Expectations for the workshop

Gouvernement ouvert Open-Source Contribution Policy
#1

Hello,

I am sorry I got confused with the logistics for the kick-off. Please use this topics with expectations and ideas that you would have around the open-source contribution policy for governments template, wether these are personal or government level expectations. Governments, NGO, IGO, private companies and academic should have different views on the subject.

As a reminder we have one deliverable for the workshop: the policy template. Governments would then instantiate it and publish it. The objective is to empower the developers working for the government to contribute easily to open-source projects and respecting the best practices.

For reference, the kick-off presentation is available at this URL: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/13yq_C8K6HGl2_19BtG5Ik9o2aYdVBF51HuVTsl2zK4U/edit#slide=id.p4

Laurent

#2

In a very naive manner, this is what my expectations are:

  • Aim the developer and simplify all the administrative and compliance burden that is so often required within administrations to have the right to contribute. Identify all the pre-authorization that we can and make the compliance requirements as transparent as possible.
  • Give a safe learning environment within the government before engaging with open-source communities
  • Allow civil servant to improve technically by learning from and with open-source communities
  • Engage with critical open-source project communities that could benefit from government-time (mid-term) commitments
  • Learn from other governments, large communities and private companies on governance best practices
  • Coordinate the effort between countries: if digital has no borders and developers can be anywhere, we have common needs that need to be applied locally, on our land, with our laws and culture. This is not that specific and a lot of « government digital infrastructure » is common.

My last expectations would be to hear the expectations of the civil society on what governments can and should do. Even if the workshop is focused on the HOW, some principles could come from the WHY governments should or shouldn’t do things that private or open-source communities could do. For instance, are there extra ethical requirements that governments should follow, or other constraints?

#3

In terms of coordinating / learning, perhaps make a reference to the European Joinup portal (https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/), which is actually a merger of the former OSOR (open source for and by public administrations) and SEMIC (interoperability specifications) platforms.

To be honest, I do have mixed feelings about JoinUp (great for creating awareness, sharing experience and perhaps for hosting new software, but not for contributing patches to other open source projects, e.g Apache, Eclipse)-

#4

I agree with you Bart regarding Joinup. A risk by talking too much about Joinup in this case is that the goal of this is global and not just for the EU. We want the world to be part of this policy.

But pointing out that Joinup exists and what it does is of course OK.