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On March 15, 2013, ComputerWeekly.com, the “leading provider of news, analysis, opinion, information and services for the UK IT community” published an article by Bryan Glick entitled: Government mandates 'preference' for open source. The article focuses on the release of the UK’s new Government Service Design Manual, which, from April 2013, will provide governing standards for the online services developed by the UK’s government for public consumption.

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Last week, The White House published an Executive Order by which the default method for government data collection and dissemination must now be: » Read more

As stressful as elections can be, they always bring a welcome surge of patriotism. United States citizens have a lot of opinions about their government, and election time is a good reminder that actually vollunteering time and resources is the best way to facilitate real change. Luckily we live in the 21st century, and collaborating to make change has never been easier. Apps like Shareabouts make it simple to get involved and do your part to make our cities great.

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This week, in the latest step to connect citizen developers with the tools they need to unlock government data, the White House updated their website to include a developers resources section. More than a mere technical reference post, the White House affirmed that: » Read more

A recent poll asked about brand practices for cities and city governments. While the results are still coming in, it's clear that citizens want to be included in this process. Having an open, well-documented process is critical to achieving consensus. But what about the power of crowdsourcing?

Should local governments leverage the power of their citizens and tap into public perception of their city? » Read more

Do governments care about branding? You bet they do. With today's economic climate, governments are looking for ways to get an economic edge and create jobs. One of the ways to get ahead today is to create a perception or a promise that the locale is business-friendly, innovative, creative, and high-tech. » Read more

Interested citizens and government professionals, meet your new pal, Scout. It sends you notifications when new developments in government happen—your government, your departments of interest, your items of relevance. 

We caught up with Scout's creator, Eric Mill, a web and mobile developer at Sunlight Foundation, to give us the details of the technology powering Scout and some explanation to why we thought this tool already existed.

Mill is an expert at developing technology that makes government more transparent and avid about open source projects.

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In part one of this series, we talked about open government scoring another victory with the City of Raleigh's Open Raleigh initiative. We reviewed the technological components of the open data portal, including ESRI, Granicus, GovDelivery, and SeeClickFix. It's pretty clear that these tools and ways of thinking are having an impact on Raleigh governance.  But what about the other way around?  Is the open government initiative taking place contagious?  We hope so. » Read more

Open government scored another victory when the City of Raleigh announced the Open Raleigh initiative—an online repository with open data, web and mobile applications, and links to participatory tools and organizations. It’s all part of Raleigh’s open source strategy focusing on transparency, collaboration, and improved access to information. It’s proof of the ongoing work of the public-facing, open source resolution Raleigh unanimously passed earlier this year. » Read more

The European Parliament's Directorate General for Innovation and Technological Support is to produce report on the EP's free and open source software programmes. MEP Bart Staes (Group of the Green and European Free Alliance) on 10 May added this as a requirement for the discharge of the EP's 2010 budget committee. » Read more