Open Source Enthusiast To Advise Conservatives

The co-founder of an organisation that has campaigned for smarter use of the Internet and open source software as a way to increase visibility in government has agreed to help advise the Tory party on its web strategy.

Tom Steinberg, director and co-founder of mySociety, announced his advisory role in a blog posting this week but said he wanted to stay clear of party politics and emphasised that the position will be unpaid and separate from his work at mySociety.

“It is me that is doing the advising, not mySociety. And mySociety is strictly non-partisan. This partisanship is guaranteed by a range of trustees, staff and volunteers of an almost ungovernable independence who would rather see me burned at a stake than change one line of code to benefit a political party,” Steinberg said on his personal blog.

mySociety, founded in 2003, is the organisation behind several online tools designed to help citizens keep tabs on government and MPs. The organisation develops much of its software under the Affero GPL – a version of the GNU General Public License that actually goes further than the standard GPL. In an interview with Heise UK, Steniberg admitted that applications developed by mySociety such as TheyWorkForYou.com, WriteToThem.com, and PledgeBank.com would have been difficult to create without open source tools.

“It would be enormously harder, slower and more expensive. I am not sure any of it is fundamentally impossible to do but it would be probably impractical and probably wouldn’t have happened,” he said.

But while Steinberg has made it clear that he is not interested in party politics some critics have claimed that his decision to help the Conservatives is a betrayal of the present government which funded mySociety to the tune of £196,000 in 2004. In a comment on his personal blog, former Minister for Digital Engagement, Tom Watson (below) said that Steinberg’s decision could jeopordise mySociety’s independent standing.

“MySociety has built a great deal of trust with parliamentarians on all both sides of the House over the last few years. It wasn’t easy,” wrote Watson. “They’re a non-partisan organisation who rightly, take a dig at all sides when required. Yet, despite Tom’s hastily published explanation on his blog tonight, the manner of his appointment will leave an air of mistrust between him and supporters of MySociety who are not Conservatives. That’s a very great shame for him, but more importantly, for MySociety.”

Steinberg responded to Watson’s blog post on his own site and reiterated that his new role would not involve mySociety in any way. “I’m genuinely sorry that the news probably isn’t what you wanted to hear. In particular it makes me sad to receive criticism from someone I’ve had such a good working and informal relationship with,’ wrote Steinberg. “I would like to stress to your readers that mySociety will continue to be rigorously impartial, just as it was when I was advising ministers like you in the current government. Apart from anything else, I don’t have the power to make mySociety be anything else other than impartial – the staff and volunteers are way too independent minded to allow a dubious change in direction.”

But despite Watson’s criticism of Steinberg over his new role, Watson, who stepped down as Minister for Digital Engagement amid the expenses scandal, has not been immune to siding against the government over some of its recent internet policies. In August, Watson warned that the government has opened itself up to accusations of having been “captured” by record and film companies following its threat to cut-off the internet access of file-sharers. “I’m disappointed with today’s announcement on the revisions to the filesharing consultation as it will lead to accusations that the government has been captured by the big lobby operations of powerful rightsholders,” he wrote on his blog.

Steinberg’s appointment as a Tory adviser follows a concerted attempt by the government to appoint key figures in Internet world to help with its online strategy. Online luminaries such as web inventor Tim Berners Lee, and Lastminute.com co-founder Martha Lane-Fox, have been hired on as special advisers to help the government improve the services it offers via the Internet.