OStatic

If you like to follow U.S. politics but have trouble keeping up with all the legislation that the government is working on at any given time, then govpulse is an open source project you'll want to know about. It's a finalist in the Apps for America 2 contest and is a real boon for American citizens who want to know what's happening inside the federal office of our nation.

Since 1935, the Federal Register has been the main repository of information for newly proposed laws and regulations, public governmental meeting notifications, final rulings, Presidential documents and more. It's updated every business day and contains over one million pages of information about governmental proceedings, but there's never been an easy way to search its data -- until now.

Whether you think that open source is gaining traction in the U.S. government or losing its foothold depends on which Web site post you read first today. ZDnet's Dana Blankenhorn makes a great case for why the recently formalized arrangement between the Open Source Software Institute (OSSI) and the Department of Defense is a huge deal for the advancement of open source at the government level. However, Tod Newcombe, editor of GoV-log: Editor's Video Blog, says government IT executives' enthusiasm over open source is waning.

Who's right?

The Linux Foundation announced this week that all major Linux distributions are now in compliance with the federal mandate by U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) that helps ensure the world won't run out of Internet addresses anytime soon.