Gunnar Hellekson

663 points
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Washington, DC

I'm the Chief Strategist for Red Hat's US Public Sector group, where I work with systems integrators and government agencies to encourage the use of open source software in government. I'm a founder of Open Source for America, one of Federal Computer Week's Fed 100 for 2010, and I've been voted one of the FedScoop 50 for industry leadership. I'm a member of the Military Open Source working group, the SIIA Software Division Board, the Board of Directors for the Public Sector Innovation Group, the Open Technology Fund Advisory Council, and New America's California Civic Innovation Project Advisory Council. I perk up when people talk about cross-domain security, edge innovation, and interagency collaboration through the open source model. I'm also co-host of the Dave and Gunnar Show. Prior to joining Red Hat, I worked as a developer, systems administrator, and IT director for a series of internet businesses. I've also been a business and IT consultant to not-for-profit organizations in New York City. During that time, I spearheaded the reform of safety regulations for New York State's electrical utilities following the tragic death of Jodie Lane.When I'm not spreading the Good News about open source, I'm wishing I had a dogenjoying time with my dog and my wife.

Authored Content

A truly open VistA

The VA has released a draft RFP to create a new open source project around their electronic health record system, VistA. This is a landmark event for both the VA and the open…

Good design is hard on all of us

Tim Lee is, for my money, one of the most reasonable and thoughtful tech policy essayists we have. His latest, “ Open User Interfaces Suck” got my attention, because he hits…

Authored Comments

CFPB is definitely a leader. We included them on chart, though it's difficult to see in the video: http://gov-oss.org/

That's the same report I refer to in the talk.

When I'm talking about reluctance, I'm talking about organizational reluctance, not the individual actors. DOD as an organization felt it had to issue policy, commission reports from MITRE, etc. while DOE just went ahead and did it. In both cases, it only happens because of the decisions made at the grass roots.