by Andrea Di Maio | July 4, 2012 | 2 Comments
Over the last ten years I have come across countless consultants and advisors to government and the broader public sector who have been asserting the unquestionable benefits of anything preceded by the term “open”. Open standards, open source, open data, open government, open innovation, and so forth. Those who are younger in the business may [...]
Category: open government data open source in government social networks in government Tags: open data, open government, open source
by Andrea Di Maio | January 27, 2011 | 1 Comment
After their criticized statement about the adoption of OOXML as the preferred document format in the Common Operating Environment policy (see previous post), the Australian federal government decided to highlight their revised open source policy, issued in December 2010, where they take a neutral position vis-a-vis open source, by using verbiage such as: Australian Government [...]
Category: open source in government Tags: Australia, open source
by Andrea Di Maio | January 11, 2011 | 2 Comments
On January 7 the Office of Management and Budget issues a memo reminding US federal agencies of the importance of technology neutrality in procurement. The one-page memo reminds that […] policies are built around the use of merit-based requirements development and evaluation processes that promote procurement choices based on performance and value, and free of [...]
Category: cloud open source in government Tags: OMB, open source, procurement
by Andrea Di Maio | December 22, 2010 | 6 Comments
The more I discuss with clients about cloud computing, the more I find that there is really little new. Not long ago I wrote about the interesting similarities between Open Source and Cloud adoption and dynamics in the public sector: when I read “cloud first” in a policy or strategy document, I cannot forget the [...]
Category: cloud Tags: GSA, open source, outsourcing
by Andrea Di Maio | March 18, 2010 | 3 Comments
As a Gartner analyst I started covering open source software in government quite a few years ago. Those were the times when the city of Munich had taken its historical decision to switch to an open source desktop and when some Spanish, French, Scandinavian, South American government organizations and entire jurisdictions declared “war on commercial [...]
Category: open government data Uncategorized Tags: open government, open source
by Andrea Di Maio | March 10, 2010 | 13 Comments
Earlier today I dared to tweet my disagreement about a piece that Tim O’Reilly indicated as really important one. Tim tweeted back and so I guess I owe him a better explanation than what I could squeeze into a couple of tweets. Let me start saying that the piece I criticized – Truly Open Data [...]
Category: open government data Tags: open source
by Andrea Di Maio | September 2, 2009 | 28 Comments
I know that some reader will raise their eyebrows reading the title. After all, cloud computing is intimately connected to open source: Linux servers are at the basis of most cloud infrastructures, and several applications that can be consumed as a cloud-based service are either open source or based on open source components. One may [...]
Category: cloud Tags: local government, open source
by Andrea Di Maio | July 21, 2009 | 3 Comments
I have noticed that my posts on cloud computing in government generated some interesting discussion. So I thought I would push the boundaries just a little bit further. In a recent article I have covered the “blurring of government”, highlighting how the convergence of social software, consumer devices and products and commoditization of infrastructure and [...]
Category: cloud Tags: community source, open source, SaaS
by Andrea Di Maio | June 26, 2009 | 2 Comments
Earlier today I had quite an interesting conversation with clients in a Tax & Revenues Department who were looking for whether they should regulate how their developers contribute back into open source communities. At the end of the conversation one client asked me whether we had any research showing if using open source has a [...]
Category: open source in government Tags: open source
by Andrea Di Maio | May 28, 2009 | 2 Comments
While discussions about the relevance of Linux as an alternative platform for client devices continue (and indeed it has established itself in several corporations and government agencies) two events from yesterday should serve as a reality check for all those who believe it should (and will) replace Windows. At an ASUS product showcase in Sydney, [...]
Category: open source in government Tags: Linux, open source, PC
