By: Luke Fretwell
Posted: March 14, 2025
Updated: March 17, 2025
Estimated read time: 5 minutes
Briefs: Open data + open source AI 📄
Two new GovFresh Briefs:
Demo: ca.gov 🎥
State of California UX Design and Web Development Manager Artem Khomishen demos ca.gov:
Federal GitHub activity 🤓
Travis Hoppe analyzed all federal government open source code on GitHub:
- “The open-source landscape is diverse but leans towards repositories focused on scientific and cybersecurity topics.”
- 775 federal organizations
- 25,276 repositories
- 27,382 unique contributors
- 189,000 unique users have left more than 322,000 stars
- Most popular: NSA’s Ghidra
Deleting 18F 🥄
18F co-founder Hillary Hartley speaks her mind on the agency’s dismantling:
- “The simultaneous targeting of teams like 18F and USDS reveals what this is really about: removing the experts who understand modern technology delivery from inside government.”
- “People who understand that services only work when they’re designed with user needs in mind.”
- “People who can call bullshit on vendors and approaches that are simply snake oil or don’t consider how real people will interact with the service.”
GovTech reckoning 💀
Joy Bonaguro says it’s time to change the govtech game:
- “The dismantling of 18F and the restructuring of the U.S. Digital Service marks a pivotal moment for government technology reform.”
- “These developments aren’t just organizational changes. They represent the inherent vulnerability of government-led digital transformation efforts.”
- “So what if, instead of ignoring or fighting or ceding the market to the status quo, we reshaped it?”
DMing agile acquisitions 💬
Acquisition strategist, author, innovator, problem solver Jonathan Mostowski talks procurement with GovFresh:
- “Agile acquisitions in government streamline the procurement process to be faster, more flexible, and responsive to the purchaser’s needs, leveraging a broad spectrum of federal acquisition authorities.”
- “Agile fails most commonly, for the same reason most things fail: people.”
Related: Leading Agile Acquisitions
USG + OSS security 🔒
Former CISA Senior Technical Advisor Jack Cable shares how the U.S. government is (was?) tackling open source software security at All Things Open 2025.
Related: Secure by Design
Government repo tools 🧰
The Digital Service at Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has templates and command line tools for creating repositories for U.S. federal open source projects.
Related:
The Hackers’ Almanack 🪁
DEF CON Franklin published The Hackers’ Almanack, “a novel first cut at bridging the chasm between policy makers and technologists.”
- AI Red Teaming is Bullshit: “When DEF CON, FDA, and CISA are aligned, it’s time to move beyond siloed and flawed evaluation and red team processes,” and change the way that policy makers view AI red teaming.”
- Governments Failed, So Hackers Step Up: “It’s time to re-evaluate our hesitancy around vigilantism … Perhaps there are ways that vigilantes could better share information with law enforcement or victims without fully ‘hacking back.’”
Open digital EU 🇪🇺
Open Future Senior Policy Analyst Jan Krewer on The European Union’s moment of truth.
- “The return of Donald Trump to the White House, backed by a coalition of tech oligarchs, has made it clear that no free society or independent economy can be built on the foundations of centralized digital infrastructures controlled by foreign corporations.”
- “Calls for independent European digital infrastructures have grown louder. Some advocate for a EuroStack, a sovereign European technology stack that could free the continent from reliance on foreign platforms.”
- “As an alternative, a non-aligned digital movement is taking shape. Seeking to escape the digital imperialism and geopolitical conflicts that come with dependence on US or Chinese technologies, this movement could prioritize collaboration, openness, and non-extractive governance models for technology. Often referred to as digital commons, such initiatives reject centralized corporate control in favor of shared, participatory governance of digital infrastructure.”
Related: Public Policies for Digital Commons webinar: European Tech Infrastructure and Open Source Investment
OpenSSF Policy Summit ⛰️
The Open Source Security Foundation hosted its 2025 Policy Summit in Washington, D.C. (recap).
Sessions:
- AI & Open Source Security
- Open Source Best Practices
- Regulatory Harmonization
- Repository & Package Supply Chain Security
AI Action Plan comments 🤖
The White House issued a request for information on its AI action plan. Google, OpenAI and Palantir responded.
Open source + open data jobs 📊
Open Knowledge Foundation is looking for CKAN Services:
Book club 📚
Recent reads/listens:
- The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West
- Dark Wire: The Incredible True Story of the Largest Sting Operation Ever
- The Tech Coup: How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley
Events 🗓️
- CityCamp, TBD (global)
Community 🫶
- The GovFresh community is open to anyone.
- To join, email community@govfresh.com with ‘Community’ in the subject.
Got tips? 📫
- Topics: tech, design, open source, data, security, blockchain, AI, civic hacking
- Send to: signal@govfresh.com
- Subject: ‘Signal tip’
Got feedback? 😍
- Send to: signal@govfresh.com
- Subject: ‘Signal feedback’