3 Branches of an Open Government Platform

http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/06/the-four-pillars-of-an-open-ci.html
http://techpresident.com/blog-entry/three-branches-wegov

John Geraci provided The Four Pillars of an Open Civic System and Micah Sifry offered the Three Branches of We.gov. Here I present the Three Branches of an Open Government Platform.

Subject, System, Standard

In the broadest sense, an open platform is standardized system that can interfaces with an objects

At the Gov 2.0 Summit last week, the focus was on "Government as a Platform" and this theme was interpreted in a variety of ways. Part of the problem with terminology like "2.0", "platform", or "open" is that they can create a high degree of ambiguity, so let's see if we can provide some clarification. Let's say that in talking about government, "open data" means read-only data and "open systems" that interface with that data (eg an "open API") are what allow you to manage the data by querying or writing. As an additional layer of openness, "open standards" that govern these open systems allow the systems to be applied in new ways. Such open standards might be format definitions, protocol specifications, or source code established with liberal licenses. Open data and an open API make a platform, but a platform governed by an open standard is an "open platform".  I would argue that the world wide web and democracy are examples of open platforms.

¬

The natural consequence of the open standard/constitution is that the system becomes distributed which means that it has fault tolerance and can't easily be compromised by a central source of power. 

compare to web: html http w3c or open web foundation

These three branches actually form the basis of many open platforms, but we are just now beginning to fully embrace them in government and I think it's valuable to see that there's already a healthy alignment between open platforms in technology and democracy in governance.

Additionally, there has been some ambiguity about what it means to have "Government as a Platform". A platform for open government is not the same thing as an open platform for government. 

The term "open government" may be somewhat redundant within the context of democractic governance. What we've seen with improved access to information systems has been the ability to greater distribute government functions and provide increased participation - even qualities of direct democracy. If we're talking about government as a democracy, then these new developments are not as much government 2.0 as finally beginning to realize the potential of government 1.0

 1) social engagement through transparency, publicly available - builds trust or makes systems more accessible. 2) open participation 3) fundamental rules of participation. 

Some caveats with the governance of open standards or even with the constitution - strong leadership and a solid reference implementation to begin with. Fortunately we had those when our constitution was written. Clay Johnson - great quote about code is faster than consensus. Though in some cases we must endure the arduous process of consensus to ensure open governance.

Why is it important to not just have a platform, but an open platform to improve government processes? Because the platform is meant to serve the public as much as possible, not simply consumers. The model of the web now provides the opportunity to have distributed open platforms that interoperably serve disparate publicly funded entities like cities. Since these platforms are paid for by the public to serve the public, every opportunity should be taken for cost-savings and efficiency. In many cases, publicly funded efforts exist precisely to better serve the public through coordination as standard - 911 services and fire codes for example.

Ideally technology that is publicly funded should be part of the public domain.

I'm aware that I've made some generalizations in describing these terms and their relationships, but for now I merely wanted to begin to address a broad conceptual framework. This is purely my interpretation of how to codify the openness in government and technology, but please share your insights as well.

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open platform:
standard 
interoperable 
(distributed - natural consequence)

is what makes

1) Transparency
because it's an open public forum there's an atmosphere for 
only useful if structured, 

notes:

Socially Engaging and builds trust.
-progressed by-
Robust participation and collective innovation
-progressed by-
Plays well with others

Open Data - data is transparent, ideally realtime
Open API - the protocol is read/write
(codified by)
Open Standard - interoperability through a spec written with a liberal license

Mapped to branches of Gov:
data = a free citizenry / civic action
api = voting + elected officials / democractic governance
standard = judicial bodies / constitution & laws

Read/Write Standard Protocol for Municipal Service Requests
Read: Socially engaging by using an open data model to provide transparency
Write: Collective innovation and the participatory nature of an open read/write API
Standard: Plays well with others by using an open standard for interoperability between cities

The model (the data is transparent which helps make it social)
The API (there's a read/write api that provides an open system that others can build apps around)
The standard (there is a standard protocol, with a liberal license)

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http://news.cnet.com/8301-13512_3-10354324-23.html
A PARALLEL BETWEEN OPERATING SYSTEMS AND HUMAN GOVERNMENT
Government provided platform for routing - Tim O'Reilly mentioned gov orginally providing root DNS
PSH - hubs

Malamud - gov as operating system
gov as internet instead, as dns and routers and big platform providers
cities as operating systems, as nodes

robustness of interoperable distributed systems