I’m working on following up with a number of requests for information post-GOSCON. Always number one on my list; agencies looking to determine if/how they might jump in to using open source software development methodology to produce government-specific applications. These applications are typically costly since the market for such is limited. Developing the same vertical application for all Secretaries of State’s office, for example, is still just fifty customers and makes for a small pool to amortize the cost of commercial development.
The one of the early pioneers of community source model is Dr. Brad Wheeler at Indiana University. In late 2006 the Open Source Lab management team interviewed him by video conference to extract some advice for others on creating governance for a community source project. I came across the resulting debrief and thought I’d put it somewhere it could be shared more broadly. Here it is for download:
“Community Source” Project Governance:
The Sakai Project as a Potential Reference Model for Public Sector Community Source Development
I think it’s valuable to consider that the model of shared development suggest benefits beyond sharing the cost and resulting application, such as sharing business practices and processes, knowledge base and documentation. But I digress. We’ll share more from the experts from our Open Government Collaboratives 2008 panel as soon as we get the conference media through GOSCON post-production.
Bryant Group 