February 2010
Beginner to intermediate
430 pages
14h 53m
English
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Chapter 32. Open Source Software for Open Government Agencies
The theme of open government that pervades this volume depends on drawing participation from as wide a swath of the public as possible, and this goal in turn calls for the use of software that is universally available, easy to use, easy to adapt to specific needs, and easy to modify to match evolving requirements. Free and open source software meets these goals more consistently than any alternative.
In this chapter, we use the term FLOSS for this type of software: free/libre/open source software. Although it’s usually distributed free of charge, its distinguishing trait is a license that allows anyone to change the code and redistribute the changes. This keeps FLOSS from being dominated by one set of developers, and therefore from being burdened with restrictions that users may reject and that even may violate government policies (e.g., terms of service that let the developers collect personal information from users). The alternatives are usually called “proprietary software” because they are often free of charge but are still under the control of the organization that created them.
FLOSS is already in widespread use within government agencies, and will have an even greater role to play in open government technologies that can be really useful for public administrations. However, adopting or migrating to FLOSS is a complex, multidisciplinary effort involving several areas of expertise. ...
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.