Last week, U.S. Chief Information Officer Tony Scott announced the launch of code.gov, another important milestone in the federal government’s adoption of open source code. The new site provides access to more than 50 open source projects from 13 federal agencies. The potential benefits of code.gov stretch across America, as Scott said in his announcement:
We’re excited about today’s launch, and envision code.gov becoming yet another creative platform that gives citizens the ability to participate in making government services more effective, accessible, and transparent. We also envision it becoming a useful resource for State and local governments and developers looking to tap into the Government’s code to build similar services, foster meaningful connections with their users, and help us continue to realize the President’s vision for a 21st Century digital government.
code.gov comes on the heels of the Federal Source Code Policy, which requires agencies to release at least 20 percent of their new custom-developed code each year as open source. This new site will become a central place to find all of these projects and will help agencies meet the goals of the Federal Source Code Policy.
Right now you can find code from General Services Administration projects like the Draft U.S. Web Design Standards and apps.gov. You can also find 3D resources from NASA, data standards from the Department of Agriculture, and the code that powers the White House’s We the People petition site.
code.gov was created by GSA’s Presidential Innovation Fellows, 18F, and the Office of the U.S. Chief Information Officer. We encourage you to take a look at all the great code produced by the federal government, reuse it for your own projects, and contribute back to improve government digital services for the entire public. If you’re interested in trying out open source in your agency (you totally should) check out our Open Source Guide to help make your code easy to use and understand and our Open Source Policy to see how it works at 18F.