Two pieces of good news on the open government front.

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a law requiring it to make information available in machine-readable formats, e.g. XML.

And Piedmont has become the first region of Italy to pass an open government law. This is from the Google translation of an Italian article:

Piedmont is the first Italian region to adopt a law on publication and reuse data of the public administration, the so-called “Open Data”. The text was unanimously approved of the voters in the session of December 20.

With this definition refers to a philosophy that is both a practice. It implies that some types of data are freely accessible to all, without copyright restrictions, patents or other forms of control to limit their reproduction.
“The law gives effect to the principle that data produced by public institutions belong to the community and, therefore, must be made available through the internet and reusable formats defined. This will increase the transparency of public bodies and the participation and collaboration between public and private sectors, “explained the speakers of the bill Roberto Placido (Pd) and Roberto De Magistris (Northern League).

The text consists of six articles. The regional government will be obliged to ensure the availability, management, access, transmission, storage and availability of data in digital mode. This is a significant contribution to the modernization and innovation, by transposing the provisions of the Digital Administration Code, provides citizens with an additional instrument of control and economic system to a new development opportunities.

The Piedmont Region in May 2010 had already achieved its regional portal of open data dati.piemonte.it. The site is currently the most successful national experience and structured on the theme of open data.
The law approved helps to keep the Piedmont in Italy at the forefront of open data and is a further reference point for other Italian public administrations, which have already appreciated and taken as an example portal, now flanked by the national portal www.dati.gov.it.

The bill is placed in a context of redefining and updating of the European directives contained in the policy document “Digital Agenda for Europe”.

The law is also particularly important at this time because it can provide many business opportunities to young professionals and innovative companies in a period of severe economic crisis.

(Via Juan Carlos de Martin, whose Nexa Center was involved in inspiring and drafting the law.)

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From the ExpertNet site:

The United States General Services Administration (GSA) and the White House Open Government Initiative are soliciting your feedback on a concept for next generation citizen consultation, namely a government-wide software tool and process to elicit expert public participation (working title “ExpertNet”). ExpertNet could:

Enable government officials to circulate notice of opportunities to participate in public consultations to members of the public with expertise on a topic.

Provide those volunteer experts with a mechanism to provide useful, relevant, and manageable feedback back to government officials.
The proposed concept is intended to be complementary to two of the ways the Federal government currently obtains expertise to inform decision-making, namely by convening Federal Advisory Committees and announcing public comment opportunities in the Federal Register.

Take a look at the example in the editable part of the wiki. (And, yes, I did say that parts of the wiki are editable. Thank you for trusting us, my government!)

The only thing I object to in this brilliant idea is that it comes too late for inclusion as an example in my book. Why, those dirty government dogs!

(via Craig Newmark)

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