More on My Open Government: Lessons Learned

• Users, abusers and losers.
  
  
  1. /usr/local/src
  2. /usr/local/bin
  • The 3,000 page open source guidelines document.
  • If the average person can not lift the document, then they will never read it.
  • “We're Open”.  The most over-loaded and abused sentence in computing today.  
  • Open source is a mandlebrot continuum.
  • Open source software 101
  • Make sure your data is open first
  
  

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.

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.