[liberationtech] Fwd: Testify in Support of Civic Commons Legislation in NYC

[Steven Clift]

Folks not local to NYC are invited to send testimony in writing. - Steve


From: Benjamin Kallos <kallos at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Feb 8, 2016 at 5:44 PM
Subject: Testify in Support of Civic Commons Legislation in NYC
To: Civic Commons Discussion <discuss at civiccommons.org>


You are cordially invited to provide expert testimony at a hearing of the
Committee on Contracts at City Hall on *Tuesday, February 23, 2016 at
10:00AM* on the Free and Open Source Software Act and Civic Commons.



*Int. 366*, *Free and Open Source Software Act (FOSSA)*
<http://benkallos.com/legislation/introduction-366-2014-free-and-open-source-software-act>,
would minimize city contracts for proprietary software in favor of free and
open source software (FOSS) that can be shared between government agencies
and bodies. Proprietary programs require the city and other municipalities,
including the state, to pay private vendors over and over again for the
same code while FOSS provides the city with power over the code and the
freedom to study, modify, upgrade, improve, customize, maintain and
redistribute within agencies and to other cities or states. Free software
means code that is free from proprietary constraints, not free of charge.



*Int. 365*, The *Civic Commons Act*
<http://benkallos.com/legislation/introduction-365-2014-civic-commons-act>,
would encourage the collaborative software purchasing of free and open
source software among agencies, cities and states to pool resources, avoid
duplicated effort, create portable expertise, grow jobs, and reduce
costs. A Civic Commons FOSS portal would be created to facilitate
collaborative software purchasing and host the collaborative FOSS source
code as well as FOSS projects identified as useful for government
use. Civic Commons is currently a project of Code for America with more
information available at wiki.CivicCommons.org
<http://wiki.civiccommons.org/>.



Please participate by joining us in person at *City Hall* on *Tuesday,
February 23, 2016 at 10:00AM* to provide two-minutes of oral testimony
along with twenty (20) double-sided copies of your written testimony of any
length followed by question and answer. Please let us know if you will be
joining us by electronic mail to *Policy at BenKallos.com* or calling Paul
Westrick my Legislative  Director at *212-860-1950 <212-860-1950>*.



Sincerely,


Ben Kallos

*Council Member*

*City Council District 5*

244 East 93rd Street

New York, NY 10128

BKallos at BenKallos.com

Phone: 212-860-1950

Web: BenKallos.com

Twitter: @BenKallos

Facebook: /BenKallos

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