Policy Hacking: Taking Back Public Sector IT

Presented at The Last HOPE (2008), July 19, 2008, 10 a.m. (60 minutes)

On January 1st, 2002, Arjen tried to access the website of the Dutch national railway (www.ns.nl) using Linux. The site refused him access, saying it was IE-only. This sparked a conversation with members of parliament about the need for open standards. Over a five year period, he progressed from talking to opposition MPs to meeting the economics minister directly and was able to significantly influence national policy despite total lack of funding or any specific mandate. As a result, the Dutch public sector will move to standardize on Open Documents Format and use open source where comparable functionality is available in all new procurements as of 2008. Use of ODF as a public sector document standard will be mandatory in 2009.

This talk will tell the tale of why this was accomplished, how it was done, and how others can do it too in other countries around the world. You'll learn how to get access to the powers-that-be, how to get non-technical people interested in the subject, and how to align your policy proposals with existing policies. While some of the political reasons for wanting open standards and open source in government IT will be touched upon, the focus of the talk will be mainly on how to get results.

Presenters:

• Arjen Kamphuis
  Arjen Kamphuis studied science and policy at Utrecht University and worked for IBM as Unix specialist, Tivoli consultant, and software instructor. As IT strategy consultant at Twynstra Gudde, he was involved in starting up Kennisnet, the Dutch educational network. Since 2001 he has been operating as an independent adviser of companies and governments. In 2002 he co-authored the unanimously accepted parliament motion to mandate open standards for all government IT. In 2007 the motion became policy and the Netherlands became the first western country to make the use of open standards in public sector IT mandatory. He is now working to export this set of policies to other European countries with the help of local political parties and business partners. When not consulting, Arjen is actively involved in (digital) civil liberties, the open source movement, and criticizing the war on terror.

Links:

• https://infocon.org/cons/2600/The Last HOPE (2008)/The Last HOPE (2008) - Policy Hacking - Taking Back Public Sector IT.mp4
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yc4QXZeMK_8

Similar Presentations:

• 31C3 (2014) / The Invisible Committee Returns with "Fuck Off Google": Cybernetics, Anti-Terrorism, and the ongoing case against the Tarnac 10
• Still Hacking Anyway (SHA2017) / Free software in the Dutch public sector
• HOPE X (2014) / The Web Strikes Back - Fighting Mass Surveillance with Open Standards