Obama open sources policy web site

Barack Obama has been described as the most web-savvy president-elect

US president-elect Barack Obama is easing the copyright restrictions that cover his transition plans, and has placed all material on his Change.gov web site under the Creative Commons 3.0 licence.

The licence will allow users to copy, distribute and transmit all material from the site, as well as to adapt and 'remix' the information, provided that the site is sourced for all material used.

Change.gov is being used by Obama as the primary web source for information about the upcoming administration and its policy plans. Along with an outline of policies and proposals, the site contains user-submitted stories and suggestions, all of which will be available under the Creative Commons licence.

The decision was praised by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which has been pressing Obama to tackle online legal and copyright issues since the election.

"The switch to Creative Commons licensing is encouraging, and we hope that it heralds more pro-open government changes to come," wrote EFF activist Richard Esguerra.

"By embracing a Creative Commons licence, the Obama team sets a valuable example for others in government, many of whom may have defaulted to 'all rights reserved' without considering other options."

The move marks the latest in what has been an unprecedented campaign in terms of its web focus. Both the Obama and Republican candidate John McCain camps made extensive use of the internet during the election season.

Obama himself is said to be more web-savvy than previous presidential nominees, relying heavily on his BlackBerry for day-to-day communications.