The Good, Bad and Ugly of Open Source in Government

I gave a talk in NYC called "Open Government:  Lessons Learned" and I am going to share some slides over the next few days.

•  The first motivation with open source software is typically about saving money.
• If saving money is higher than #3 on your list you likely have the wrong motivation.  Choice and  Flexibility, Security, Standards and building on a platform all should rank higher than saving money.
• You're not NSA, don't try to be.
• Unless you measure your Data Center in acres and you have floors of world class Ph.D.s , then don't fork your own OS or major application.
• There is a fine line between clever and stupid. 
• A room and/or software library full of new piece parts will end up being a history bin full of old piece parts.  Think governance.

Open Government: Lessons Learned - NYS Forum Presentatation

Last week I was in New York City giving a keynote at the NYS Forum.  I put together a proposal for a keynote at the following event:

                            NYS Forum IT Corporate Roundtable
                                   MetroNY Program Launch
                                      September 30, 2009
There were only two proposals accepted and mine was one of them, which I felt great about:

                            Open Government: Lessons Learned

Dave Edstrom has worked in the computer industry for 31+ years in the Washington, DC area. Dave meets with countless government agencies who are implementing open source with the goal of increasing the quality of services while reducing costs.   Dave will share the good, the bad and the ugly of open source initiatives in the government with an emphasis on applying these lessons learned not only today, but also into the future of the cloud.

The talk went exceptionally well and I received a number of very positive comments and discussions for follow up.  I am looking forward to working with the great folks of NYS Forum.  Below is the overall agenda of the day:
Below is the agenda that  I created for this talk:

• First, Some Common Vocabulary
• The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of Open Source Software in Government
       We'll get Bad and Ugly out of the way first :-) 
• How To Create A Open Source Revolution 
• Clearing Up The Clouds 
• The BIG Picture Points To Remember
  

As one of my slides points out:

• The first motivation with open source software is typically about saving money.
• If saving money is higher than #3 on your list you likely have the wrong motivation.  Choice and  Flexibility, Security, Standards and building on a platform all should rank higher than saving money.
• You're not NSA, don't try to be. Unless you measure your Data Center in acres and you have floors of world class Ph.D.s , then don't fork your own OS or major application.
• There is a fine line between clever and stupid. (great Spinal Tap line :-)
  
• A room and/or software library full of new piece parts will end up being a history bin full of old piece parts.  Think governance. 

Thanks to Chris Hankin and Mike Dergurahian of Sun Microsystems for their great pointers and suggestions!
I will include more specifics and photos in later postings when I get back from Milan, Italy next week.

NYS Forum IT Corporate Roundtable on September 30th

I am speaking at the following event:

NYS Forum IT Corporate Roundtable
MetroNY Program Launch
September 30, 2009
8:30am  10:30am

NYC Human Resources Administration
180 Water Street, 12th Floor
New York, NY 10038

Below is the description of what I will speaking on:


Dave Edstrom has worked in the computer industry for 31+ years in the Washington, DC area.   Dave meets with countless government agencies who are implementing open source with the goal of increasing the quality of services while reducing costs.  Dave will share the good, the bad and the ugly of open source initiatives in the government with an emphasis on applying these lessons learned not only today, but also into the future of the cloud.