Posted by Justin Freeman on July 15, 2009 at 11:30pm
Prime Minister of Australia launches website using Drupal, see http://www.pm.gov.au Looks like the website theme is based on http://drupal.org/project/nitobe
From memory, the previous website was a custom Cold Fusion job. So kudos to whoever developed it. Looks like a job well done :-)
Comments
PageRank 7
The site has inherited a pretty reasonable PageRank from its predecessor too!
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Mark Matuschka
Glo Digital
OPC IT
OPC IT in Canberra developed the site in conjunction with the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet's Webservices Team. The site also uses a VioCorp multimedia solution.
Thanks for the info!
Thanks for the info!
NSW Gov also using Drupal
We recently completed phase 1 of the main NSW Gov site transition to Drupal: http://www.nsw.gov.au/ - phase 2 currently in progress to migrate the whole thing across from their old ASP site. Haven't had a chance to do a proper case study yet, but there was a large Gmap integration component.
NSW Government site
I work for Dept. of Commerce and have gathered some business requirements for one of the units of DPWS. Can I get in touch with you? I am at 9372-8819 or my mobile is listed below.
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Dennis M. Gray
Far East Information Resources Pty Ltd
Skype: d0325mgray
Mobile: (0418) 646267 +61 418 646 267
Phone: (02) 9310 7907 +61 2 9310 7907
========================
Dennis M. Gray
Skype: d0325mgray
Mobile: +84 93 257 5571
US VoIP: +1-805-467-6707
NSW Govt Site
Hi Guys,
I would love to see a case study, I also work for a Govt Dept and am interested how you integrated GMAP.
Good to See
After being involved in open source projects within the goverment (Drupal specific) it is good to see, now all we need is the Australian Goverment supporting the teaching of open source code in TAFE and Universities so we can have the people to perform the needed maintenance ;) it would also be good to see the Gov searching the universities for up and comming open source talent as well as putting some money towards the Drupal community. So NSW Gov when are you sponsoring a Drupal Camp in Canberra for Free come on we did in Sydney and that was mainly through the higher education bodies, i belive with this kind of work going on NSW Gov at least should be a major sponsor of an up and comming Drupal camp (I belive Ryan Cross was organising one)...
Microsoft sponsored curriculum
At the University of Canberra, the IT courses are sponsored by Microsoft and so the curriculum is based largely on Microsoft software. .NET, Sharepoint, MS SQL, MS Exchange, MS IIS/ASP etc. The ANU is different and has not succumbed to the beast.
I have also noticed an newspaper advertising campaign by Microsoft targeting those looking to be re-trained, adult education as well as long distance education courses.
So from my perspective, any mandating of open source software in education would be a great thing. Since it appears to me that education is dominated by one company currently.
Agileware, Australian Drupal Developers
http://agileware.com.au
MS shackles
I agree with you that MS politically and financially dominated the education sector of Australia!
I think we should start lobbying to our political reps that we should have a mix and match as far software procurement is concern. They should start using Open Source Software as part of their IT procurement.
MS is a good software but OSS is better in every angle (cost, usability, open standards, security and others). In the end gov't owns the software and won't be tied up with any vendors.
Open Source Code
I studied at SCU and we teach Open source and .net in our programming classes, it would be a sad thing for a university to only focus on .net stuff as they would be hampering there students. I know it happens but personally i chose my university for its subjects they suited me and gave me the most exposure to languages, i am sad to hear that they are not even offering Open Source, smoeon should contact Kat Lundy and Pia Wayugh and get some goverment backing for open source code in schools if they are going to use the code they need to support its education.
Drupal Camp
Just one more comment really want to have someone from NSW GOV ir the PM office comment on the sponsorship of a Drupal Camp Brendon is organising a Drupal Camp for around November in Brisbane we should have the PM put up some money for sponsorship, The ALTC (Australian Learning and Teaching Council) when they started using Drupal helped sponsor a camp in Sydney i would expect/hope the PM's office to do the same.
The PM's undies
The PM may have a Drupal powered site but that doesn't mean he's going to be interested in getting behind Drupal and start sponsoring camps etc. He might not even be aware that he's using Drupal at all. Just as he's not going to sponsor Bonds just because he wears their undies.
Sponsorship for the Drupal Camp would likely be from some entity who would benefit directly from the arrangement. Now, who could that be...?
