| is there an initiative like this in the US? It depends, and varies greatly by location. Anything created by the federal government is public domain by law. However, not all federal agencies make their code public. Some, understandably. Others, our of budget constraints or ignorance. In theory, you could file a FOIA request to get the code, assuming it's not classified. Other levels of government can be problematic. In part, because cities and towns can copyright things they create, while the federal government cannot. For example, the City of Chicago and some other cities have data portals open to the public. Their utility varies. Smaller cities, however, are less likely to understand the important or value of making data public. Back when governments started switching to data processing a lot, I belonged to an organization called Investigative Reporters and Editors. It had lots of guides for extracting data from local governments. I remember lots of newspapers rushing out to buy computers are nine-track tape readers so they could sort through the information. |