Apps for America 2: The Data.gov Challenge
- Written by
- Clay Johnson
- Date
- 05/21/2009 11:43 a.m.
Announcing Apps for America 2: The Data.gov Challenge
We've been planning this for awhile. Ever since we heard about Data.gov we have been planning a contest, and if you're reading this blog post, that means Data.gov has finally launched.
I'm pleased to wave the green flag on Apps for America 2: The Data.gov Challenge. This is a development and visualization challenge to see who can come up with the best application and visualization for data from Data.gov.
These are exciting times for us-- the walls between Government and Developers are starting to shrink, and we here in Sunlight Labs are terribly excited to get to work on doing great things with the data that's coming out. Government has made a move in the right direction-- now it is time for us to show them what we can do.
We're happy to launch Apps for America 2, this time with support from our friends. Google's put in some prize money, as has Craig Newmark, the founder of Craig's list. O'Reilly and Techweb have provided another wonderful incentive: tickets and table space to Gov2.0 summit for the winners.
Finally, we think that in building this community of technical talent, that we need not only developers but also talented and creative artists and visualizers. So we've created a special bonus "visualization and design" prize that will hopefully bring new ideas and talent to the table.
Take a look at our Apps for America 2 page for all the rules and details. This is going to be the best Apps for America yet.
Please, spread the word far and wide! This is the technical community's first and best chance to show our federal government the kind of talent and creativity that we all have, and more importantly to show it what happens when it engages the technical community.
Let the Games Begin.
Discussion
What are Your Thoughts?
Have thoughts that might fuel this discussion further, post them below. (Markdown syntax is supported in comments.)
As a researcher I am an apps. consumer rather than creator., but I want to applaud this effort! I will be checking back to see what happens.
I applaud the effort, but I'm bit puzzled by the contradicting goals.
On one hand, the contest could result in apps that promote more openness in govt and more awareness among citizens.
However, it appears that the SunlightLabs award has another goal that is unrelated to transparency in government.
The second goal seems to be to promote the open source philosophy and lock out developers who don't wish to write open-source code.
I think that it doesn't make sense to prohibit an entire class of developers from particpating in the contest (because this will limit the number of entries in the contest)
So the question for SunlightLabs is - which goal is more important to you ? 1. More apps that promote transparency in govt (regardless of whether they are open-source or not) OR 2. Promote the open-source philosophy and prohibit non-open-source apps from being part of the contest
@Transparency guy: Our goal is to develop a community of developers that help open up their government, either as volunteers, grantees, or employees. The open source model affords us the ability to reach all three of those categories at once.
Just as the Mozilla foundation's mission is to "promote openness, innovation and opportunity on the Internet" ours is similar-- to promote transparency, openness and innovation inside the Government. We've found that by being Open Source it helps:
the vast network of Sunlight Labs contribute to each other's projects,
governments use our software
engage developers at every level.
Thanks for the response, Clay.
I'm sure that open source development helps create a community of developers and this is great.
However, what do you gain by prohibiting non-open-source developers from particpating in the contest ?
Ultimately, a more inclusive approach targetting a broader developer community will help accomplish the primary goal (promoting transparency, accountability in the govt). Prohibiting large portions of the developer community from particpation is detrimental to the primary goal (assuming that the primary goal is not open-source-promotion and that the primary goal is innovative apps that promote openness and transparency in govt)
@TransparencyGuy what we gain is the ability for people to participate in each other's projects, the ability for the Sunlight Foundation, Government and other organizations to reuse the code that is getting created, and a better ability to build a community amongst a larger group of developers without having to worry about licensing restrictions or intellectual property issues.
You've listed the benefits of open-source code and that is great.
However, I still don't understand why excluding other developers helps the primary goal of transparency and openness in govt.
Say you've got 100 open-source devs, why will their work be impacted if another set of 100 developers work on non-open-source code. What do you gain by prohibiting the second set of people for participation ?
This is kind of a straw man argument. No developers are being excluded. Any source can be open. A developer is not an "open source" developer or a "non open source" developer, they are a developer. Software is licensed, not people. So no set of people is excluded, but the rules of the contest are such that the software that gets licensed must be open source.
One could, for instance, also say "what do you gain by narrowing the contest to just being about data.gov?" and why not open it up to any data from .gov, or any data on the Internet. Then there'd be all kinds of applications made.
