More and more governments are exploring different ways for communicating internally, with provinces, municipalities and more importantly, citizens. This often means experimentation with various tools and techniques. Open source provides an opportunity to explore different ways to delivering information and solicit feedback in a cost effective manner without limiting functionality. In fact - open source provides more functionality. Supported by communities of developers open source solutions developers to contribute to government in a way that hasn't been possible before and gives government access to years of experience and expertise.
Advantages of open source for government:
- No cost for solution
- Can create opportunity for 2 way conversation between the public and government
- Gives governments access to thousands of developers who support open source solutions
- Can get up and running quickly
- Gives quick access to web 2.0 functionality
Here are just a few articles that show how Governments are embracing open source:
Government creates own version of Wikipedia
UK government eyes open source for flexibility, cost savings
Open source for America
Open Source Could Cut Costs for Federal, State and Local Government
Open source government
5 government sites using Drupal effectively