Digital Transformation Agency deletes links to GovShare project, says it's still alive

Turnbull's Transformers' left hand no longer speaking to right hand

The Australian government's Digital Transformation Agency says one of its signal projects, GovShare, is just fine – but nobody's told the developers that are quietly shovelling dirt onto its coffin.

The GovShare site still exists, but hasn't seen any new content posted since 2015, which makes it look an awful lot like an orphan project, at least to Vulture South.

That led The Register to ask about the status of GovShare. The Agency provided this response:

• The GovShare project is not being discontinued.
• Following the transfer of responsibility for GovShare from the Department of Finance, the DTA is reviewing the technology to determine its future requirements.
• The review is expected to be completed in the first quarter of this year.

However, GovShare – along with one of the projects it hosted, the Agency Solutions Register – is no longer listed on the DTA's Website under its whole-of-government “common solutions” shared services page.

The same page, as captured by Wayback, showed both of these solutions were still live in March 2016:

One of these things is not like the other ... the Digital Transformation Agency's "Common Services" list today (left) and March 2016 (right, from Wayback)

Over on the DTO's GitHub repository, agency developers describe GovShare as “discontinued”:

"Discontinued" ... "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means"

Perhaps the devs are wrong, and are about to be corrected and have GovShare reinstated to its rightful place on the DTA's services directory. We'll keep you posted if things change. ®