Using Free, Open-Source Software in Local Governments: Streamlined Internal Computing for Better Performance and Record Keeping An ICMA Report Michael A. Repas About ICMA For more information, please contact: ICMA advances professional local government worldwide. Michael A. Repas Its mission is to create excellence in local governance by Knowledge Network Associate developing and advancing professional management of local [email protected] government. ICMA, the International City/County Manage- ment Association, provides member support; publications, Thomas Stefaniak data, and information; peer and results-oriented assistance; Knowledge Network Director and training and professional development to more than (202) 962-3542 9,000 city, town, and county experts and other individu- [email protected] als and organizations throughout the world. The manage- Copyright © 2010 by the International City/County Manage- ment decisions made by ICMA’s members affect 185 million ment Association. All rights reserved, including rights of individuals living in thousands of communities, from small reproduction and use in any form or by any means, includ- villages and towns to large metropolitan areas. ing the making of copies by any photographic process, or by ICMA any electrical or mechanical device, printed, written, or oral 777 North Capitol Street, NE or recording for sound or visual reproduction, or for use in Suite 500 any knowledge or retrieval system or device, unless permis- Washington, DC 20002–4201 sion in writing is obtained from the copyright proprietor. 202–289-ICMA (4262) icma.org Using Free, Open-Source Software in Local Governments: Streamlined Internal Computing for Better Performance and Record Keeping Nobody seems to have stood up in a meeting and said Introduction “You know, there’s lots of very good open source con- This report was composed for employees of local tent management systems (CMS) out there—there’s governments, with the intention of showcasing how one called WordPress, which is free and eminently customizable.” This is peculiar, as WordPress was and why some local governments in the United States available (and as solid as any CMS) in 2005 [the time have switched some or all internal software policies to of the problems], runs on MySQL and PHP …and rely on free and/or open-source software. There have there are lots of programmers around with MySQL and been a few pioneers in the application of these types PHP skills.2 of software among local governments, but the industry has moved much further in that direction over the past Those initial examples aside, it is first necessary few years. As a result, it is likely that local govern- to give a definition of what open-source software ments are not achieving optimal performance with refers to, as different local governments use different the software they currently have and could start using approaches to their technology standards. One of the free, open-source software solutions instead, saving most prevalent definitions of open source used by the money while getting the job done more quickly and industry is found on the website of the Open Source efficiently. This is not merely a tool for local govern- Initiative. It explains that the source code that makes ments; as a recent study reports, the highest levels of the program run must be freely available for enthusi- U.S. government are also making use of these tools. asts to improve as they like. Historically, Open Source technologies had been dis- The program must include source code, and must allow couraged within the Department of Defense…. [Cur- distribution in source code as well as compiled form. rently,] Open Source is used extensively in security Where some form of a product is not distributed with applications, and research uses Open Source for the source code, there must be a well-publicized means of exchange of ideas and shedding of costs. Since Open obtaining the source code for no more than a reason- Source had been discouraged within the department, able reproduction cost preferably, downloading via the why then was it being used at all? First, but not always Internet without charge. The source code must be the foremost, is cost. Second, many Open Source solutions preferred form in which a programmer would modify are highly responsive. [Third,] security of the proprie- the program. Deliberately obfuscated source code is not tary software was often a concern, since only one major allowed. Intermediate forms such as the output of a software firm—the respective vendor/developer— preprocessor or translator are not allowed.3 provided only after-the-fact security patches.1 Including the source code makes the program is With this type of recommendation being imple- free for anyone to use or modify. The beauty of the mented at the highest levels of security in the U.S. system, as its years of existence have demonstrated, federal government, the utility and cost-saving capa- is that it is almost completely decentralized, and yet bilities of free and open-source software at the local the changes that meet with most approval are kept, level begin to become clear. The possibilities presented whereas those that do not work are edited out by by open-source software emanating from a bigger other members in the community. Free software does and better pool of programmers working to improve not have to be open source in terms of licensing, but it are also manifest: In England, Birmingham’s local in many ways is a derivative of the same conditions government’s expensive proprietary software-based that started the open-source movement. blog crashed when too many citizens used it. As one Given that vital criteria, a simple example will newspaper posed, suffice to illustrate the biggest strength of free and USING FREE, OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE IN LOCAL GOVERNMENTS 1 open-source software. A problem with proprietary, Government entities, primarily state and more specifi- costly software is that the software provider allows cally municipal [and] local government entities, are only its small group of internal employees to make more prone to repurpose old hardware as their budgets changes to the software, meaning that if a group of are not as robust as federal budgets (within limits, of course). One of the greatest strengths of open source users experiences problems, there is no guarantee that software is that it is generally more flexible in that is requesting a change will make it happen. There is also does not require the latest, greatest, newest and most the possibility that the software provider will provide expensive hardware to run effectively. In addition, open the requested features or changes, but as an “upgrade source solutions tend to be developed and deployed or new edition, and thus charge more money for with open standards in mind. This is an important ele- something that should not have been a problem ment in enabling software to be and remain compatible to start. on a variety of hardware(s) and platforms.6 Open-source software, however, can be changed by anyone who is having a problem and knows how By offering case studies and a resource section, this to program, so the chance of the issue being solved report provides a brief rationale and instructions for quickly magnitude is much higher. Free software is getting a local government started with open source. a different entity in this case, but it would not be as successful as it has been if it were not stable and use- Case studies ful. An August 2009 report from Public Sector Forums showed that the top three reasons people say a local government should switch to open-source software are Washington, D.C. lower cost (75 percent of respondents), lack of sup- Population: 600,000 (5.3 million in metropolitan area) plier dependency (47 percent), and better functionality Website: www.dc.gov/index.asp (40 percent).4 In 2008, many changes were being planned for the software model in the Washington, D.C. municipal About this report government. The city’s intranet for its employees— the collection of websites used internally for the This report examines six case studies of local govern- purposes of coordination and increased productiv- ments that have implemented several aspects of free ity—was outdated and essentially nonfunctional, or open-source software: given the problems involved. As such, Chief Technol- • Washington, D.C. ogy Officer Vivek Kundra planned on taking the tech- • Los Angeles, California nology infrastructure in a different direction. He did • San Francisco, California this for two reasons. First, a closed-source solution • Portland, Oregon would have cost D.C. taxpayers about $4 million, • Largo, Florida which Kundra thought to be exorbitant; and second, Kundra believed that open-source technology is the • Northglenn, Colorado. future of enterprise.7 He chose something untested Each of these governments has different software within local governments in the United States: needs, but their shared use of this type of software Google Apps and their functionality to run websites helps demonstrate its value in a variety of circum- for any enterprise’s intranet. stances. This change can be effective, whether a local government changes some or all of its software from A vibrant new approach to city intranet proprietary to open source. As argued in Government Rather than paying $4 million for proprietary soft- Technology, “Federal IT savings could reach $3.7 bil- ware that would eventually become obsolete, Kundra lion from open source. These cost savings can’t be chose to go with the lower licensing fees of Google, ignored, especially when taxpayer dollars are footing coming out to about $475,000 annually for use by the bill.”5 If this is the estimate for the U.S. federal 38,000 municipal employees.