In the summer of 2009, The New York Senate was the first government organization to post code to GitHub, and that fall, Washington DC quickly followed suit. By 2011, cities like Miami, Chicago, and New York; Australian, Canadian, and British government initiatives like GOV.UK; and US Federal agencies like the Federal Communications Commission, General Services Administration, NASA, and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau were all coding in the open as they began to reimagine government for the 21st century.

Penate scoffs at those in the United States who suggest that Central American kids are using the violence merely as an excuse to seek asylum in the United States. “How can you argue with it?” he says. “You see it every day here on TV, kids getting recruited by the gangs, and if they refuse to join they get shot.” Ideally, he says, the ATF would have one or two people in each Northern Triangle country. He hadn’t heard that his agency had passed on the emergency funding. “That money would come in very handy,” he said ruefully. That he is doing his work with so little support symbolizes the U.S. attitude toward its responsibilities in Central America. We turn from the refugees fleeing north, as our firepower heads south.

Sharing an office with a direct competitor could be a contentious working situation in some business’, but not for Rosen or Drumm. Although technically competitors for clients, the different Drupal vendors are in constant contact, not only because they come from an intimate group of friends, but because of the open source business model that Drupal is based on.

Drupal Nation: Software to Power the Left | Digidave

“There are so many civic hacking lessons to re-learn from the #CivicSpace days.” – Noel Hidalgo