We are all shocked and saddened by the death of Aaron Swartz. Some of my colleagues at GDS were fortunate to have met him; others were involved in the many projects he worked on; all of us are in some way indebted to his legacy. As Sir Tim Berners-Lee said, ‘we have lost a mentor, a wise elder.’ Here in the UK, it inevitably brings back the pain six years ago of losing Chris Lightfoot, another brilliant and passionate polymath whose capabilities and achievements extended far beyond his years. Tom Loosemore, Etienne Pollard and I held a number of roles in e-democracy charity mySociety, and saw at first hand how Chris drove its thinking to challenge Government and create services which have paved the way for our current attempts. Many of us in and around GDS have waited years to apply in Government the techniques and analysis that Chris and his colleagues pioneered outside of Government, and we are fully aware that the opportunity that we have been given is in part as a result of their work. Aaron and Chris were remarkable...

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Mike Bracken, executive director of the Government Digital Service, talked to Computer Weekly about what UK public services could learn from Estonia’s open source model and why a dose of its IT leaders’ humility wouldn’t go amiss in Whitehall.    Estonia has one of the most advanced online public service offerings in the world and is held up in some quarters as a model for the UK’s digital remit. Earlier this year Mike Bracken, head of the Government Digital Service (GDS), spent three days visiting the country, along with Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude and deputy CIO Liam Maxwell, to see what the UK could learn. One of the biggest differences with Estonia’s thriving open source culture is that licensed software is an almost alien concept, says Bracken. Just 1% of its GDP goes on technology and services, with 0.1% going on software licences – a negligible amount, considering nearly all public services are run to a “digital by default” model, says Bracken. “They are advocates of open source having built the infrastructure of the country using it, and we should learn from that,” Bracken says. Estonia...

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