Very recently Canada's Treasury Board announced that the Common Look and Feel (CLF) for the Internet 2.0 Standard is being updated. Now, for those folks who don't spend a lot of time on Government of Canada websites it's not something that you are likely to notice. However for both people with disabilities & the Canadian tax payer at large it could be a very big deal.
Improved Design
I want to first point out some of the good work done rethinking the CLF. Thomas Bradley's Proposal for CLF3.0 predated the public announcement for the update and presents a neat vision. More recently...
Government
By Mike Gifford
on 13/10/2009
A lot has changed since our initial posting about the AODA in 2009. For folks looking for general information (particularly pertaining to the web), I would suggest reading our more recent articles. If you're particularly interested in enforcement of this law I would suggest looking towards posts by Blakes(March 2011), Weirfoulds (July 2011) and FirstReference (August 2011).
Ontario implemented the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) in 2005 and in January 2010 it will begin to enhance the level of services that people in this province can expect from their governments. ...
Ontario implemented the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) in 2005 and in January 2010 it will begin to enhance the level of services that people in this province can expect from their governments. ...
By Mike Gifford
on 28/09/2009
The following article was prepared by OpenConcept for Summit Magazine, Canada's magazine for public service procurement. The full article is available within the PDF copy of the magazine.
After publication I was sent this PDF about open source procurement in the Netherlands that was worth sharing.
How Can Government Responsibly Procure Free Software?
Free software is “free” in two senses: it is distributed free of charge, and can be freely used and shared because it is unencumbered by onerous and restrictive licenses. This software model has been refined over the past twenty-five years, and...
After publication I was sent this PDF about open source procurement in the Netherlands that was worth sharing.
How Can Government Responsibly Procure Free Software?
Free software is “free” in two senses: it is distributed free of charge, and can be freely used and shared because it is unencumbered by onerous and restrictive licenses. This software model has been refined over the past twenty-five years, and...
By Mike Gifford
on 22/05/2009
I've been thinking a lot recently about the accessibility of information that the government collects sometimes even distributes. We've blogged about problems getting information about postal code to riding data in the past. We ended up purchasing the data, but each time we do it is so inefficient it seems like it must cost the government more to sell it to me than give it away. Fortunately, there's been a lot of movement in this area around the world and there are a lot of good things to be inspired by.
In the USA today the Obama administration launched Data.gov which aims to "increase...
In the USA today the Obama administration launched Data.gov which aims to "increase...
By Mike Gifford
on 01/05/2009
This is a reprint of the article originally published in OSBR's May Issue under the title The Feds are Ready for a Change
"OSS is indeed the start of a fundamental change in the software infrastructure marketplace, but it is not a hype bubble that will burst and [the] UK government must take cognizance of that fact." Douglas Alexander
Canada is at the tipping point for acceptance of open source. Open source software (OSS) and culture has reached a critical mass in the business world and it is also being actively deployed within the Canadian government. While open source has contributed...
"OSS is indeed the start of a fundamental change in the software infrastructure marketplace, but it is not a hype bubble that will burst and [the] UK government must take cognizance of that fact." Douglas Alexander
Canada is at the tipping point for acceptance of open source. Open source software (OSS) and culture has reached a critical mass in the business world and it is also being actively deployed within the Canadian government. While open source has contributed...
By Mike Gifford
on 04/04/2009
I was fortunate to be invited to participate in a panel discussion organized by Andrew Ross of Ingress. The panel from left to right Roger Burkhardt (Ingres), Jean Bernatchez (Enterprise Stewardship and Internal Services Strategies, Chief Information Officer Branch, Treasury Board of Canada), Dave McIlhagga (DM Solutions), me & Donald Smith (Eclipse):
Business value of open source panel discussion from Andrew Ross on Vimeo.
I had a hard time focusing on what I was going to say to some of the questions that were presented to the panel, because of the responses from the other...
Business value of open source panel discussion from Andrew Ross on Vimeo.
I had a hard time focusing on what I was going to say to some of the questions that were presented to the panel, because of the responses from the other...
By Mike Gifford
on 05/03/2009
One of the things is common in technology conferences these days is side gatherings that are informally called to discuss certain issues. They are generally referred to as Birds of a Feather Gathering. Today I participated in two sessions (discussing nonprofits & CiviCRM) and initiated two (focusing on governments & unions). All were quite interesting and a good opportunity to talk with people passionate about a sector they are involved in.
In both sessions there were nearly 15 people involved. Considering the multiple presentations and discussion sessions that were available at...
In both sessions there were nearly 15 people involved. Considering the multiple presentations and discussion sessions that were available at...
By Mike Gifford
on 13/02/2009
Getting a survey of what software is used across all of the departments within the Government of Canada would be an extremely exhaustive process. I'm quite sure that there are many employees of the federal government who already are spending considerable time counting their proprietary licenses. So, how is it possible to get a quick overview of how open source is being used, since there are no contractual responsibilities to report it?
With websites a lot of basic information is generally offered up from the server, and with a well established site like Netcraft we can do a quick audit of...
With websites a lot of basic information is generally offered up from the server, and with a well established site like Netcraft we can do a quick audit of...
By Mike Gifford
on 11/02/2009
One of the reasons given about why the government should worry about open source software is security. I'm rather tired of this argument, so after hearing it one too many times, I decided to take some action.
The concern is that if a piece of software is open for everyone, including hackers, it will be more vulnerable. This has been shot down any number of times, with some of the best known arguments stemming from the idea that many eyeballs will give you better confidence in the security of your software. Others security experts that have argued that good open source software is as secure...
The concern is that if a piece of software is open for everyone, including hackers, it will be more vulnerable. This has been shot down any number of times, with some of the best known arguments stemming from the idea that many eyeballs will give you better confidence in the security of your software. Others security experts that have argued that good open source software is as secure...
By Mike Gifford
on 03/02/2009
I attended an excellent talk last night about GCPedia that was presented by Jeff Braybrook, Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Canada at a Third Tuesday Ottawa Gathering. It was excellent to hear more about the history of the adoption of the open source tool Mediawiki within the Government of Canada. Jeff described Canada's CTO office as being "Hawkish about open source", and wanting to use it as much as possible. At a time when procurement officers and IT departments are still questioning whether or not open source can be used within government, this was great news.
His view that wiki's...
His view that wiki's...