On APLAWS+
(Up to: UKGovernment On Line Code Government And Technology )
I spend a fair amount of time working with a piece of Java software from long-time Linux promo'ers Red Hat, called APLAWS+. ("Accessible and Personalised Local Authority Web Site. Plus.") As time goes on, I'm slowly picking up lots and lots of insight into the technological aspects of the system, but also the local authority management process and integration with technology. Living on the border where geek and government unite. Yeah.
Background
For some history and context on the project, I suggest checking out the Local Authority Web Site page, www.laws-project.org.uk. For the actual software, take a peek at www.aplaws.org.uk. I should probably add some notes as to the names being picked and the domain names chosen, but that'd be nit-picking... :)
The quick, quick background is that the UK government want all the local councils "on-line" so that they're not left behind by the rest of the world, and they want it by 2005. This doesn't have to be anything special - even just a webpage with a phone number on it counts as "on-line". There is, however, a lot of specification - see the laws.org.uk site above for details, including links to the Local Government Council List.
Oh, and there are also a lot of words beginning with the letter "e". So many, in fact, that you start to think that whoever has the office of government nomenclature has nothing better to do than to go out raving every night until 8am, then go to work at 4pm and briefly conjure up new words from the drain-addled magician's hat somewhere inside their head rather than on top of it.
Observations
These should come under several sections soon...
General - why is the government doing what it's doing, and what does it hope to achieve?
Technical, or how the software itself is put together and defined, and how the government specifications meld with software practice in general. There should be many links under this section.
For instance, I've noticed the way that Sourceforge does forums is particularly irritating, opr this could just be the way the aplaws+ project is set up. Remembering that Conversation Is AFlow, the way that forum postings are forwarded onto the development mailing list makes conversations particularly hard to follow. Firstly, no "in-reference-to" or "references" headers are used in the incoming mail, and secondly the forum doesn't provide any way to quote the message being replied to. This adds up to a mechanism that I'd like to be able to make the most of in my mail client, but in practice is just unthreadable and annoying...
Organisational, or how local authorities cope with integrating with a new era of data management. This will mostly be personal musing based on spectating, and past experience. Maybe also some comparison with the private sector.
Societal, or what this all means for the constituencie, and all the people whose benefit this is actually for. I intend to chase up how appropriate the system is, and if there's not a better way to do things.
Open Source-ional, or what makes a "successful" open source entity - is it code? The people? The process? The community? And how can we merge the various threads to come up with something that is better than non-open-source stuff? What does it mean? All in context, of course...
Reference
- eGMS - the Government Metadata Standard
- e-GIF - the Government Interoperability Framework
- LGCL - the Local Government Category List
- Local eGovernment Standards Body - deciding standards to be used within government
Sites using Aplaws+
Judge for thyself.
