might conjure images of hippies out in California with tie-dyed laptops passing around code like an illicit substance," said Balter. "Today, that perception has changed with proprietary and purpose-built software being the face of legacy, Beltway IT, the way things have always been done, and open source representing modern development practices that's more often seen in the private sector. Would 18F's younger, faster, smarter aura work to the same degree if they primarily recommended mainframes?"


And a great read for a vision of a cooperative world:

The Open Source Everything Manifesto: Transparency, Truth, & Trust, Robert David Steele

http://www.phibetaiota.net/2014/05/robert-steele-at-libtechnyc-the-open-source-everything-manifesto/