About

Civic OS is a low/no-code software platform which allows government agencies to build and tailor their own information systems and logic without writing code.

Civic OS is a Low-profit LLC which allows us to stay focused on our mission of empowering local government.

Goals

Raise the level of abstraction

We believe that most information systems or processes can be abstracted in a way that a non-technical person can describe it if provided with the right tools. Similarly, the system for storing this information should allow that same non-technical person to understand and (most critically) contribute to the system’s creation.

Civic OS provides the platform for automatically translating concepts and ideas into a concrete structure that handles the most common tasks of information management: Definition, Input, and Display.

Tools, not Products

Just as no single community is identical to another, no government agency’s needs are 100% identical to another. Civic OS is a tool designed to allow experts in the information domain (those familiar with the information managed) to create and maintain information systems without writing software code. As such, the system will not be complete without input from the organization operating the system but rather a completed system is created using Civic OS.

Where similarities exist, templates may be shared within a community of users to ease the burden of creating systems from nothing.

Runs anywhere

This software is created to allow any organization to setup and administer their own instance of the application. You own the data and the software.

Values

Open Government

Transparency and accountability are foundational to successful democratic governance. In order for citizens to be informed, they must have ready access to information to make good decisions about who to support and how to vote in elections and on referenda.

Access to information is necessary to allow citizens to collaborate in government. Civic OS furthers this goal by adopting an open-by-default stance to most information. Unless there is a good reason (for example, Personally Identifiable Information), data is accessible, browsable, and aggregatable.

Open Government is a very broad topic. The OECD has written extensively on this topic.

Open Data

All data is not created equal. In order to make data open and usable the Open Data Charter has published 6 key principles:

• Open By Default
• Timely and Comprehensive
• Accessible and Usable
• Comparable and Interoperable
• For Improved Governance & Citizen Engagement
• For Inclusive Development and Innovation

Civic OS supports these principles by enforcing structured data and automatically creating Application Program Interfaces (APIs) to provide appropriate access to the stored data.

Open Source

The term “open source” can have a number of meanings but Civic OS uses the definition consistent with “free software” according to the Free Software Foundation.

The two primary outcomes of this philosophy are democratic development and lower cost of entry. Democratic development allows entities to contribute to development (in code, financial, and administrative contributions) to influence the system’s evolution. This results in a system that is useful for a broad range of diverse organizations. Lower cost of entry is realized by the $0 licensing fees inherent in Free/Open Source software. When development is performed in the open, the cost is shared by an entire community.

Software Licensing is a complex issue with many, diverse opinions. It is the author’s opinion that software employed by governments best serve the public interest when their development is required to be shared with the community (as in AGPL) rather than allowing value to be captured by private corporations.

Team

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