Oregon State UniversityOpen Source Lab

Open Source in GovernmentFrom “Why” to “Why Not

”

Presented to the GIS in Action April 18, 2007

Deborah BryantPublic Sector Communities Manager, OSU Open Source Lab

OSU Open Source Lab• Housed at Oregon State University in

Corvallis• 20 staff; 8 full time and 12 students• Located in the Office of Information

Technology• Inception; cost reductions• Maturation; pulling together disparate

OSU Open Source efforts• Success; earned international

reputation as leading Open Source project hosting and support environment

OSL’s Activities• Supports the OSU Mission of

Education, Outreach and Community Building

• Provides managed and collocated hosting of not-for-profit Open Source Software projects

• Engages in leadership and development of OSS projects

• Builds community for OSS• Contributes to the Open IT ecosystem

in Oregon through its expertise and activities

• Public Sector Program

OSL By the Numbers• 40 million unique visitors a day• Hosting 30 OSS projects• Home to Mozilla, Firefox, Open Office, and

Linux Kernel Development (Master Kernel)• 420% ROI to University in 2 years (Nutch

Search Engine)

• Donations from Industry YTD

• Real Networks: $500,000

• Google: $350,000

• Private community donations: $200,000

• Plus equipment donations

Public Sector Program Activities• Connects people and projects in a growing

Community• Subject matter expertise

– State CIO Council – State Data Center– Open Source Applications– Development Resources– Development Models

• Education & Community Building– Government Open Source Conference

Domestic highlights

• City of Newport News• California Air Resources Board• Oregon Department of

Transportation

Egov – new OSS based on Plone

Open Process: eGov Consortium

Shared Software Shared Implementations Shared Support Contracts Collaborative Enhancements Shared Best Practices & Knowledge Base Mutual Aid Shared Services Evolving and Improving Ecosystem nngov.com

Differentiator Products MaturityApplication Servers 3 176 3 176

3 13 1• PerlPerl• Jboss Java Server for Adobe and FileNetJboss Java Server for Adobe and FileNet

Collaboration• OpenOfficeOpenOffice• JavaMail API Version 1.2JavaMail API Version 1.2

DBMS• MySQLMySQL• jTDS JDBC Driver version 1.2jTDS JDBC Driver version 1.2

Development Tools

• Apache Axis Web Services Version 1.1 1021 Apache Axis Web Services Version 1.1 1021 • Apache Tomcat Version 4.1Apache Tomcat Version 4.1• Apache XML Security Version 1.0.5D2 Apache XML Security Version 1.0.5D2 • BlueJBlueJ• Castor XML Data binding Library Ver 9.5.2/9.5.4 Castor XML Data binding Library Ver 9.5.2/9.5.4 • Jakarta Tomcat Connector 1.2.15Jakarta Tomcat Connector 1.2.15• Java API for Servlets Version 2.3.1Java API for Servlets Version 2.3.1• Java Run Time Environment (JRE) 1.4 Java Run Time Environment (JRE) 1.4 • XML Parser required by Axis Ver 2.5.0 (Xerces)XML Parser required by Axis Ver 2.5.0 (Xerces)• Eclipse IDE (Java development)Eclipse IDE (Java development)• GnomeGnome• Java Development Kit (JDK 1.4.2_07)Java Development Kit (JDK 1.4.2_07)• jEditjEdit• PHPPHP• PythonPython

Integration Service• OpenSTAOpenSTA• JMagick Version 5.5.7 Q8 JNI APIJMagick Version 5.5.7 Q8 JNI API

Presentation• FireFox BrowserFireFox Browser• Paint .NET & GIMP:  Image editingPaint .NET & GIMP:  Image editing• ThunderbirdThunderbird

Instances

2 22 2 2 12 1

2 7 2 7 2 12 1

5 15 1 5 795 79 4 14 1 4 24 2 1 341 34 5 15 1 5 15 1 5 4,500+5 4,500+ 5 15 1 5 165 16 4 14 1 5 1815 181 4 34 3 3 63 6 4 4324 432 1 11 1 1 11 1

Operating System • LinuxLinux 1 681 68 1 971 97 2 22 2 2 12 1

1=Low; 5=High

Plus Mainframe Linux PartitionPlus Mainframe Linux Partition

Lessons Learned: early entrants• Oregon Department of

Administrative Services• Help Desk Project• Commonwealth of MA• Public Policy with a Big “P”

– Oregon– Oregon– Texas– Minnesota

Asterisk Open Source PBXSIP Audio Conferencing with Recording

Customer Requirements• Remote Hearings for Administrative Law Judges• Recordings of proceedings for disposition• High availability

Cost Options• Proprietary System:

$430,000 for Hardware and Software• Open Source System:

$11,500 for Hardware• Staff Time for configuration and testing similar for

both options

Asterisk Open Source PBXSIP Audio Conferencing with Recording

Emerging Projects

• Industry recognizing need for vertical applications

• Former ODSL CEO starts CSI• Eclipse community initiates

Open Health Information Project at OSU

• OthersMy Destination Portal

• Global Open eGOv project out of Stanford

Getting Started• The value of Open Source to

government IT is not the application, it’s the model.

• Network with your peers• Learn by doing in a managed

environment• Policy, light touch• Recommended reading:

– “Succeeding with Open Source” by Bernard Golden

– Visit the www.goscon.org for great materials

– Attend GOSCON Oct 15-16 in Portland.

Thanks!Any questions?

For more information:

Public Sector Communities Manager: Deborah.Bryant@oregonstate.edu

The Lab: www.osuosl.org

The Conference: www.goscon.org

Good definition of OSS terms & context: www.wikipedia.org