Sorry, this is a long rant ... and I dont really have time to finish
it but thank you for sparking things...
I am in a similar position, (although the "no problem getting
contracts" is a bit of stretch), a few miles south of you in Kent.
I have a vision, of an eco-system of small independant Open Source
developers building, integrating and supporting local and central
government software. (Yes, government)
I have a tiny campaign site at www.oss4gov.org/manifesto and there is
a community of OSS developers but the love they get from the billion
dollar government market is tiny.
Why .gov? I do not want to write another website for some marketing
agency, I want to write actual software, and I want to write software
that has an actual impact on my community.
For example, West Lothian wants an "Election Management System" (#).
This is basically to take the poll register and do everything from
orgnise rotas of poll-helpers, send out the voting cards, and so
forth. Its pretty boring I suspect but it is clearly something that
only governments need. Is there an Open Source version? Not that I
can find. Is it possible to persuade West Lothian to pay for the
development - well I am trying but they state right up front - must
already be in use in another council, tried and tested. THis is for
software that runs elections - what the hell are proprietary
software companies doing in there? If any code should be public and
open it is code that runs elections.
There are thousands of government services that have no or terrible
IT, that do not interoperate and yet GDS states that the government
prefers OSS, that GCloud is for open, small businesses. The
rhetoric is good, the reality of risk-averse tenders is much much
different.
Somewhere along the line we can see governments stop pouring our money
into proprietary code that only serves public uses and start seeing
small local consultancies, feeding on a eco-system of open source code
and delivering great custom services to government that just keep
getting better, for a decent living wage. (well hopefully better than
that)
Bugger it, I am going to release my best shot at an election
management system, and force it into the cracks. There is a lot of
money and a lot of worthwhile projects behind that wall. Despite the
30% cut in services.
Comments
Sorry, this is a long rant ... and I dont really have time to finish it but thank you for sparking things...
I am in a similar position, (although the "no problem getting contracts" is a bit of stretch), a few miles south of you in Kent.
I have a vision, of an eco-system of small independant Open Source developers building, integrating and supporting local and central government software. (Yes, government)
I have a tiny campaign site at www.oss4gov.org/manifesto and there is a community of OSS developers but the love they get from the billion dollar government market is tiny.
Why .gov? I do not want to write another website for some marketing agency, I want to write actual software, and I want to write software that has an actual impact on my community.
For example, West Lothian wants an "Election Management System" (#). This is basically to take the poll register and do everything from orgnise rotas of poll-helpers, send out the voting cards, and so forth. Its pretty boring I suspect but it is clearly something that only governments need. Is there an Open Source version? Not that I can find. Is it possible to persuade West Lothian to pay for the development - well I am trying but they state right up front - must already be in use in another council, tried and tested. THis is for software that runs elections - what the hell are proprietary software companies doing in there? If any code should be public and open it is code that runs elections.
There are thousands of government services that have no or terrible IT, that do not interoperate and yet GDS states that the government prefers OSS, that GCloud is for open, small businesses. The rhetoric is good, the reality of risk-averse tenders is much much different.
Somewhere along the line we can see governments stop pouring our money into proprietary code that only serves public uses and start seeing small local consultancies, feeding on a eco-system of open source code and delivering great custom services to government that just keep getting better, for a decent living wage. (well hopefully better than that)
Bugger it, I am going to release my best shot at an election management system, and force it into the cracks. There is a lot of money and a lot of worthwhile projects behind that wall. Despite the 30% cut in services.
It is a project with real possibilities
- International elections (http://aceproject.org/today/feature-articles/open-source-sof...)
- There are organisations doing something like this (http://blog.openelections.net/)
(#) http://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/search/show/Search...