Open Source for America Announces Winners of Inaugural Open Source Awards Program

Open Source for America (OSFA), an organization of technology industry leaders, non-government associations, and academic and research institutions promoting the use of open source technologies in the U.S. federal government, today announced the winners of its inaugural 2010 Open Source Awards program, recognizing individuals, projects and deployments for their role in advancing the adoption of free and open source software in federal government agencies. Winners were honored during a luncheon at the Government Open Source Conference (GOSCON) 2010, in Portland, Oregon.

"In its inaugural year, Open Source for America experienced tremendous growth, and we saw exceptional examples of open source adoption in government," said John Scott, president of Selection Pressure, LLC and co-chair of OSFA's steering committee. "From WhiteHouse.gov's migration to the open source content management system Drupal and the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation's TrustTheVote Project, to Brian Behlendorf and his work on the Nationwide Health Information Network CONNECT project, and the passionate individual members, like Ean Schuessler, who have helped build OSFA, this year's winners represent the best of the work being done in support of open source solutions in government."

Open Source for America's 2010 Open Source Awards were sponsored by Colosa, Ingres, Jaspersoft, Lucid Imagination and Red Hat. For more information on the awards, visit opensourceforamerica.org/awards.

2010 Open Source Award Winners:

Open Source Deployment in Government: honors a U.S. government agency or body that has shown commitment to the use of open source, through policy and/or adoption. The 2010 winner is WhiteHouse.gov, and the Executive Office of the President, for its Drupal platform migration. In October 2009, the Executive Office of the President migrated from a proprietary content management system to the open source Drupal platform in order to create a more flexible development environment that would support a more interactive White House web presence. Using Drupal, the Executive Office of the President relaunched WhiteHouse.gov with dynamic features like question-and-answer forums, live video streaming, and collaborative tools that work fluidly with the site's other infrastructure.

Open Source Project: recognizes an open source project that has shown promise and benefit for U.S. government use. The 2010 winner is the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation (OSDV) for its TrustTheVote Project. OSDV, through its TrustTheVote Project, has established an open source project with the goal of creating a trustworthy voting system, suitable for use in government elections, which has been fully tested and is vastly more secure, usable and reliable than current products on the market. Then, companies that do not want to do the R&D and certification work associated with voting systems can take these systems and provide service and support to local jurisdictions. This year, OSDV will release its first developed product, a back-end solution which will be deployed in Washington, D.C. for the D.C. general election.

Individual Awards: recognize one internal OSFA member and one external contributor who have made significant contributions in the promotion and use of open source solutions in the U.S. government during the past year. The 2010 winners are Brian Behlendorf, collaboration advisor to the Department of Health and Human Services on its NHIN CONNECT project and Ean Schuessler, co-founder, Brainfood, Inc., and.
Behlendorf is the 2010 external contributor award winner for his work as the collaboration advisor for NHIN's CONNECT project, bringing a depth of experience in open source projects to the team. 

CONNECT is an open source software gateway that allows healthcare practitioners to exchange health-related information, regardless of where they are set up around the country and what computer systems and platform they use. Originally built by more than 20 federal agencies, this software solution uses NHIN standards and governance as a framework to connect providers, insurers, federal agencies, states and others involved in supporting health and healthcare.

Schuessler, one of the founding members of OSFA, is the 2010 internal OSFA member award winner for his work developing and maintaining OSFA's web presence, and strategically establishing the site as a top destination for users and advocates of open source in government. True to OSFA's mission, Schuessler has developed the site using open source tools, including OFBiz, and has also devoted his time to building and maintaining the organization's other infrastructure, including content and member databases.

To join Open Source for America and help build support for the use of open source technologies, visit the OSFA website at www.opensourceforamerica.org.