Melbourne OpenAustralia HackFest coming up on 26 September - sign-up now

OpenAustralia is holding its second HackFest in Melbourne on Saturday 26 September and is inviting programmers, designers and interested people to attend.

Details of the event are over at Anyvite.

If you're interested in going along, RSVP by 23 September as they are limited to 30 spots.

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Canberra Google Wave Hackathon Day

Due to the efforts of volunteers, a Google Wave Hackathon is being held in Canberra at the ANU on Saturday 8 August to explore coding possibilities for the new Google Wave platform.

The free and unaffiliated event will feature a Google representative giving an introduction to Wave's API, followed by an opportunity to work with the code to explore potential applications that make use of Wave.

The event is primarily designed for developers, however may also interest designers and user-experience professionals who wish to gain an in-depth understanding of Wave ahead of its public beta release.

For government to effectively continue to serve citizens online it is important that public servants stay connected to the latest developments in order to critically assess how they may be used in the public interest.

Full details are below. Places are limited - book fast!


Canberra Google Wave Hackathon Day
Saturday 8th August

PROGRAM:
9:30am Registration
10:00am Talks

A presenter from Google (details available soon) will give an introduction to the Wave API.

If you have already been developing for Wave, please consider giving a short presentation about what you have done (doesn't have to be a formal presentation).

12:00 pm Brainstorming Lunch (BYO or we will take orders & payment for pizza at registration)
1:00 pm Hacking
5:00 pm Demos
7:00 pm Head out for dinner at restaurant (at your own cost).

LOCATION
Room N101, CIST Building, ANU, North Road, Canberra

REGISTRATION
You must register if you wish to attend so that a Google Wave Developer sandbox account can be created for you. Registrations will close on Tuesday, 4th August so that the accounts can be created.

Numbers are limited, so please register as soon as possible at: http://tr.im/cbrwave

This day is being organised by volunteers who are interested in Google Wave development and thought it would be useful to have a Google Wave developers day in Canberra. Please indicate if you are willing to assist with organising and running the day. Contact brenda@moon.net.au for more information.

We will be providing WiFi internet access, but you will need to bring your own computer. Please have a look at the developer information on the Google Wave site (http://code.google.com/apis/wave/) as an introduction.

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Websites dropping support for Internet Explorer 6 - does your department need to upgrade its web browser?

Over the last few weeks several major websites have sent the signal that they are progressively dropping support for Internet Explorer 6, the nine-year old web browser from Microsoft that has been the staple web browser in many government and corporate environments.

First was Digg, with the message on 4 July, Much Ado About IE6, that,

Based on the amount of activity and the relative rate of its decline, we’re likely to stop supporting IE6 for logged in activity like digging, burying, and commenting. Users of IE6 would still be able to view pages — just not logged in. This won’t happen tomorrow, but we’re thinking about doing it soon.

Today (Tuesday US time), YouTube sent a similar message, turning on a message advising IE6 users to upgrade, as first reported by TechCrunch in YouTube Will Be Next To Kiss IE6 Support Goodbye.

This builds on a European campaign, Stop Living in the Past, where websites have been progressively warning IE6 users to upgrade, or blocking them from accessing content, reportedly even supported by Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer.

In my view this is great to see happen. Many organisations are restricted to testing on the web browsers they allow internally, which tends to result in online services which work superbly in IE6, but fail to meet modern standards and present poorly in modern browsers less - effectively failing accessibility hurdles.

However it presents an interesting conundrum for organisations still relying on IE6. While the browser may still meet their internal security model, it may be no longer 'fit for purpose' due to declining support by websites.

Fortunately there are no software licensing charges for upgrading to a more modern web browser - which are more secure and robust as well as being more standards compliant - so the main costs are security testing, configuration and rollout.

Proactive security teams may have already done the work required - Internet Explorer 8 has been available for security testing since March 2008 and Firefox 3 has been around since May 2008 (with 3.5 released recently).

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Getting the government out of government 2.0

A key factor in government 2.0 is that it doesn't have to be a government body that delivers the government 2.0 experience.

Sometimes government should simply be the platform providing the data and allow external organisations to provide the combined services and information that the public wants.

This can lead to faster, cheaper and more innovative service and information delivery. External parties are not bound by the same restrictions and overheads as the public sector, can draw on more diverse pools of ideas and compete to provide the best solutions.

Of course there needs to be oversight to ensure that accuracy and equity remain top of mind. Everyone eligible for a service should be able to access it, and information needs to be available in an accurate and timely fashion.

These concerns can often be managed through appropriate copyrighting (such as Creative Commons) or by having government provide a base-level service.

One of the best examples of government 2.0 in Australia fits these criteria.

OpenAustralia republishes Hansard records and the Members' Register of Interest for Federal government, making them easier to access, search and comment on.

Should government provide a similar tool?

I'd argue no. Provided government can make the information available in a basic way, and ensure the information is readily accessible to be republished by others, the government can focus its investments into other areas of improvement.

In my view this doesn't only hold for Hansard records. There are many areas across government where we would be better served by making data available in a simple reusable format and allow the not-for-profit and private sectors to provide services on top.

Below is a speech by one of the founders, Matthew Landauer, given to the employees of Google about the purpose and journey of OpenAustralia, with a glimpse into the future of the site.

A post about the speech - and the OpenHacking event OpenAustralia recently held is on the Google Code blog, Australia goes open.

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New York Senate opens up its data to the public

The New York State Senate has launched its Open Senate initiative with an API (Application Programming Interface) allowing the public direct access to its data.

The NY Senate is also making the code freely available as open source, stating that,

As a user of Open-Source software the New York Senate wants to help give back to the community that has given it so much - including this website. To meet its needs the Senate is constantly devleoping new code and fixing existing bugs. Not only does the Senate recognize that it has a responsibility to give back to the Open Source community, but public developments, made with public money should be public.

The Senate is also working towards making most NY State government data freely available on their open data site.

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