Upgrade to Pro
— share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …
Speaker Deck
Features
Speaker Deck
PRO
Sign in
Sign up for free
Search
Search
Software development as civic service
Search
Ben Balter
October 23, 2014
Technology
3
360
Software development as civic service
Why the government doesn’t use open source
(and why we need your help to change that)
Ben Balter
October 23, 2014
Tweet
Share
More Decks by Ben Balter
See All by Ben Balter
A community of communities: Empowering maintainers to grow communities around their code
benbalter
1
1.3k
Fostering a culture of collaboration
benbalter
0
220
Growing open source communities on GitHub around your WordPress plugin or theme
benbalter
1
240
It takes a digital village
benbalter
1
450
Open source workflows in highly regulated environments
benbalter
0
92
Optimize for Developer Happiness
benbalter
0
280
The technology is the easy part
benbalter
2
290
How to foster an open source culture inside Government
benbalter
3
2.4k
Open source inspired workflows for open (and closed) geospatial data
benbalter
0
150
Other Decks in Technology
See All in Technology
CSPヘッダー導入で実現するWebサイトの多層防御:今すぐ試せる設定例と運用知見
llamakko
1
250
ファインディにおける Dataform ブランチ戦略
hiracky16
0
180
OpenTelemetry の Log を使いこなそう
biwashi
5
1k
P2P ではじめる WebRTC のつまづきどころ
tnoho
1
230
The Madness of Multiple Gemini CLIs Developing Simultaneously with Jujutsu
gunta
1
2.6k
低レイヤソフトウェア技術者が YouTuberとして食っていこうとした話
sat
PRO
7
5.9k
経験がないことを言い訳にしない、 AI時代の他領域への染み出し方
parayama0625
0
220
LLM開発を支えるエヌビディアの生成AIエコシステム
acceleratedmu3n
0
170
なぜAI時代に 「イベント」を中心に考えるのか? / Why focus on "events" in the age of AI?
ytake
2
740
PdM業務における使い分け
shinshiro
0
620
TypeScript 上達の道
ysknsid25
21
4.5k
ecspressoの設計思想に至る道 / sekkeinight2025
fujiwara3
12
1.9k
Featured
See All Featured
Scaling GitHub
holman
461
140k
CSS Pre-Processors: Stylus, Less & Sass
bermonpainter
357
30k
How to train your dragon (web standard)
notwaldorf
96
6.1k
Practical Tips for Bootstrapping Information Extraction Pipelines
honnibal
PRO
21
1.3k
The Web Performance Landscape in 2024 [PerfNow 2024]
tammyeverts
8
720
Evolution of real-time – Irina Nazarova, EuRuKo, 2024
irinanazarova
8
850
A Tale of Four Properties
chriscoyier
160
23k
ReactJS: Keep Simple. Everything can be a component!
pedronauck
667
120k
Building a Scalable Design System with Sketch
lauravandoore
462
33k
The Art of Delivering Value - GDevCon NA Keynote
reverentgeek
15
1.6k
Practical Orchestrator
shlominoach
189
11k
[RailsConf 2023] Rails as a piece of cake
palkan
55
5.7k
Transcript
! Software development as civic service Why the government doesn’t
use open source (and why we need your help to change that) Ben Balter government.github.com
[email protected]
! Where we are How we got there Why we
shouldn’t be there What you can do to help get us out
! Where we are (everything you don’t want to know
about how government works)
! People | Process | Product
! People
The way we approach technology
The way (some) agencies approach technology
Agency workflow Policy Executive Program manager COTR CO OGC Project
Manager Developers Designers Compliance Sales (subcontractors) CISO SAOP 508 Government Contractor
! What’s missing?
Open Source workflow User need Developer Designer UX Ship
! Process
Open Source tools Version Control Git Project Management GitHub, Pivotal
Tracker, etc. Methodology Lean/Agile Deliverable Repository
Government tools Version Control Email Project Management Email Methodology Just
get it done Deliverable CD-ROM (in triplicate)
None
! Product
Open source technologies OS Linux Server Apache Database MySQL Language
PHP Framework WordPress/Drupal
Government technologies OS Windows Server IIS Database MSSQL Language ASP.net
Framework Umbraco
“Enterprise-grade solutions”
! Less technical expertise Less user focus Less tooling
! How we got there (a.k.a why doesn’t the government
use open source)
! Platform | Publishing | Procurement
! Using open source platforms
F.U.D
Government-specific requirements
Dedicated Sales Teams
Reinventing the wheel
! Publishing open source code
Workflow
Risk-averse culture
Command and Control culture
Transparency as a Liability
! Procuring open source resources
None
None
None
! “Why change now? It’s worked for three decades!”
! Closed source platform Uphill battle to publish Procurement by
habit
! Why we shouldn’t be there (or what government can
learn from open source)
! Source | Data | Government
! Open source (code)
None
None
None
None
None
None
! Open Data
None
None
None
! Open Government
None
None
None
! These are the exception not the rule. (for now)
None
None
None
! Take open source workflows Apply them to code, data,
law
! What you can do to help (unless, of course,
you hate freedom)
None
! People | Process | Product
! Product
Open source hobbyists
Open source suits
! Process
Trolls Open source
Open source welcome
Open source hand holding
! People
Open source Education
Closed source as a political liability
! Serious products Low-risk processes People who get it
Where we are
How we got there
Why we don’t want to be there
What you can do to help
What you can do to help
What you can do to help
! Software development as civic service Why the government doesn’t
use open source (and why we need your help to change that) Ben Balter government.github.com
[email protected]