Google or Yahoo
Google or Yahoo may want to sponsor an event. Google in particular is quite active in Australia :)
Agileware, Australian Drupal Developers
http://agileware.com.au
MacDonalds
MacDonalds
...
Ok so a Goverment Department is using open source code if they sponsor a camp they benift from there employees attending and learning new skills, they benifts from helping to promote a community in which they can use as a base for finding new talent, they benifit from supporting an IT industry that the goverment tells us is in a skill shortages, they benifits from doing what a goverment is there to do support and help grow its people... im really sorry that there would be people who think that sponsorhip of open source by the companies/agencies that use that code/community is wrong, sorry but somehow i actually belive that the community deserves support from those that use it i actually do belive that is how open source has survived thus far...
I basically agree
I basically agree. But these organizations are complex yeah? Often the companies/teams that implement the solution didn't come from the Drupal community, and weren't given the leeway to do anything other than get the thing up and running. As you'd know working with a large corp, there is often a large amount of overhead involved with internal communication/management of the project itself. The key is to be available and receptive and to provide whatever support we can to any team/individual who is pushing Drupal from the inside.
At the end of the day (and whatever other Rudd-speak you might conjure): no-one is obligued to do anything other than what the license states!
...
whilst i agree to some level when i was involved with goverment i saw it as my duty to get more involved with the community as i was implmenting/running an open source drupal project i also found that the support from management when i asked them was fantastic they were more then happy to provide some sponsorship for a drupal camp, i will also add that i meet a gentleman there who ended up working in my team a month later, i will also state that one of the lead developers that we hired i also meet at a drupal meet-up. whilst not all departments function like that the smart ones do so it should be our role to help educate people rather then let them stay in there old fashioned ways ;) also having to train a person in drupal is a large expense so it is smarter to employ from a community and not waste the time etc training someone also a fact that i and others have helped prove on real live large scale projects is that having the people with the right skill set from the community you can drastically reduce the overall cost of the project by producing maintable/functional code ( ROI )
whilst it is not an obligation to support not supporting it is a statement from a company/goverment which help perpetuate this whole notion that open source code is free.. well ummm its free as in you can see the source but everything comes at a cost ;)
it is reasons like this that i belive in a mix of opensource and propietry when people pay for things they seem to be more willing to support it look at Apple ;) lolz
OMG aimeemaree that's the
OMG aimeemaree that's the first time I've seen you use more than one paragraph! ;)
Government use of Drupal
As far as I have been able to learn, within the NSW government anyway, the work on the web site was outsourced and I doubt there is any support for Drupal within the internal IT departments. If anyone knows the contrary, please let me know.
========================
Dennis M. Gray
Far East Information Resources Pty Ltd
Skype: d0325mgray
Mobile: (0418) 646267 +61 418 646 267
Phone: (02) 9310 7907 +61 2 9310 7907
========================
Dennis M. Gray
Skype: d0325mgray
Mobile: +84 93 257 5571
US VoIP: +1-805-467-6707
Another use of drupal
I found out recently that Whitney Houston uses drupal too:
http://www.whitneyhouston.com
DDOS
This apparently got DDOSed around 19:00-19:30pm last night as part of some anti-censorship protest
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26051949-5013871,00.html
Open Source Software Policy
I have no idea if the Federal and Local Gov't of Australia has a comprehensive policy for Open Source Software. It seems our go'vt are pretty locked-in with the proprietary vendors and they are happy investing our tax money on it.
I've worked for gov't departments before and they are laughing at me if I will mention about Open Source Software to be used as part of the gov't initiative in procuring software. This kind of attitude is a big problem for gov't techie managers out there. They keep on saying who's going to support the software and also the security aspect of using it. These are old FUD stuff!
Most of them don't know how OSS works and the community as a whole. Maybe, they just don't want to use Open Source Software for their IT gov't projects.
I have handled IBM Mainframe OS, Sun Solaris OS and MS Windows OS and I knew that OSS are definitely at a very good advantage over them. I hope that gov't techie managers would one day wake up, open their eyes and see the maturity of OSS.
Australian Fed. Gov. has a comprehensive policy for Open Source
Policies were developed and released as far back as 2004, spearheaded by the MySource Matrix / Squiz initiative back in 2004 (I was there for the launch of that AGIMO Policy recommending the evaluation and adoption of open source CMS vs proprietary CMS). This was around the same time that the National Archives of Australia was heavily pushing all Gov. Agencies to mandate open standards as a consequence of MS Office's 2003 release with new proprietary formats.
