Tuesday, November 3, 2009

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.