Rialtas.net - Government 2.0

The EU Competition Commissioner, Neelie Kroes, publicly supported the use of open source software in eGovernment, in a public speech at a seminar hosted by OpenForum Europe in Brussels on 10 June 2008.

The Commission must do its part. It must not rely on one vendor, it must not accept closed standards, and it must refuse to become locked into a particular technology – jeopardizing maintenance of full control over the information in its possession.

This view is born from a hard headed understanding of how markets work – it is not a call for revolution, but for an intelligent and achievable evolution.
But there is more to this than ensuring our commercial decisions are taken in full knowledge of their long term effects. There is a democratic issue as well.
When open alternatives are available, no citizen or company should be forced or encouraged to use a particular company’s technology to access government information.
No citizen or company should be forced or encouraged to choose a closed technology over an open one, through a government having made that choice first.

These democratic principles are important. And an argument is particularly compelling when it is supported both by democratic principles and by sound economics.

I know a smart business decision when I see one - choosing open standards is a very smart business decision indeed.

Read the full text of the commissioner’s speech..

IBM announced new technology to secure “mashups,” web applications that pull information from multiple sources, such as Web sites, enterprise databases or emails, to create one unified view. Mashups are attractive for business use, as they allow non-technical users to gain insight on complex situations in minutes, but as with all Web-based initiatives, security has been a concern.IBM is helping businesses realize the value of these situational applications without all the risk, through a new technology created by IBM researchers, codenamed “SMash.” Short for secure mashup, this technology allows information from different sources to talk to each other, but keeps them separate so malicious code cannot creep into enterprise systems.

In order to give consumer and business users the opportunity to take advantage of mashup technology, IBM is contributing the SMash technology to the OpenAjax Alliance. The OpenAjax Alliance is an organization of vendors, open source projects and companies using Ajax that are dedicated to the successful adoption of open and interoperable Ajax-based Web technologies. A founding member of the OpenAjax Alliance, IBM continues to work with the industry to create standards that will support innovation and wide-spread adoption of Web 2.0 technologies.

“Web 2.0 is fundamentally about empowering people, and has created a societal shift in the way we organize, access and use information,” said Rod Smith, IBM Fellow & Vice President. “Security concerns can’t be a complete inhibitor or clients lose out on the immense benefit mashups bring. The same way you wouldn’t buy a car and then later decide to have the seatbelts or airbags installed, as an industry we’ve learned how to build security into business operations from the ground up instead of tacking it on after the fact.”

Read more on http://java.sys-con.com/read/518524.htm

A taste of things to come… a web based virtual PC with 3GB email storage, 3GB file storage and access to a variety of productivity apps including a word-processor and spreadsheet and all for FREE…

This is an early example of Cloud Computing, an entire web based operating system. I’d guess that within 10 years most people will be accessing their OS and apps across the public web from similar systems and it seems to make sense for Enterprise and other large organisations to follow. Such an approach would undoubtedly make security easier to monitor, and ultimately, I believe, easier to manage. Infrastructure would also be much easier to manage with users requiring only a thin client with all the processing taking place on the server and with software and processing resources being served up on demand to a shared user base, upgrades taking place entirely on the server.

Sign up for an account at http://g.ho.st/ (but read the Terms and conditions first…)

see also DesktopTwo https://desktoptwo.com/

US Software Company Serena wanted to promote a greater connection between people. Facebook, which is both free and a great example of web 2.0, seemed to be the right answer. They established a private Facebook group for Serena employees and they built a few simple custom Facebook apps to better enable intranet functions. Now they provide links through Facebook to documents stored securely behind the firewall. Access is just as secure as any other method. Serena employees go to specific people to get relevant information.

Serena also has public Facebook groups to connect with customers and the broader marketplace. Link

Social Networking website Facebook is in talks to set up its European base in Ireland.

My Society.org is a UK Charitable organisation with two missions. The first is to be a charitable project which builds websites that give people simple, tangible benefits in the civic and community aspects of their lives. The second is to teach the public and voluntary sectors, through demonstration, how to most efficiently use the internet to improve lives.

The organisation currently has seven projects live two examples are outlined below:

Fix My street a site which allows members of the public to report problems to their local council such as graffiti, illegal dumping, broken paving slabs, or street lighting.

E-Petitions Petitions have long been sent to the Prime Minister by post or delivered to the Number 10 door in person. This site now allows UK residents to both create and sign petitions on the web, giving them the opportunity to reach a potentially wider audience and to deliver their petition directly to Downing Street.

Users can view and sign any current petitions, and see the Government response to any completed petitions. If you have signed a petition that has reached more than 200 signatures by the time it closes, you will be sent a response from the Government by email.

All petitions that are submitted to this website will be accepted, as long as they are in accordance with its terms and conditions.

A full list of their projects is available here and all of the source code is open source and available by reuse for government organisations across the world to use and adapt.