Oops, accidentally nuked two real comments when cleaning out spam comments:

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Instead of puffing out your chests and feeling wonderful about how you're "forcing" the state to do things, how about seeking out allies among the people actually doing the work? In the case of Oregon, for example, open standards is already the law and open source is already widely used.

Open data format is a much more interesting idea, but here, too, you have allies inside government if you'd only ask. Every government has an interest in archiving information and data. Closed formats, whether of data files or of tape media, interfere with this function. In Oregon, the Secretary of State's office is responsible for archiving rules and enforcement. Talk to them or the corresponding office in your jurisdiction.

That is, if this is not merely an exercise in hype.
Posted by: Ray Robert at June 18, 2003 11:20 AM

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No, not just an exercise in hype! I agree with what you write; if you are interested, I encourage you to join the mailing list (although there is a lot of traffic). We are trying to get everyone involved, including people inside government who I agree should be our allies in this.

I would love to work with someone in my jurisdiction, but unfortunately I live in the same Washington state district as Microsoft's main campus, and I don't think politically it would work here, at least not as the first case.

So the plan with ODFI is first to work out what a sample bill should look like, then try to find at least one state legislator who is interested in supporting it. Oregon would be a great place to do this.

If you have any details on open standards being the law in Oregon, please share them. Thanks.

- adam
Posted by: Adam Barr at June 18, 2003 01:21 PM