CoverOregon goes Open Source

Ten months since my open letter to Oregon Governor Kitzhaber, challenging him to fix CoverOregon and to use more local companies and more open source in their technology solutions, we have come full circle.  Metal Toad has just launched an open source (WordPress) version of CoverOregon, concluding several months of a ground-up rebuild of the previous proprietary, almost non-functional system.  Contrary to Oracle's assertions of the CoverOregon team, we found the folks at the state to be reasonable, savvy and very collaborative.  While this might simply be a matter of opinion, I believe the difference is 1) the software brought to the table by an pro open source team and 2) the attitude of collaboration that open source fosters.  This second reason is perhaps the more profound of the two, as it is an attitude marked by a desire to help and the knowledge that we are in this together with our clients.  For us and CoverOregon this has made all the difference.