Promote and use FOSS alternatives for citizens to utilize when engaging with government as a platform.
Key Objective(s)
This will make government more participatory and collaborative because no citizen will be barred access to government services because of proprietary/licensing issues.
This will make government more participatory and collaborative because the software can be tailored for different use cases by gov agency/agencies crowd sourcing/civic hackers/etc.
This makes government actions more transparent because the source code is open.
This makes society (gov + civilians) more aware of FOSS, empowering them to be more digitally literate, and moving us towards becoming a digital society.
Going even further, massive adoption of FOSS technologies in .gov will bring about massive savings in licensing fees annually.
Paragraph Description
Promoting FOSS technologies on .gov domains that offer data/documents/software for download/use reinforces the concepts of Open Government and Open Source that these action plans champion. Currently, .gov domains almost exclusively offer proprietary, limited access/release versions as options to users, effectively giving Microsoft, Adobe, and WinZip a monopoly on free advertising (and advertising in general) on .gov sites. This illusion of choice also typically limits users to a certain operating system, and in certain cases, to a certain browser/software on a particular os. WinZip, which has also proven to be a bad actor in the consumer arena, offers .zip compression, on a limited basis without a license. 7-zip offers a far superior compression algorithm, with zero limits. Why isn't the government encouraging its citizens to use a tool that works better, doesn't cost anything to use, and uses less data (saves money on data plans)?
This promotion will also empower/enable citizens and dotgov employees with new concepts/ideas behind the tools we all use. A very distinct and important step to becoming digitally literate and a digital society.
Measurable Metrics
Crawl .gov domains and see where they offer Silicon Valley's wares.
Roll out alternative with FOSS technologies for .gov domains to adopt/fork/edit/etc.
Crawl .gov domains after given timeline and compare.
Topline Description
Promote and use FOSS alternatives for citizens to utilize when engaging with government as a platform.
Key Objective(s)
This will make government more participatory and collaborative because no citizen will be barred access to government services because of proprietary/licensing issues. This will make government more participatory and collaborative because the software can be tailored for different use cases by gov agency/agencies crowd sourcing/civic hackers/etc. This makes government actions more transparent because the source code is open. This makes society (gov + civilians) more aware of FOSS, empowering them to be more digitally literate, and moving us towards becoming a digital society. Going even further, massive adoption of FOSS technologies in .gov will bring about massive savings in licensing fees annually.
Paragraph Description
Promoting FOSS technologies on .gov domains that offer data/documents/software for download/use reinforces the concepts of Open Government and Open Source that these action plans champion. Currently, .gov domains almost exclusively offer proprietary, limited access/release versions as options to users, effectively giving Microsoft, Adobe, and WinZip a monopoly on free advertising (and advertising in general) on .gov sites. This illusion of choice also typically limits users to a certain operating system, and in certain cases, to a certain browser/software on a particular os. WinZip, which has also proven to be a bad actor in the consumer arena, offers .zip compression, on a limited basis without a license. 7-zip offers a far superior compression algorithm, with zero limits. Why isn't the government encouraging its citizens to use a tool that works better, doesn't cost anything to use, and uses less data (saves money on data plans)? This promotion will also empower/enable citizens and dotgov employees with new concepts/ideas behind the tools we all use. A very distinct and important step to becoming digitally literate and a digital society.
Measurable Metrics
Crawl .gov domains and see where they offer Silicon Valley's wares. Roll out alternative with FOSS technologies for .gov domains to adopt/fork/edit/etc. Crawl .gov domains after given timeline and compare.