City of Vancouver Proposal to Endorse Open Data and Open Standards

A motion is to be submitted to city council that would endorse the principles of open data and open standards and place open source on an equal footing with proprietary software with respect to procurement.  Mayor Robertson has said that an “open city” philosophy would help create new opportunities in the information technology sector.

The motion proposes that the City of Vancouver will endorse

• "Open and Accessible Data - the City of Vancouver will freely share with citizens, businesses and other jurisdictions the greatest amount of data possible while respecting privacy and security concerns;
• "Open Standards - the City of Vancouver will move as quickly as possible to adopt prevailing open standards for data, documents, maps, and other formats of media;
• "Open Source Software - the City of Vancouver, when replacing existing software or considering new applications, will place open source software on an equal footing with commercial systems during procurement cycles"

The City of Vancouver is among the most innovative of the world's cities with respect to the application of IT to improve service to the public.  The VanMap site continues to make new data and applications available to the citizens of Vancouver, and I recently blogged about what Vancouver has done and continues to do in the area of 3d urban modelling. Vancouver intends to be the world's greenest city by 2020.

The UK government implemented a similar procurement policy placing open source on a level playing field with proprietary software earlier this year and the US Department of Defense, probably the world's single largest buyer of software, did the same last year.  There are signs that a similar policy may be being seriously considered by the federal government in Canada.