Data.gouv.fr, the renewed French government's open data platform, officially unveiled this week, runs on a tailored version of CKAN, open source data management portal software. The fork, called Etalab, is made available under the same licence as CKAN, the GNU Affero General Public License. Etalab is developed by the Interdepartmental Directorate for ICT (Disic), "making the best use of open source solutions and cloud computing".
The renewed open data portal was unveiled on 18 December by the French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, the Secretary for Government Reform, Local Governments and Civil Service, Marylise Lebranchu, and the Deputy Secretary for SMBs, Innovation and the Digital Economy, Fleur Pellerin.
The site has been redesigned during the past two years, reports the French IT news site Journal du net. Main goal of the overhaul is to make it easier for public administrations to donate data, and for users to find and re-use these datasets.
Empowerment
The platform is to provide access to public data and boost its re-use. Already available on the platform is data on operating grants given by the Ministry of Interior to local public administrations, accountancy data of municipalities and local government organisations, data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry and raw data published by France's institute for horses and horse riding.
"More than a data portal, data.gouv.fr is now the common platform of a community of open government data producers and re-users", Etalab said in a statement. "France opens an extremely innovative new chapter in the worldwide movement of Open Data, which aims at spurring empowerment and engagement of citizens in civic life, as well as more transparent and open governments."
Upstream
Etalab expects that the investments for developing the open data platform will be offset by costs savings within one year. By basing the portal on CKAN - developed by the Open Knowledge Foundation - the project is using "the most widely used open source software for open data portals". By making its modifications available, it aims to contribute to the community.
More information:
data.gouv.fr (in French)
Etalab
Etalab announcement
Journal du net news item (in French)
Le Monde news item (in French)