But that's not the constraints, nor mission of this contest. The mission of this contest is to produce a lot of open source code that everyone and anyone can use and build off of to make government more open using data from data.gov.
No, it was a direct and relevant question and you haven't yet answered the simple question of what you gain by prohibiting non-open-source software.
Anyway, the last paragraph in your response is telling.
You say that "The mission of this contest is to produce a lot of open source code that ......". - If your primary goal was to create "more innovative apps that promote openness and transparency in government", you would have been more inclusive. - However, it appears that the "open source" goal is more (or equally) important to you. Thanks for the clarification.
I agree with Clay that our goal is "to promote transparency, openness and innovation inside the Government." In addition to that goal, the contest is also trying to promote data.gov. We have many ways to do this and many different criteria that we can place on the app submissions. But we want to get the most value for our money and for transparency. So what criteria is the most valuable for the open government movement?
Let's consider a few different types of apps and discuss their value:
Application 1 uses a random government data source that is not listed on data.gov. It's a good application, and while it may provide value to the transparency community, it does not promote data.gov... which is one of the main points of the contest.
Application 2 is basically the same as App 1, but it uses a data source from data.gov. It is a closed source application. Since this application promotes data.gov, it is of higher value than App 1.
Application 3 does the exact same thing as App2 and does it just as well. However, App 3 is open source. This means that not only does the community gain the functionality of the app, it also gains access to the code that makes it work. Everyone will have access to this code, so if an app is particularly novel it can be used by the government itself which achieves the goal of promoting "transparency, openness and innovation inside the Government."
So which app is the most valuable to the community and government? We feel that the open source application is clearly the most valuable... so that's the criteria we have chosen for this contest.
If you feel that you can provide value to the transparency movement by writing a closed source application, then please do. The country will be better off for it, but it's not what this contest is focused on. We have to draw a line of value somewhere and this is where we have decided to draw it.
OK, this makes some sense. So it looks like you're drawing a distinction by saying that the "government" can pick up and use open-source code for free, while this isn't guaranteed for non-open-source code. This is a valid point even though govt usage of contest-app-code will be a remote possibility for most apps.
I still think that a contest that includes both types of apps will have all the benefits of App-3 and open-source code. In addition, it will also encourage a whole new class of developers (who write non-open-source code) to write App-2 type of apps that promote openness and transparency in govt.
This inclusive policy will result in new apps and promote openness and transparency in govt in many different ways, though it doesn't offer the guarantee of providing the govt with free source code. However, you guys obviously seem to feel that the additional value brought by these new apps is overshadowed by the fact that the govt can't grab this code for free. - So you would rather exclude these apps regardless of how much they promote data.gov and openness and transparency in govt.
Anyway, I realize that it is going to be impossible to change the exclusionary criteria for the contest, but I appreciate your detailed explanation and passionate belief in open source code. Thanks.
OK, here is my closing comment
The "Why we're doing it" section on your contest page lists a number of reasons for the contest.
However, it doesn't mention that one of the primary goals is to promote open source code.
In the interests of transparency and openness (for your organization), and to help people better understand the goals of the contest, I'd recommend mentioning the "open source" goal and its benefits in your list of reasons for why you're doing the contest.
Closed source mining of data.gov merely moves the opaqueness of government to a third party, whose integrity data consumers would have no way of verifying. Obviously, closed source developers have no more or less bias than open source developers, but the point is, you can never be fully sure of the operations on the data, and therefore the data itself, unless you are free to peek at how that data is being processed.
Closed source development has many virtues, but transparency is not one of them. You cannot introduce an opaque view of a transparent process, and call the result transparent, any more than you can have sunlight get into a windowed rooms with the curtains drawn tight. True transparency requires transparency throughout.
Neat contest! Are team entries allowed? The rules mention "individual" a few times, but don't clearly forbid working together.
I'm a good programmer, but would like to team up with a couple friends. One is more experienced in government and another skilled at computer graphics. I think the entry would be a lot stronger for it.
Hello -
I am looking to team up with others to create a knock-out app. I am not a programmer, but I have significant Fed Government experience in IT based innovation. Have strong IT and data mgmt skills, vivid imagination and a passionate commitment for making what's possible a reality.
Anyone interested in creating a power team to blow this one out of the park? If so, call me 202-246-6865.
Michael
http://www.phinditt.com/ free classified post your ads