The concept of open source is going to become an undercurrent to almost everything this administration does,” declared the OSI’s President Michael Tiemann. “The American concept of democracy is not just of the people and by the people but with the people.” He said we have already seen a commitment to this open philosophy throughout President Obama’s election campaign. “I think what we will see now is a maturation in America and around the world of an understanding of the open source model.” Errol Louis of the New York Daily News seemed to agree. He described Mr Obama as “our first open source President, a leader willing to let anybody and everybody figure out how, when and where they want to get involved.” He noted that the strategy popularised by computer software companies in giving away software to get others to improve on it has now been applied to politics. Indeed the new Change.gov website is said to be a portal for “interactive government” and “open source democracy.