Technology

New York City Council Member Ben Kallos has a plethora of technology-related legislation being considered in the Big Apple. Many of the bills are open for public comment and editing on GitHub. In an interview withGovernment Technology last month, Kallos said he believes using crowdsourcing to comment on and edit legislation is empowering and creates a different sense of democracy where people can put forward their ideas

New York City councilor Ben Kallos has introduced the Free and Open Source Software Act that would require the city to use open source software before purchasing proprietary software.

We have more PDF14 videos for you: Ilyse Hogue on the Internet and stigma in "Virtual Jiu-Jitsu: Whose Stigma is it Now?" Andrew Rasiej and Brad Smith in a Q&A about "the civics of tech." Ben Kallos at the NYC OpenGov Workshop.

New York City Council Member Ben Kallos recently introduced the Free and Open Source Software Act (FOSSA) that, if passed by the City Council, would require the City to look first to open source software before purchasing proprietary software.

Kallos, who represents the Upper East Side and chairs the Council’s government operations committee, also introduced the Civic Commons Act, embracing the notion that government should be sharing technology resources by setting up a portal for agencies and other government entities to collaboratively purchase software.

New York City is on the cusp of a complete overhaul on how software is purchased and distributed by public agencies in the Big Apple.

Benjamin Kallos, a council member representing Gotham’s Upper East Side and Roosevelt Island, has authored legislation that mandates a preference for using free and open source software and computer code for city IT projects. Another bill establishes a code-sharing portal for agencies to share that open source software with each other.

On May 29, Int. 366, the Free and Open Source Software Act (FOSSA), and Int. 365, the Civic Commons Act, were introduced, and are open for public comment and amendment. They are part of an extensive package of technology billsfrom Kallos, who is a software developer.

"New York City Council Member Ben Kallos (KallosEsq), who also happens to be a Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) developer, just introduced legislation to mandate a government preference for FOSS and creating a Civic Commons website to facilitate collaborative purchasing of software. He argues that NYC could save millions of dollars with the Free and Open Source Software Preferences Act 2014, pointing out that the city currently has a $67 million Microsoft ELA. Kallos said: 'It is time for government to modernize and start appreciating the same cost savings as everyone else.'"

On Thursday, Council Member Ben Kallos will introduce the Free and Open Source Software Act that, if passed by the City Council, would bring the requirement to New York. The law would require the City to look first to open source software before purchasing proprietary software. In addition, Kallos, chair of the Council's government operations committee, will introduce a Civic Commons bill to create a central site to store all of the open source software the City uses which could promote sharing among cities.

"Free and open-sourced software is something that has been used in private sector and in fact by most people in their homes for more than a decade now, if not a generation," Kallos said by phone on Wednesday, May 28. "It is time for government to modernize and start appreciating the same cost savings as everyone else."

City Councilman Ben Kallos (D-Manhattan), chair of the council governmental operations committee and a software developer, applauded de Blasio in a statement.

"Equality of access to knowledge is a necessity for any free society," Kallos said. "Mayor de Blasio's plan to expand broadband access to the information superhighway is essential for a 21st century city that has ignored equality of this fundamental resource for far too long."

Last weekend, around one hundred members of New York City's civic hacker community came together to help develop tools that would be useful for City Council and local Community Board members as part of Code Across NYC, organized by Code for America brigade betaNYC. As part of the event, open government advocates Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and City Council member Ben Kallos discussed their transparency advocacy. With input from five Community Board members and New York City officials, the weekend program resulted in the creation of 20 projects, of which 12 were submitted for five awards.

Newly-elected New York City Council member Ben Kallos' constituent event Thursday afternoon was unusual in several respects: there were some connectivity problems, and the issues discussed ranged from a proposed municipal ID system and the Comcast/Time Warner merger to proprietary software used by the City Council and data analytics.

Kallos hosted a Google Hangout with about ten participants to announce his online constituent services, including SeeClickFix, and to discuss issues of concern to his constituents and the New York City technology community. For the SeeClickFix effort, he is building on an established program run by the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation, which has been using the platform on the island, part of his district along with the Upper East Side, since 2010.