
PublicMarkup.org is working on a model to write federal legislation in an open manner. Go to the site and read / comment on the wording...
It think a simple rule would be no government ordinance / rule / law / contract should be approved without it being available to the public for at least 48 hours (how about a week) ..... would the world be worse off if there were no late night deals ....
Open source works great for software .... just ask google ... and this and most blogs and really most stuff you see on the web runs on "open source"