From: Tim O'Reilly

Subject: Re: An Open API to government and others accountable for the public space

Date: Jun 12, 2009 03:46 PM

This is a really interesting case study for the "government as  
platform" meme I've been encouraging.  Can gov get in the business of  
providing some minimal services (a la the root servers of the DNS,  
originally govt chartered) in such a way that the public takes the  
ball and does everything from there.

Wondering if there's some role for govt in hosting this somehow.   
(Though it's local and not federal.)

Also could be something that NAPA (National Academy of Public  
Administration) could get involved in.  We've been kicking around the  
idea of incubating some kind of generalized geek convener non-profit  
there, to handle projects like this.  It seems wasteful to have a  
separate non-profit for every little initiative.  public.resource.org  
could possibly also be a vehicle of some kind.

(Copying the gov2summit.com program committee, both because there are  
some smart govt thinkers on the list, and also because it might be  
interesting to make this effort part of the event - we're really  
trying to use the event not just as a conference, but as a fulcrum for  
moving various initiatives forward.  An Open311 standard would be a  
really good thing.)

Happy to be part of a call to try to move this ball forward.   
Important stuff.


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