The city of San Francisco has made public it’s open source policy for software purchases. In a blog post by the city’s mayor, the new policy requires that the city equally consider open source software while making software purchases.

The highlight of the post was the realization that new and innovative technologies have been created with open source technologies when the government released all its data in open and machine readable formats.

One of the most interesting new applications has been the city government’s integration with Twitter and how it is leading the city government to receive reports about broken civic amenities and fix these problems in realtime.

Very cool.