hacking the government, the British way

[Oleg Goldshmidt]

Hi,

We have elections on the horizon and a bunch of NGO members, from
Hamakor down, up, and sideways, on this list. And we often see - and
complained about - cluelessness in government IT, software, websites,
etc.

So, it looks like the UK government is trying to do something that
sounds on the face of it, vaguely intelligent about IT projects, cf.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/02/cabinet_office_open_principles/

I am not trying to say this is going to be brilliant or workable or
not prone to subversion by "Sir Humphreys"[*], but given how gov.il is
always keen to look abroad to justify doing or not doing stuff, maybe
someone should point it out to some politicians looking for votes in
January?

If ths generates any heated or prolonged discussions may I suggest
conducting them on the appropriate NGO lists and forums? I am not a
member of any, so it was easier for me to post here in the belief that
it is on topic. How to best influence the politicians, however,
probably isn't, unless someone hacks up a Linux-based AI to run the
country.

[*] Some of the younger list members may need, e.g.,
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_Minister to understand who "Sir
    Humphrey" was. The rest of us may well be reminded that the
    fictional Minister whose efforts to reform things were so often
    thwarted by Sir Humphrey was called Jim Hacker.

-- 
Oleg Goldshmidt | pub at goldshmidt.org