OSFA Responds to the US Open Government National Action Plan

As part of the Open Government Partnership, the US Government’s National Action Plan was released and the White House asked for input from the public on how citizen participation could be improved, facilitated, and measured. Here is OSFA’s response, which we submitted on January 3rd, 2012.

Open Source for America (OSFA) appreciates this opportunity to comment on the Open Government National Action Plan. OSFA was formed in 2009 to advocate for the use of open source software and the open source development process in the US Government.

OSFA sees the Open Government Initiative as a unique opportunity to institutionalize the use of these tools to further to goals of transparency, collaboration, and participation &emdash; values which are inherent to the open source process itself. More information on OSFA can be found at http://www.opensourceforamerica.org.

Below, we focus our attention on one of the questions posed in the blog notice: What are the most effective forms of technology and web tools to encourage public participation, engage with the private sector/non-profit and academic communities, and provide the public with greater and more meaningful opportunities to influence agencies’ plans?