Recently DataSF launched and I’m not very familiar with the concept, but it looks like a step in the right direction for city based data initiatives more or less in line with the “Cities That Think Like the Web” initiative. I still think the holy grail of reusability for government websites is a bit off and can only be combined with excellent websites and web literacy, but we are making progress.
We could pass the Open City Motion here in Amsterdam but there is in fact nothing in it which is new or contradicts current legislature and initiatives regarding open data and open source. It’s all already in place, it just is not being done (properly).
The biggest problem is that the issue is mudlded by a bunch of directives —is this NOIV or some other initiative?—, a lot of people don’t know what they’re doing and the political will and prioritization from the top is missing.
After a significant enough portion of the populace has become more web literate and one or more election cycles have passed we may get a group that will implement this, but I and my early adopter tech friends can’t really wait for that. So what to do?
Do you think NOiV is helping or hindering in this matter, Alper? And in what way?
I don’t know. It’s just the first acronym I could think of. Mostly people point to it to end the discussion. Does anybody know?
There’s a plethora of initiatives and it would seem most of the stuff we need is in place but I don’t see any vision or direction on a higher level.
I think NOiV’s main message is “Dudes, do Open Source & Open Standards things! It’s useful!”, so I think at least their objective is to be helping.
Not sure whether they are actually making a difference at this moment and converting people (that is a “I really do not know”-I’m not sure, by the way, not snark).
That I think is the main problem. A lot of people are saying this but I don’t know anybody on the executive level who is actually doing it.