You know what I love about the whole public discussion thing? It makes things happen, in public even.

A few days ago I blogged my concerns about the contract that those who were successful in tendering for Gov2 Taskforce projects were expected to sign. I still have those concerns, however since then there has been an ongoing discussion between the Gov2 Taskforce, Microsoft and the community about the best way to move forward.

Now that I've had my say on the Draft Contract I thought I would extend my congratulations to the Gov2 Taskforce for the launch of mashupaustralia.org
Mashup Australia looks like a JFDI effort on behalf of the Gov2 Taskforce. Instead of getting bogged down in the endless discussions about risks/benefit analysis they've gone ahead and sourced a variety of different datasets, setup a competition and gone ahead and Done It.
Well done.

So the Gov2 Taskforce has released the contract that everyone who wishes to participate in any Gov2 Taskforce projects has to sign. Fair enough, no one expected it to be carte blanch.

While we're still waiting with bated breath for the details of the NSW Governments Apps4NSW competition, it appears that the NSW Government has released the first Dataset for third party use.

The Transport Data Exchange Programme is a programme to allow third party developers to build applications based on the Timetable and Service information released by the various Public Transport operators.

Below is a quick OOOG Review of the programme:

Open Source: 5

I'll admit it I have a need to play with new toys. If I see something cool and shiny I will sit down with it, take it apart and then try and put it back together. If I'm lucky I discover something I can use in my work or home life, if not then it's been a bit of fun and I've learnt something new.

I've been doing this pulling apart and putting back together with the Google Wave stuff for a little while now, and seriously I'm very blown away. However I have also been playing with new shiny thing called status.net.

Over the past few months I've been asked about the range of Open Source Social Networking Tools, so I thought it might be an idea to put up a page which lists those that I know of with a brief description of each.

Drupal

Drupal is a general Content Management System, however with the use of a range of different third party modules, it can be turned into quite a decent "Social Networking" facility. If nothing else it integrates very well with other tools such as twitter, status.net, facebook, etc, etc.

Well just to prove that you have to be quick when you have a good idea, Premier Rees has just announced Apps4NSW.

Details are a little thin on the ground at the moment (the competition hasn't been officially launched), but here's what we do know:

Last Friday I presented at the third Publicsphere event in Wollongong. My talk was on tackling the cultural cringe within the arena of Government Procurement and it's effect on the local ICT industry. I know, on paper it sounds like an edge of your seat, thrill a minute topic. However if you can contain your excitement and enthusiasm for a moment, I would like to talk about an idea I had while doing the research for that talk (at 9:30 the night before).

Over the past couple of years we've been helping out the Illawarra Breast Cancer Support Group, because they helped my mother in law during her cancer period and now because said mother in law is now president of the group :)

Yesterday we hit something that I believe perfectly illustrates the danger of closed standards and vendor lockin.

Well time does fly when you're having fun doesn't it. Tomorrow will see the start of the second "We Believe in Community" Conference, organised by that dynamic duo - Reem Abdelaty and Diana Mounter.

This years programme is as impressive as last years, with keynotes by Senator Kate Lundy (of publicsphere fame) and Mark Pesce (you've seen him on New Inventors and Twitter now see him in person). I'll be there recording the presentations for prosterity and tweeting as much as I can.