This post has been updated with additional comments from Federal CIO Tony Scott.
Original Post: 3:30 p.m.
Nearly four months after issuing a draft policy to release most — if not all — code produced by government agencies as open source, the Office of Management and Budget dropped the final mandate on Aug. 8.
The use of open source code for federal projects has been a major push from the administration over the last couple years and the new policy shows an effort for the government to abide by the same standards they espouse.
Download: Finalized Source Code Policy
Under the final Federal Source Code policy, agencies will have to share internally developed code with each other and release at least 20 percent to the public.
OMB plans to test that second part before going governmentwide, with a two-year pilot program to gauge the value and help anticipate pitfalls that could come with releasing all code. All federal agencies under the purview of the OMB directive will be required to participate in the pilot.
“By making source code available for sharing and reuse across federal agencies, we can avoid duplicative custom software purchases and promote innovation and collaboration,” Federal CIO Tony Scott said in an Aug. 8 blog post announcing the final policy. “By opening more of our code to the brightest minds inside and outside of government, we can enable them to work together to ensure that the code is reliable and effective in furthering our national objectives.”
The code being released to the public will be housed on Code.gov, a new website expected to launch in the next few months. During that time, OMB will also be developing a set of metrics to track the program, which it has to have in place within 120 days.
The policy has changed slightly since the draft was released in March. Some of the changes are a result of the more than 2,000 comments received during the public input period.
“For instance, we’ve further emphasized in the final policy that the pilot program’s 20 percent release requirement is a minimum baseline and that federal agencies are encouraged to go above and beyond to release as much custom-developed code as possible,” Scott said in an Aug. 8 comment on GitHub. “We’ve strengthened measures to ensure agencies have the support they need to open source their software appropriately and responsibly. And at the conclusion of the pilot program, we’ll evaluate its results to determine the best path forward.”
“As agencies across the federal government take steps to improve access to their source code, the amount of available federal open source software will grow,” Scott said in the blog post. “This is, after all, the people’s code. Explore it. Learn from it. Improve it. Use it to propel America’s next breakthrough in innovation.”
