Innovation with Open Source: The New South Wales Judicial Commission experience. MyGOSSCON 2008. Mr. Murali Sagi
Director,
Information Management & Corporate Services,
JUDICIAL COMMISSION OF NSW, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
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Innovation with Open Source: The New South Wales Judicial Commission experience
1. Judicial Commission of New South Wales
Innovation with Open Source
Murali Sagi PSM
Director, Information Management and Corporate
Services
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2. Judicial Commission of New South Wales
Presentation Outline:
Role of the Commission
Critical business applications
Why open source software?
Lessons learned
Key success factors
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3. Judicial Commission of New South Wales
Role of the Commission:
Provide ongoing education for judicial
officers
Assist courts achieve consistent sentences
Examine complaints against judicial
officers
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4. Judicial Commission of New South Wales
Critical Business Applications:
Judicial Information Research System
Case Management System
Offence Code Management System
XML Publishing System
Network Infrastructure
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5. Judicial Commission of New South Wales
Judicial Information Research System
Over a 1000 users
Web based application since 1994
Over 450,000 legal documents
Over 500,000 sentencing statistics
Software
Linux/Apache/Postgresql/PHP with a custom
search engine written in-house
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6. Judicial Commission of New South Wales
Case Management System
Operates in NSW District Court, Drug
Courts and currently being implemented in a
large government department for fine
enforcement
First implemented in 2002
Relational Database of 208 tables
170,000 lines of PHP code
Tested for case load of 2.5 million cases and
45 million financial transactions
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7. Judicial Commission of New South Wales
Case Management System Architecture
Client/Web Browser
Apache/PHP server
Postgresql DB server
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8. Judicial Commission of New South Wales
Offence Code Management System
Sector wide application used by Courts,
Police, DPP, Corrective Services, Legal Aid
and others
Operates on Open Source Software since
June 2006
Relational Database of 50 tables
50,000 lines of code (J2EE)
61,000 separate Offence Codes
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10. Judicial Commission of New South Wales
XML Publishing System
Used to prepare Bench Books, Legislation
and Case Summaries
Single Source
- All documents stores as XML
- Can convert to HTML, PDF, PostScript, RTF
- Uses XSL Style sheets for different outputs
Software
- XML Mind XML Editor with DocBook DTD
- CVS – version control system 10
12. Judicial Commission of New South Wales
Network Infrastructure
Authentication:
Single Sign-on via LDAP/Samba
User Information stored in Open LDAP Tree
Email Server:
Postfix SMTP daemon
Courier POP3/IMAP4 access
IMP WebMail access
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13. Judicial Commission of New South Wales
Linux Servers:
WWW/FTP/Email Server
Print/Proxy/DNS Firewall/Intrusion Detection
Samba Domain Server/CVS/File Server
Database and Application
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14. Judicial Commission of New South Wales
Why open Source Software?
Choice
Value
Quality
Standards
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15. Judicial Commission of New South Wales
Lessons Learned
Steep learning curve
Require broad skill sets
Availability of support
Choice of vendors and hardware
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16. Judicial Commission of New South Wales
Key Success Factors
Willingness to take risk
Right mix of experienced and new workforce
Creation of a learning and prototyping
environment
Agile Development Methodology and Extreme
programming
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17. Judicial Commission of New South Wales
Conclusion
Using open source software in a business
environment is challenging but if you use it
appropriately it will deliver enormous benefits.
The Commission could not have achieved its
outstanding success with technology without
the flexibility and tools for innovation offered
by open source software.
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