Episode description

The O’Reilly Programming Podcast: Applying open source practices beyond software.

In this episode of the O’Reilly Programming Podcast, I talk with Jason Hibbets, senior community evangelist in corporate marketing at Red Hat, where he is a community manager for Opensource.com. We discuss how the open source model can be applied to other disciplines beyond technology, especially in the area of open government.

Discussion points:

• Hibbets describes OpenSource.com as an open source storytelling platform and discusses some of the stories published there, including coverage of an open high school in Utah and brain cancer patients who advocate for the sharing of health data.
• His book, The Foundation for an Open Source City, covers the experience in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he has been active in numerous civic hacking projects.
• The characteristics of an open source city, according to Hibbets, include a culture of citizen participation, an effective open government policy, and an open data initiative.
• Hibbets cites as a successful example of civic hacking the "Adopt-a" programs ("a bug tracking tool for city infrastructure"), which started in Boston and have since expanded to other cities.
• How programmers can get involved in civic hacking through the Code for America Brigade program and other means.

Other links:

• A video of the presentation How Does Raleigh Use Open Source, by Jason Hibbets and Gail Roper, from the 2014 O’Reilly OSCON conference
• The book Crowdocracy, by Alan Watkins and Iman Stratenus
• The OpenStack Summit, held in Boston May 8-11