XOOPS as a framework has been in development for 10 years. XOOPS as a portal system, doesn't do much by itself, which is ideal for Open Government deployments as it means there is no foundation taking up the creative element of developing this solution for your department.

There are many frameworks on the market these days, originally it was just XOOPS and a few other like drupal and phpNuke. Although there are many solutions often the middle management in decisive acquisitions for deployments in departments means the best fit solution is often over looked.

Often with frameworks you are limited to the environment which you can deploy in, for example there is one framework which is often over used which is Zend, which although is good does a lot of over kill in it structure. With Open Government I believe a decentralised approach is the best which means that you can have a cloud per department of the government with the API available with documents and information as well as submission taken into account all in XOOPS without having to centralise and leave open to information fraud and exposure to data manipulation of hackers and the nefarious aspects of the online community.

I have been experimenting with various frameworks and decided with my Antispam, Antiharvesting & Antihacking cloud solution Xortify to stick with XOOPS for the moment until I have to rewrite the APIs in C++ for faster responses. Of course this would probably not have to happen in a decentralised open government deployment of XOOPS as the load on the individual APIS will be minimal from other Government department and community providing the loading on a title like X-Rest 1.52 will be never great.

See the problem with having all your eggs in one basket with a Centralised Model on open government is if the API goes down for example then the entire business of the Government for that day or even week, will mean there will be no business done by the government. This could be used to cripple and streamline attacks against the government. Centralised Government and the Superstructure of government is changing. A Dencentralised model, which encompasses the same technology footprint in an open government department means you would have a model where perhaps the only thing that is similar between departments, is the API that collects and classifies information for terms and tenures as well as maybe the document ID an article on the API is assigned.

For example Word Documents and PDF can be exchanged with a document management module that could be once written universal in each micro-cloud of the government where under base64 encoding files can be downloaded and audited by the general community if they are not under some classification tenure for 5, 15 or 30 years as you would probably find the API at the police, ASIO or any spy organisation would report, apart from the title of the record and the document id, that would be all that is available.

This decentralisation and push for an open government also defeats services like Wikileaks, where the system of this business only works because information unclassified or otherwise is withheld allowing for exposure of the departmental environment. In an open government to much information is good, cause it means there is nothing left to be exposed in the first instance. When the government is decentralised into XOOPS Clouds, it means modules can be shared and information design is less than uniform, meaning there is no streamline approach to exposing a government to an embarrassing assets their staff have done. It also limits the claims of the society that has built in the recent years like the occupy movement as they only exist cause information is withheld. If the days business is available to anyone with a general API knowledge then there is no longer this environment where people can say they weren't informed or the information was withheld and therefore a basis of corruption.

XOOPS allows for a modular environment to be developed for any Government department as it is used in several Brazilian governments for complete, deployment with over 400 installation in an already decentralised model in website, all they have to do is open up there websites with X-Rest and they already have the perfect Open Government environment.

I have also written and have well tested API'S which means to exchange data is just a result of writing a plug-in for the API and module you want to deploy information from. XOOPS also has a large community and environmental support for hiring the people needed to develop your environment for open government. So please don't go with a younger more flashy, do more stuff in the box, option. This means you will be limited in your framework and information design. XOOPS doesn't pretend to do all these things for you cause it is just the modular framework for designing your information outlay. It is also quiet quick to develop for, being faster more reliable with a strong class modeller as well as support with the ADODb Third Party Addon for other database platforms apart from MySQL.

Reason you should consider XOOPS, is when people compare packages like Drupal, Joomla and XOOPS, the thing I found surprise about is how many people get either bloat or exploited due to not choosing the later. XOOPS come with protection software, doesn't take 2 - 5 seconds per session to boot and has in the next 2.6 release an extreme speed outlook on development. Also of these 3 CMS/Portal solutions, you will find XOOPS is the most likely one to be used in a basis of Design for other CMS, like ?????, or XoopsCube, or XoopsEngine just to name a few. It is as it always has been the quiet flagship of portal solutions, with as a framework design goes, the very basis of a good working environment for Open Government use, especially with a decentralised model of Open Government, where each department is responsible for an API with documents for the general community to access and audit.

So some reason to use XOOPS in Open Government Deployment:

1. Strong Community
2. Honed Development over 10 years
3. Quick Boot Time
4. Good with Heavy loads
5. Protection Software Titles (Protector/Xortify)
6. Industrial Standards Adopted
7. Already used by many World Government
8. APIs already Developed
9. Open Source / Sourceforge project
10. Top 10 CMS/Portals

If you wish to discuss Open Government or Government 2.0 and XOOPS please feel free to contact me on the details provided on my registration here skype or msn is the best. You will need a username to see them on my profile here.

Thanks

Simon Roberts
XOOPS Development