Murphy's Law: A Tale of Open Source Cities (No Sims Included)

Posted 07/16/2009 at 11:34am | by David Murphy

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With a mighty "yehhh," the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, passed a motion to adopt open standards in its local government this past May.  I find it to be a wonderful development--not just because I write about open source.  Rather, I think that the move is a twofold triumph: It allows governments to free themselves of pricy, proprietary software burdens while simultaneously opening up more areas of government for access by conventional citizens. 

It's no secret that programs like HOST and CRADA are helping the U.S. bring new, open standards of communication and accessibility to the forefront of the discussion.  I'd nevertheless like to see more cities working the answer from a bottom-to-top approach, adopting motions like Vancouver's--or, for that matter, using Vancouver's exact template--to call for the integration of open-source ideas and programs wherever possible in local government.

It's not an idle dream, as various cities in the United States have already started to dip their toes into open waters.  If our brethren to the north can take the plunge into open source sans hesitation, why not us as well?

Let's first consider the actual parameters of Vancouver's motion, which calls for more than just switching from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice.org. In it, the legislation defines three principle calls to action:

• Open and Accessible Data: the City of Vancouver will freely share with citizens, businesses and other jurisdictions the greatest amount of data possible while respecting privacy and security concerns;
• Open Standards: the City of Vancouver will move as quickly as possible to adopt prevailing open standards for data, documents, maps, and other formats of media;
• Open Source Software: the City of Vancouver, when replacing existing software or considering new applications, will place open source software on an equal footing with proprietary systems during procurement cycles.

This has broad implications--like the subsequent example in the motion that calls for Vancouver to, "License any software applications developed by the City such that they may be used by other municipalities, businesses, and the public without restriction."  But the motion's principles can also relate to something as simple as using a non-proprietary format when recording videos of local legislative action. Or, a blessing to reporters everywhere, a single entry point for accessing government data and records in an easy to navigate, universal format.  As a former court reporter in Chicago, I can't begin to describe my frustration for you in having to hop on what amounted to an old Amiga computer just to access monochrome government records.

U.S. cities have been steadily creeping up to this idea. The City of San Francisco is currently sponsoring a community called OpenData, which seeks to blend these ideas of transparency and universal access under a single roof. This follows in the footsteps of Washington D.C., which has already implemented a wide degree of data feeds related to government services and interactions that are all freely available for the public to digest. 

Piggybacking off of that, the city even set up a contest for third-party developers to create their own open-source Web applications or digital feeds based off this information.  According to Government Computer News, winners included, "a Web map that, when D.C. given an address, can return demographic data, crime reports and other information for that neighborhood. Also winning an award was a carpool matchmaker and a series of mobile phone apps that, using the phones GPS tracking, can point you to the nearest bank, post office, gas station or other resource."  That's a great handful of useful applications that, surprise, would have cost the city far much more in time and resources to produce itself.

But it seems that for every open source project that's underway (or in the planning stages), there's a countervailing force keeping this kind of access out of the public hands.  Take New York City, for example.  If you've ever lived in a big city, you'll know that one of the most useful elements for your daily life would be an on-time guide that tells you when the next form of public transit is headed your way.  It's a simple concept, right?  Slap some trackers on the transportation, develop some kind of useful mobile application or Web site, and let everyone plan their schedules for when the next crosstown bus will arrive at their doorstep.

Not so fast.  In regards to NYC, John Geraci from DIYcity.org puts it best: "To the MTA of course this is unthinkable. They refuse to even make their timetable information public via API, citing legal and security concerns, and seeming to harbor a feeling that there's money to be made from that data."  While he goes on to suggest that programmers are nevertheless developing applications to make the best of what available data exists in various cities, his ultimate point mirrors mine pretty closely.

Just imagine the possibilities that could occur if cities, big and small, opened up their vast information infrastructures in easy-to-access, common interfaces.  Let third parties take the freely available information and spin it into valuable applications that benefit everyone--or, better yet, have the various governments license this information under the stipulation that derivative works would have to be just as open themselves.

"Open source the cities!" doesn't have quite the same ring to it as "hack the planet!"  Nevertheless, I really think Vancouver's on to something great.  Numerous American cities have been playing in the open source pool for some time now. I say it's time to head over the falls--perhaps this could inspire more tepid cities to piggyback on for the ride.

David Murphy (@ Acererak) is a technology journalist and former Maximum PC editor. He writes weekly columns about the wide world of open-source and roundups of awesome, freebie software. Shoot him a message via Twitter, especially if you have an awesome app or game you're dying to recommend!