The Office of the Secretary of Defense CIO recently released policy guidance promoting the use of open source software throughout the U.S. Department of Defense. The DoD is not the only area where the federal government is embracing open source, so is the White House, whose Web site now runs on open source technologies.

Just this fall, Whitehouse.gov moved to a software stack that includes the open source Apache Solr search server and Drupal content management system. Drupal also supports blogs, comments, polls and the ability to create user profiles, reported J. Nicholas Hoover for InformationWeek. Other federal agencies that use Drupal include the DoD, Commerce, and Education and the General Services Administration.

Commenting on the White House's move, spokesman Nick Shapiro said. "We wanted to improve the tools used by thousands of people who come to Whitehouse.gov to engage with White House officials, and each other, in meaningful ways. We now have a technology platform to get more and more voices on the site. This is state-of-the-art technology, and the government is a participant in it."

Other vendors involved in the White House project include Akamai, General Dynamics, Terremark for Web hosting and Drupal development company Phase II.

In a statement on behalf of advocacy group Open Source for America, Bill Vass, president and COO of Sun Microsystems Federal, points to the open source Web platform as evidence of Obama's push for open, transparent government. "By choosing open source software as the defining technology of Whitehouse.gov, it is clear that the President means business," Vass said.

The Obama administration has demonstrated a propensity for open source. Federal CIO Vivek Kundra sometimes mentions open source along with cloud computing for potential in lowering IT costs.

Regarding the open source policy guidance released by the DoD, Vass said it "puts in place guidance that encourages the evaluation of open source products as well as how they should be managed within the DoD. I believe that other agencies across the Federal Government should be pro-actively creating polices like this within their organizations."

More Information

DoD Guidance Regarding Open Source Software

The White House Web Site

Sun's Free and Open Source Software

Sun Federal

Sun in the Global Government Industry

Sun in Government Solution Brief [...read more...]

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