Public administrations

[Claus Schwarm <c schwarm gmx net>]

Because of the presidential election, and other events, I like to share
my thoughts on getting GNOME into public administrations. I still
believe that science, universities, and students are a better way to go,
so this will be rather short.

When talking to public administrations, the central difficulty seems to
be that the brand GNOME is probably not very well known. The
difference between Linux desktops are hard to explain without letting
someone experience them. Additionally, this would be once again this
GNOME vs. KDE thingy which sucks, IMHO.

However, the main questions of people responsible for public
administration is probably: "Will I be able to get all the software I
need when I switch to Linux?" and "How can I do this?" or "How did
others do this?"

This might be the key to get in touch with pubic administration: We bind
the brand GNOME with a communication service for public governments.

There are already such web-based services but they are either lead by
cooperations [1] or they start from scratch [2]. GNOME got a community
(i.e. fans all over the world ;) ) and we have no financial interests.

Additionally, GNOME got the means to organize development efforts,
including translations, and to solve software needs (our own, at least).

The problem with software needs in public administration seems to be
their diversity. I found a project that tries to adress this [3] by
using a simple XML file to describe interfaces and functionality,
embedded in a base platform, see also [4], [5], and [6]. The code is not
public yet but it will be as far as I can see. I can translate the parts
of the description if anyone is interested.

The application is written in Java but doesn't seem to be using SWT, see
also [4]. If the application works and gets proper promotion, it won't
be integrated into GNOME.

Such a GNOME project (gnome-for-governments.org, maybe ;) ) spreads the
brand, gives our financial supporters a platform to advertise, enables
us to organize developments efforts on a government software solution
(including translations), and enables users to share experiences, and
solutions (a directory for existing modules, for example).

It makes it easy for interests parties to find information (they can't
be expected to search for GNOME when looking for solutions), look at
localised screenshots (very important), and since there are already some
public deployments of GNOME, some of us might already know people to ask
for participation.

Additionally, a proper CMS based web page makes it easy for us to
collect necessary information without letting it getting public - who's
responsible?, who decides?, which media?, which mailing-lists?, which
forums?, etc. It's also an easy means to collect information about the
needs of public service deployments.

Developing a software solution lets the GNOME foundations (or the
project if they print officially-looking paper) send out press releases
in regular intervalls that are interesting for journals targeting public
service administration.

It also kind of circumvences the main problem of local
developments: They are developed to fit local needs and thus makes
the whole point of Open Source nearly meaningless.

Additionally, Mono seems to be a nice tool to develop a solution in a
short time, if I believe the promotion. ;) On the other hand, working
together with the existing project might be an additional option.

Also, even when developed in a central space, there should be enought
options for local businesses to do deployments, and sell services for
the solution -- an additional interest group we could talk to via the
foundation or the project, spread knowledge about the development
platform, get high-quality bug reports, etc.

You may like to have a look at the pictures taken at a recent
conference, organized by the LUG Lörrach (Germany), for workers within
public administration, and interested citicens. [7] Similar conferences
could be organized by the gnome-for-governments project, together with
local LUGs in Spain, Brasil, Australia, and elsewhere. It would also
serve as a nice incentive to get invitited on conferences for the target
group if such conferences exists.

Well, just a thought. Someone just needs to set up a proper CMS
based-website (see spreadfirefox.com for an example), and take the lead
organizing this.


Regards,

Claus


All references are german:

[1] http://www.linux-kommunale.de/
[2] http://www.open-government.org/
[3] http://www.open-government.org/index.php?id=101
[4] http://www.open-government.org/index.php?id=109
[5] http://www.open-government.org/index.php?id=119
[6] http://www.open-government.org/index.php?id=120
[7] http://www.80686-net.de/page,04-10-29