Hi All,

Given the present state of the global economy many municipalities are looking at something different.

Well, I’ve been using free open source applications and standards for a long time now. Basically, I know how to save some bucks.

Vancouver city council has endorsed the principles of making its data open and accessible to everyone where possible, adopting open standards for that data and considering open source software when replacing existing applications.

“So it’s great,” said Andrea Reimer, the city councillor who proposed the motion that passed Thursday afternoon. “The local online community was all very, very happy, and now we just have to look forward on implementation and figuring sort of the order with which we do that.”

Reimer had argued that supporting the motion would allow the city to improve transparency, cut costs and enable people to use the data to create new useful products, including commercial ones. She had also noted that taxpayers paid for the data to be collected in the first place.

For example, she said, videos made at city hall, including videos of council meetings, are currently in a proprietary format that cannot be posted on YouTube. They can only be viewed on the City of Vancouver website by people who have the latest version of Microsoft Internet Explorer. She expects that to change.

The full article can be found here.

I find it interesting that other cities here in the US - Washington D.C. and San Francisco - are looking in the same direction. Whose next?