OpenAustin Offers Open-Source Help for City Web Site Effort

As city officials take time to review their options for the new city web site, a local grassroots effort has sprung up to offer a helping hand.

OpenAustin is a "community-based effort to crowdsource the requirements and development" of the city's web site. The intent, organizers say, is to turn a negative into a positive by making use of displaced local talent -- developers, designers, and marketers -- to help produce a low-cost, high-quality site.

In March, news that the city council was set to award a $700,000 contract to a California company to build a new city web site set off a series of protests online. The council then postponed the vote indefinitely so that chief communications director Doug Matthews and chief information officer Gail Roper could fully review options for the project.

Local software developer William Hurley, known as "whurley" in tech circles, is the driving force behind OpenAustin. A leading figure in the open-source world, whurley said OpenAustin isn't intended as an affront or alternative to the city's established processes.

"What we have here is an opportunity to set a national (and international) example of how communities can help redefine city processes to make them far more efficient," whurley said. "Remember, this effort is about the "we", not the "me" and that goes for everyone involved from community organizers to the leaders of city government. Only by working together will we all be able to be successful."