FYI: AGIMO has since been rolled into finance.gov.au.
http://agencysearch.australia.gov.au/search/search.cgi?collection=agenci...
http://www.agimo.gov.au/archive/oss-resources.html
http://www.agimo.gov.au/archive/publications_noie/2000/04/eproc_strategy...
http://www.finance.gov.au/procurement/ict-procurement/index.html
Here are a few issues to consider when adopting FOSS in Government:
1. Having a good selection of local vendors that will provide services and support for the software. SLAs are very important.
2. Hiring and training staff in use of and supporting of the software.
3. Having a clear and stable roadmap for the future of the FOSS.
4. Having a process whereby security issues are managed.
5. Compatibility with existing infrastructure.
6. Compatibility (read: approval) with existing IT outsourced provider (eg. IBM, Fujitsu, HP, CapGemini etc). Most if not all Federal Gov. Depts and Agencies are managed by an external IT provider.
7. Having a lot of other Government reference sites (who say great things about it).
In my personal experience, there is also a general distrust of anything that is cheap. I've seen this rule applied on more than one occasion: "if it costs a lot of money to purchase / implement then it must be good." Remember the 'you don't get fired by buying IBM' saying?
People tend to assume that Gov. Depts and Agencies are run like a business. I believe that the opposite is the case.
Agileware, Australian Drupal Developers
http://agileware.com.au
Open Source Software Policy
@justin
Thanks for the info links!
All I can say about the few issues when adopting FOSS in Government is that OSS communities don't have the financial capabilities to surmount a head-on battle in competing with the big software guys. If these issues are part of the gov't Open Source Software policy, there is a very slim chance that small local OSS vendors could participate or win in the bidding process. Politically these big software guys, which already have a foothold could easily block the door for local OSS to participate or make their life technically difficult. I have worked in several gov't departments as Contractor and if I would mention to the techie managers about OSS they would just smile and stare in heaven. A very good reason that majority of the gov't techie managers don't know how OSS communities operates.
I have been evangelizing OSS since 2001 distributing OSS CDs (at my own expense) to individuals, non-profit groups and small businesses just to educate them that there is an alternative for proprietary software. My experience is that majority of them don't know what is OSS! But there are few who were interested and asked lot of questions how does OSS works.
I hope that part of the gov't policy is to educate the local communities and give funding to those groups or individuals who are in the business of helping spreading the word of OSS. I am also hoping that gov't OSS policy makers should experience and join one of the hundreds of OSS communities around the world and see how the new business model perform their day-to-day collaboration work.
I volunteered, helped and built this website out of OSS CMS using J! http://www.gcc.asn.au without incurring huge amount of money! This site is flexible enough to adopt to the future web technologies.
More power to Open Source Software!
Regards,
B. David
ACT
FSF member #5876
Great that its running Drupal, but...
Great leap forward for Drupal to start getting into the Government sector but the site could have been setup much better, aggregating the stylesheets and js, as well as making sure the urls dont look too ugly. I know its nit picking but still, it doesnt take long to get those little things done.
drupal in gov.au
From what I have seen, and I haven't a lot of experience in this, is Australian Government websites are outsourced to the 'Communications Agency' that the department has a relationship with so it depends on if this 'Agency' is FOSS friendly or not.
I know that http://www.kristinakeneally.com.au runs on Drupal6.
Cheers
Mick
Regards
Mick Pollard
www.lunix.com.au
Drupal
Don't bother guys, I work down stairs from Comms, and work on alot of related things.
It will be a long time yet before OOS is embraced.
Oh I don't know
Oh I don't know ... the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) just tendered for a Drupal system to handle freedom of information requests. Huge site, massive profile and they have nominated Drupal specifically!
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Mark Matuschka
Glo Digital
Requirements
There were quite a lot of crazy non-Drupal requirements in that one. Best of luck to the winner of that RFT, I say :)
Agileware, Australian Drupal Developers
http://agileware.com.au
good point, Will be
good point,
Will be interesting to see how the Election impacts the future of OSS
Useful link in the context of
Useful link in the context of this discussion: http://groups.drupal.org/node/19885#Australia
Governance 2.0
This site is also worth checking out: http://gov2.net.au/...
Particular site looks like Wordpress.. but policy and content seem like positive steps.
Wonder if Wikileaks has curbed government enthusiasm :)