Open Source Government

Open Source Government applies the idea of the free software movement (also known as the open source movement), applying it to democratic principles. The idea seems, at first, rather simple: allow any interested citizen to add to the creation of new policy -- rather like a wiki document. Legislation could be democratically opened to the general citizenry in this way, allowing policy development to benefit from the collected wisdom of the people as a whole. It is unclear the degree to which such an approach could be instituted on a national level, but on a smaller more localized scale it may be easier to implement. In any event, the idea demonstrates the still untapped potential of how open technologies can merge with government.

See also: E-democracy

External links

• The Dean of Cincinnati -- person who claims to enact this philosophy in the political workings of Cincinnati, Ohio.
• "The Minimal Compact: An Open-source Constitution for Post-national States" -- outlines a proposal for Open Source Government, dated February, 2003.