Tech@State: Oh, the Places We STILL Need to Go...

The fact that the State Department hosted a conference last week on open source shows how far the U.S. Federal Government has come in terms of tech policy. Yet the content at Tech@State: Open Source often illustrated that the road ahead is still long and arduous.

I nearly cheered when Greg Elin, chief data architect at FCC, said “open source is a nonissue inside of the FCC anymore.” But when he asked, “Are people really having a problem that where they work in government is saying 'we can't use open source?'" responses ranged from raised hands, to angry mumbling, and a couple of frustrated shouts of “Yes!”

This brought me back to last month’s Federal Open Technology Report Card, presented by Open Source for America co-chair Gunnar Hellekson at the conference. The Report Card showed a wide disparity between high-scoring agencies like the Department of Defense (82%) and low-scoring agencies like the Department of the Interior (37%).

The Report Card and conferences like Tech@State Open Source show that we’ve made great strides in the increasing adoption of policies that allow for the use of and contribution to open source projects, but that implementation by government agencies varies widely. Fortunately, such conferences help connect those who have already successfully integrated open source into their agencies with those who still have concerns or face uncertainty or doubt within their departments, which I view as a very positive step on the journey to a technology-savvy government.