<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<p>Thanks Mark for your feedback,</p>
<p>I'll endevour to work through it (as well as the feedback a
number of other people have been providing) over the next few
days. If you have the chance to copy your feedback into the
relevant sections of the document, that will make it easier for me
to address. Otherwise I'll insert in where I think it is
applicable.</p>
<p>I have actioned (and resolved) most of the comments received so
far. Outstanding comments are either:</p>
<p>* Recent</p>
<p>* Have some deep concepts behind them which I'm still considering
how best to address</p>
<p>* Conflicts with other priorities we are trying to achieve with
this document. There have been ~ 20+ people who have been adding
suggestions. I'm hoping to achieve "rough consensus" but am aware
we can't satisfy everyone.</p>
<p>With regards to the position of Linux Australia, I'm aware the
Linux Australia Council met last week and was going to discuss
supporting this proposal, but I haven't heard what was resolved.
If someone from the council who was at the meeting could reach out
to me to let me know how you would like to proceed, that would be
great.</p>
<p>Cheers, Cameron<br>
</p>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 20/3/18 3:46 am, Mark Phillips
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:222172556.4685863.6736bd81-44ad-4293-b489-d7be6c515bfc.open-xchange@webmailox.com.au">
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">Cameron,</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">Let me be quiet
clear. Neither myself nor OSIA support your open letter to the
Open Government forum in it’s current form. Nor did OSIA
initiate this open letter. I am rather alarmed that you have not
corrected or even addressed Kathy Reids comments<a
class="sdfootnoteanc" href="#sdfootnote1sym"
name="sdfootnote1anc" moz-do-not-send="true"><sup
style="line-height: 0;">1</sup></a> in your latest
iteration.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">My previous
suggestions do not seem to have made it into your latest draft,
I intend to reiterate them below as well trying to overcome what
I see as a confusing document.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">Overall there
seems to be a confusing discussion between open government and
open communities. The two are not synonymous. In order to join
the Open Government Partnership:</p>
<p style="margin-left: 1.25cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height:
100%;">“countries must commit to uphold the principles of open
and transparent government by endorsing the Open Government
Declaration”.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">Signing this
declaration means the signatories are:</p>
<p style="margin-left: 1.25cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height:
100%;">“committed to the principles enshrined in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Convention against
Corruption, and other applicable international instruments
related to human rights and good governance:”<a
class="sdfootnoteanc" href="#sdfootnote2sym"
name="sdfootnote2anc" moz-do-not-send="true"><sup
style="line-height: 0;">2</sup></a><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">This is not the
same as developing open source hardware/software. Nor is it the
same as an open community. It is alluding to the openness of
government itself. And yes having open communities is one
mechanism for deciding this. Technology is one mechanism for
implementing this and so is basic education.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">The emphasis in
your proposal is to hand over the development of open government
to open communities without addressing some of the fundamental
issues with open communities.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">As you have
mentioned wikipedia in your latest iteration, lets start with
wikipedia as an example. The main issue with wikipedia is the
continuous editing of controversial pages by opposing groups.
This continuous editing extends to the level where organisations
edit their pages to highlight their positives traits and to
downplay their negative traits. This is handle by wikipedia
through locking pages and banning access to repeat offenders.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">You have not
highlighted let alone discussed the problems business working
with open communities and a possible solution to these problems.
(volunteers working at their own pace, feature definition,
corporate deadlines, licensing, dispute resolution etc).</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">I also don't
believe that an open community will help in the sense that you
define open communities. I believe that there should be a hybrid
of corporate and open source communities such that the better
parts of each of the communities is combined to produce a much
better working environment, if you insist in open communities
working directly with the government.<br>
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">In your proposal
you make the statement</p>
<p style="margin-left: 1.25cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height:
100%;">“By sharing our knowledge we share the profit from that
knowledge; we help reduce income disparity<a
class="sdfootnoteanc" href="#sdfootnote3sym"
name="sdfootnote3anc" moz-do-not-send="true"><sup
style="line-height: 0;">3</sup></a>;”</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">This is a
blanket statement with no references nor proof that shows that
this is indeed the case. How does an open community relying on
knowledge reduce income disparity. It is not until that
knowledge is implemented is there the possibility that income
would be generated. Unles you are talking about social
income/social income disparity.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">While the tone
of the open letter has been toned down since my last review it
still contains a number of statements which “tell” the
government what to do. Further these statements come with no
proof nor references justifying the statements made. It does not
discuss or even allude to the issues surrounding open source
communities or open source licensing. I believe you miss the
point of both Pia’s and United States Assistant Secretary of
Defense’s papers. Neither abrogate that the government run open
source projects. They discuss how to leverage from open source
projects.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">This is why I
believe open standards for government interaction and data use
combined with multiple external open source communities would
achieve a better outcome for Open Source development in
Australia. Just look at the number of desktops that exist on
Linux. They all work to the same standard, are supported by open
source communities and are, to the most part, application
inter-operational.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">Defining an open
standard and then allowing open communities to evolve around
these standards provides multiple solutions in which there may
be multiple “best” solutions. At this point Not only could the
government support specific open communities but could support
multiple open source communities essentially providing the same
functionality<a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="#sdfootnote4sym"
name="sdfootnote4anc" moz-do-not-send="true"><sup
style="line-height: 0;">4</sup></a>.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">Overall the
proposal still comes across as a idealogical diatribe on “what
you must do” and “you should do it this way” rather than a
method of how open government may collaborate with open
communities.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">As I mentioned
in previous emails, OSIA and myself will wait until the
Melbourne discussion group meets on the 20 March 2018 before
either of us, OSIA and myself, commit to any proposal to the
government.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">Also, this
discussion are my own opinions and may not reflect the opinions
of OSIA.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">Mark Phillips<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;"><br>
</p>
<p class="sdfootnote"><a class="sdfootnotesym"
href="#sdfootnote1anc" name="sdfootnote1sym"
moz-do-not-send="true">1</a>15<sup style="line-height: 0;">th</sup>
March 16:36</p>
<p class="sdfootnote"><a class="sdfootnotesym"
href="#sdfootnote2anc" name="sdfootnote2sym"
moz-do-not-send="true">2</a><a
href="https://www.opengovpartnership.org/open-government-declaration"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.opengovpartnership.org/open-government-declaration</a>,</p>
<p class="sdfootnote"><a class="sdfootnotesym"
href="#sdfootnote3anc" name="sdfootnote3sym"
moz-do-not-send="true">3</a><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/bp-reward-work-not-wealth-220118-en.pdf">https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/bp-reward-work-not-wealth-220118-en.pdf</a></p>
<p class="sdfootnote"><a class="sdfootnotesym"
href="#sdfootnote4anc" name="sdfootnote4sym"
moz-do-not-send="true">4</a>So while I’m aware of closed
systems and data, ie security and defence, that should not be
part of open communities, I do not feel this is a discussion for
this forum.</p>
</blockquote>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Cameron Shorter
Technology Demystifier, Learnosity
Open Technologies Consultant
M +61 (0) 419 142 254</pre>
</body>
</html>