Free Software In California

Recently on ca.gov (The state of California's website) there was a request for IT ideas to fix the Government's IT problems. I want to advocate a free software solution by outlining and drafting a suggestion. The idea will be submitted to (http://ca-it.ideascale.com/). California mentions 3 ideas to keep in mind when answering these questions

• What new services or improvement to existing online services should we be providing? You can see the existing services here.
• As an entrepreneur, how would you like to partner with the State to bring innovative IT solutions?
• The State of California has a number of systems using older technologies. How can we best leverage innovative IT solutions to modernize our portfolio?

Outline

Question 3

• Proprietary software depends on the vendor to modify the software. If the vendor is slow or shuts down the State of California is stuck with software that can not be updated or modified.
  • Freedom 1 in the free software definition solves this problem and allows the users (in this case the state) to modify the software to fit their needs.
• Using proprietary software and the use of proprietary data formats causes vendor lock in.
  • Data using proprietary file formats may not be accessible using programs decades later.
    • Example: Microsoft had to enter a special deal with the UK National Archives just to ensure old file formats could still be read (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6265976.stm)
    • This could be solved by using free software file formats such as opendocument (http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/opendocument) like the State of Massachusetts is.
• Free software freedom number 3 allows you to help the community as a whole. There is already a free software community that has been already developed that can make the Californian community much stronger.