Open Government Software Projects
Civic technology projects represent organized efforts to build, share, and improve the software and standards that governments rely on to serve their communities. Unlike traditional government IT procurement, which often produces proprietary systems locked to a single vendor, civic tech projects prioritize openness, reuse, and collaboration across jurisdictions.
The projects documented here range from technical standards that define how government systems communicate, to platforms that help agencies share and deploy software, to initiatives that provide practical guidance on adopting open source technology in government settings.
Featured Projects
Open311
Open311 is an open standard for civic issue tracking and non-emergency service requests. It provides a common protocol that allows citizens to report problems like potholes, graffiti, and broken infrastructure through a standardized digital interface. Cities implementing Open311 benefit from a growing ecosystem of compatible applications and analytics tools. The standard has been adopted by dozens of municipalities worldwide and remains one of the most successful examples of open standards in government.
The Commons
The Commons represents the concept of shared civic technology resources, a marketplace where governments can discover, evaluate, and adopt software that other jurisdictions have already built and tested. Rather than every city or county building its own version of common tools, The Commons approach encourages pooling resources and sharing solutions.
Resource Development
Resource development in civic technology focuses on building the knowledge base, documentation, and best practices that help government agencies successfully adopt open source software. This includes procurement guides, policy templates, legal frameworks, and case studies drawn from real-world implementations.
Why Projects Matter
Government technology spending is enormous, yet much of it goes toward duplicated effort. When one city builds a budget transparency tool, dozens of other cities often build their own versions independently. Civic technology projects aim to break this pattern by creating shared infrastructure that any jurisdiction can use.
The benefits extend beyond cost savings. When multiple governments contribute to the same project, the software improves faster. Bugs are caught and fixed by a larger community of users. New features developed by one jurisdiction become available to all participants. Security vulnerabilities are identified and patched more quickly when code is open to inspection.
How Projects Are Organized
Civic technology projects typically share several characteristics:
- Open source licensing that allows any government or organization to use, modify, and redistribute the software
- Community governance that gives participants a voice in the project’s direction
- Technical documentation that enables new users to deploy and customize the software
- Standards-based design that ensures interoperability with other systems
- Active maintenance with regular updates, security patches, and feature improvements
The Broader Ecosystem
Civic technology projects do not exist in isolation. They connect to a broader ecosystem that includes government agencies adopting the software, companies providing implementation and support services, nonprofit organizations advocating for open approaches, and individual developers contributing their skills to public interest technology.
Organizations like Code for America, the Sunlight Foundation, and the Open Knowledge Foundation have played significant roles in nurturing civic technology projects and building the community around them. Government initiatives like the federal Digital Services program and 18F have demonstrated that open source, user-centered approaches can work at the highest levels of government.
Contributing to Projects
Most civic technology projects welcome contributions from developers, designers, policy experts, and government practitioners. Contributing does not always require programming skills. Writing documentation, testing software, reporting bugs, translating interfaces, and sharing deployment experiences all strengthen the projects and make them more useful to the broader community.
Open311 - Open Standard for Civic Issue Tracking
Open311 is an open standard and protocol for civic issue tracking, enabling citizens to report non-emergency problems and governments to manage service requests efficiently.
View details →Resource Development in Civic Technology
Resource development for civic technology covers the guides, policy frameworks, procurement tools, and best practices that help governments adopt open source software.
View details →The Commons - Shared Civic Technology Resources
The Commons is a shared marketplace for civic technology, enabling governments to discover, evaluate, and reuse open source software rather than building from scratch.
View details →