A key element of the (re)statement of UK government open source policy the other week was the need to 'embed an open source culture of sharing, re–use and collaborative development'. That may have seemed like a waste of ink/bandwidth to those outside government; but I can assure you, I've sat in too many wheel reinvention seminars in my life already.
So Puffbox is glad to do its bit to get the wheels turning, by building and launching a couple of commentable documents using Steph Gray HM Government's Commentariat WordPress theme, as seen on the (draft) Power Of Information Taskforce report. One is for DFID, on the elimination of world poverty; the other for Neil Williams at BERR, on the Low Carbon Economy. Wow, weighty subjects or what? - WordPress saving the world?!
Both are instantly recognisable as variations on Steph's basic theme, give or take a bit of branding. This was a deliberate choice: I felt it was important for the sites' origins to be immediately evident, as they needed to send a clear message about re-use, and the benefits in terms of speed and cost.
The DFID site was just another WordPress installation in an existing environment - the same one we're using for DFID Bloggers, as it happens; the total cost to them will be one day of my time, covering WP setup and tweaks to the theme. And when you look at the functionality they're getting for just a few hundred quid, it's a pretty good deal.
The BERR project was slightly trickier. It was a new WPMU environment, always a little trickier to set up; and because the document wasn't as long as other Commentariat instances have been, I had to re-engineer the theme to work off pages rather than categorised posts. I finished my bit in the final hours before dashing off on a week's holiday; seeing the finished product on my return, I'm really impressed by how well it's come together. Massive credit to Neil and the BERR team; the use of pictures really makes a dramatic difference.
Indeed, they both look great. Congratulations to you and the BERR/DFID teams on getting them looking so nice.
Even nicer, Neil's commissioning of an accessibility review of his site raised various points which he kindly shared with me. I've been able to roll these fixes - plus a feature request for a Twitter sharing button - into version 1.3, which is now available.
That's how open source should work.
Thanks again Simon, we're really pleased with the results too - especially given you were right up to the wire on this before your trip. The other thing to add is that now we're able to use this WPMU platform for any other publications we're seeking views on, in house - so not iterative cost to the public.