The CIO of NH (ie the Commission of NH DOIT) supported this legislation, because it will enable them to track and review purchases for EXACTLY that sort of reason. And in State Government, nothing is ever 'credit card purchase' of software, or shouldn't be.

So I'll reverse the question to you: Have you ever worked at State Government?

No, you don't understand the bill...

It doesn't REQUIRE them to use Open Source over other solutions, but to consider it, using cost benefits answers. And all of your objections are moot then, since this bill essentially DOES what you want it to do: "government adopting Common Open Data formats and selecting the software based on performance makes more sense." (performance and price = total cost benefit analysis, right?)

Some of both... and every shade between, and some new flavors you have heard of... like female libertarians... yes, they exist, really.

Come visit NH, meet all kinds of folks, and see for yourself.

Feb 23-26th: http://freestateproject.org/libertyforum
In June: http://freestateproject.org/content/porcfest

They made no effort to send me a fat check before or since.

Nor did they influence the Senators enough to kill it there. So perhaps they realize that Open Source has won.

Yes, which is why the Open Data part of this bill is even more exciting than the Open Source part of it.

I. The commissioner shall develop a statewide information policy based on the following principles of open government data. According to these principles, open data is data that is:

(a) Complete. All public data is made available, unless subject to valid privacy, security, or privilege limitations.

(b) Primary. Data is collected at the source, with the highest possible level of granularity, rather than in aggregate or modified forms.

(c) Timely. Data is made available as quickly as necessary to preserve the value of the data.

(d) Accessible. Data is available to the widest range of users for the widest range of purposes.

(e) Machine processable. Data is reasonably structured to allow automated processing.

(f) Nondiscriminatory. Data is available to anyone, with no requirement of registration.

(g) Nonproprietary. Data is available in a format over which no entity has exclusive control, with the exception of national or international published standards.

(h) License-free. Data is not subject to any copyright, patent, trademark, or trade secret regulation. Reasonable privacy, security, and privilege restrictions may be allowed.

Compare that to http://www.opengovdata.org/home/8principles

While I believe in a smaller government and "letting everyone decide what to do with their own goddamn money," the 'big red button to end government' doesn't exist. So what to do NOW?

I moved to NH, and work for smaller and more transparent government. I'm an elected State Representative, and bring my principles to the State House, and get stuff like this bill done. And I get paid $100 a year for doing so. Yes, $100 a year. Not $100k, $100 dollars in total.

So I'm not doing it for power, or for money, I'm doing it because it's the right thing to do.

Considering that I'm a libertarian (and member of the Free State Project, so not just a iffy libertarian, but one who packed up and moved his life to New Hampshire, and eventually ran for office, won, and got this legislation passed...), this is FAR from Nanny-State.

Government needs to be accountable on how taxpayer money is spent. Individuals can buy whatever they like, but I want the system to buy only the best choice for the least money, and if open source is considered, it'll often win. Not always, but more than it does now. (NH does use some open source now... FYI, including Apache webservers, for example, for some things)

Bingo. And the Open Data stuff uses the suggested principles formulated by the Open Government Data group including Prof. Larry Lessig.

I'll answer any questions people have about the bill... post comments below.

This will be the FIRST Open Source and Open Data bill in any of the 50 states.

I'm very happy... And yes, I'm a geek. I've got a slashdot UID of 5 digits, have contributed to the Linux kernel and other project, tech edited a book on Drupal, and been doing techy things for over 25 years now...

Thanks, as author of the bill, that was indeed PART of the intent of this...

Yes, I have a 5 digit UID, and remember a time before the endless September. I was (in part) responsible for the SPISPOPD cheat code in Doom. Ich bin ein Nerd.

The scraper used by the NHLA (referred to in the original article) is homebrewed for NH's website. It's actually in it's 3rd generation of code, and powers a complete bill review system, used by the pro-liberty activists to track all 800+ bills each year. See nhliberty.org

There are other scrapers out there... I just came across a site the other day that attempts to scrape and track all 50 states worth of legislation (I won't plug them though), and had a few nice features (like facebook and twitter linkage) that I recommended to the NHLA coders to clone and improve on...

The goal of getting the db dump the state of NH is now providing is to _end_ the need for scraping, and allow anyone who wishes to build a tracking system for far less time and effort and resources. With the current db dump, half of the folks on Slashdot could build a tracking system now. And the other half would then complain about them.

The goal of my open data bill is to have every single NH agency providing various data in a similar manner: it's YOUR data (if you are a NH citizen).
I'd like folks interested in Transportation issues to be able to get better DOT info... for example. The best way to improve things is more eyeballs, that's the philosophy here: if you open it, someone will build apps to use the data, and good things will happen as a result of increased exposure to the information.

Actually, I think relative to the makeup of NH, the makeup of FSP movers is roughly the same. We have plenty of 'minority' participants. In fact, compared to pretty much any Libertarian convention or gathering, we have FAR more women involved in the FSP. If you are a geek woman with libertarian tendencies, you will still have your choice of menfolk here, and yet have a large group of like-minded women to hang out and be friends with - you won't be a rare 1% (the usual mix in libertarian circles), more like 25-30% of the total.

Good points, I'll try and clarify those better.

Glad to see Slashdot pick this up...

The actual bills:

Open Data: http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2011/HB0310.html
Open Source: http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2011/HB0418.html

I'd love to see this legislation copied in every state... patches are welcomed, btw. I can't grant commit access, but bug reports are always welcomed.

I'd also be glad to answer questions, if anyone has any.