WhiteHouse.gov Releases Open Source Code

schliz writes "The White House has released four custom modules for the Drupal content management system. The modules address scalability, communication, and accessibility for disabled users, and the release is expected to benefit both the Drupal community and the WhiteHouse.gov site as the code is reviewed and improved by the open source community." Reader ChiefMonkeyGrinder adds an opinion piece with a somewhat envious view from the UK: "Open source is treated as something akin to devil-worshipping in some parts of government. So, the idea that a major project in the government backyard would be based on something as basic as Drupal is pretty far-fetched. No, this side of the Atlantic would have involved a closed-tender process; a decision made [behind] closed doors based on proprietary software and we'd be completely in the dark about costs, about delays, and about functionality."

Comments

Obviously more evidence

[Xeriar]

that our government is sliding towards communism!

Re:Obviously more evidence

[MozeeToby]

Well, the mantra of communism is "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." That's... pretty much exactly how open source works. Everyone sees the benefits regardless of how much work they put into it, whether that be designing the architecture the system, writing code, submitting bug reports, or even just submitting crash reports.

Re:Obviously more evidence

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

With the one significant difference of OSS being "From each according to his abilities, if he feels like it, or is redistributing modified binaries, to each according to his needs if something matching his needs happens to be available, and because the provider of that something voluntarily made it available.

The difference between being voluntary(yes, BSD trolls, people are legally compelled to release their modifications if they distribute binaries from GPLed source; but they take on this contractual obligation voluntarily) and being a command-and-control scheme is not insignificant.

Looked at in a slightly different light, OSS development is basically a variation on the "consortium development" model, adjusted for the fact that, since duplicating data is virtually free, lawyers and restrictions to prevent free-riding are actually more expensive than free-riders are. BSD-style OSS makes no legal effort to rein-in free riding, either ignoring the issue or depending on the fact that maintaining your own fork is often more of a POS than staying up with the mainline, while GPL-style OSS makes no legal effort to go after free-riding users; but does seek to compel free-riding developers to contribute.

The handy thing about it is that, because it does have a slightly communistic flavor, it works for and appeals to your idealistic sharing hippie types; but, as experience has demonstrated, it is surprisingly compatible with capitalist incentive structures(just look at how much kernel development gets done, basically because large corporations find it profitable), and it involves basically zero state coercion, aside from legal enforcement of voluntary private contracts. Thus, it is largely agreeable to everyone from communists to libertarians, with the exception only of rent-seeking corporatist scum.

Re:Obviously more evidence

[mweather]

You probably don't actually NEED Photoshop. Few people do.

Re:Obviously more evidence

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

And that's ignoring the fact that Marxism childishly assumes all economic transactions are zero-sum and wealth can never be created.

Where did you dig up that nonsense? Yes, communism consistently fails because it never manages to come up with a viable alternative to the market for setting prices and distributing commodities. However, there is nothing in Marxism implying that transactions are zero-sum. Marx himself, in his sections on economics, is practically orthodox Adam Smith. He is completely in agreement with Smith's stuff about gains from specialization of labor(the famous Pin Factory) and was, if anything, even more fixated on the productivity advantages of capital goods, and the way in which capital goods could be combined with labor to produce a surplus with which to produce more capital goods. The only real difference was that he took the (wholly orthodox) notion that "In a competitive market, the price of a commodity is equal to its marginal cost of production" combined that with the (also wholly orthodox) idea of "labor as commodity", and drew the unpleasant conclusion that "in a competitive market, the price of labor will be equal to the cost of bare subsistence for the laborer."(and, given what the pre-welfare-state industrial slums looked like, this wasn't exactly without empirical validation)... The whole marxist idea of labor being oppressed by capital rested on this conclusion, and on the idea(explicitly opposed to the "zero-sum" notion) that capital + labor would generate surplus value; but that, since the market for unskilled industrial labor was extremely competitive, capital would end up holding basically all the surplus value, reinvesting it in capital goods, and obtaining even more surplus value in the next round, while labor would always be stuck at a subsistence level.

Later Marxists were fascinated with(and frequently sought to emulate) to work of industrialist innovators like Ford and Taylor, precisely because they recognized that those guys where on the cutting edge of non-zero-sum transactions and maximal productivity gains from the combination of capital and labor with scientific management techniques.

Obviously, none of this denies the existence of random pot-smoking dorm-room "communists" who wear Che shirts and think that "work is slavery, man!"; but the intellectual underpinnings of Marxism and communism(as well as the activities of communist states, which tended to explicitly emphasize the swiftest possible transition from near-zero-sum subsistence activities to high-surplus industrial ones) is actually in nearly complete agreement with orthodox capitalist theorists about the non-zero-sumness of transactions, and the gains from trade and specialization of labor. Communists just don't like how those gains are distributed. Unfortunately for them, they never hit on a more viable mechanism.

Good move

[betterunixthanunix]

I have a lot of complaints about this current administration, but I'll give them credit where it is due. This is a good move, and I hope to see similar actions in the future.

Re:Excellent !

[Yvanhoe]

Let's do that then :
Trustbird is a project led by the French Gendarmerie (a kind of police) in order to add military cryptography and chain-of-command features into thunderbird. It has been released publicly.

Seriously, Drupal is the greatest thing

[aussersterne]

since sliced bread. Easy and damned rapid to deploy, reasonably scalable, easy to modify and customize, flexible enough to build everything from a blog to an e-commerce system to a social networking platform to a cloud-based RDBMS front-end to a personal document and photos filing system.

A million things I used to do with my own C code, shell scripts, and hard drives are now done on a hosted domain using Drupal. More and more of the work I do for others just slides into Drupal by default because it's the easiest, most powerful, fastest, and most growth-capable way to accomplish it.

I just love Drupal.

Re:Seriously, Drupal is the greatest thing

[Em Emalb]

Spit it out man, what are you trying to say? Do you or do you not like Drupal? Damned kids, being so mysterious these days. Back in my day, you stated flat out how you felt about something. And we liked it that way.

Re:Seriously, Drupal is the greatest thing

[Monkeedude1212]

Drupal is the greating thing since sliced bread.

Woah, woah woah, Woah woah woah, woah. Yes, this warrants 7 woahs, now 8. Everything you mentioned can easily be done with bread.

Its easy (water and flour) and damned rapid to deploy (Little while in the oven), reasonably scalable (just need a bigger bun-cake-pan), easy to modify and customize (dough!), flexible enough to build everything from a blog (bread-log, also known as a baguette) to an e-commerce system (ancient romans often bartered with wheat) to a social networking platform (http://www.breadtalk.com/ apply to join!) to a cloud-based RDBMS front end (okay what the hell is that? You can't just make stuff up you know) to a personal document and photos filing system (Sliced bread makes great seperators, see: Club sandwhich)

Don't get me wrong, Drupal is pretty amazing, but lets not go around belittling the great invention that is sliced bread.

Re:Seriously, Drupal is the greatest thing

[Sir_Lewk]

Taking it literally, I believe "greatest thing since sliced bread" may still indicate that sliced bread is the greatest thing, but the new thing being talked about is greater than all achievements after (since) sliced bread.

Of course, this might still imply the possibility of things greater than sliced bread existing before sliced bread...

In other words: 3 18 9 2 5 8 3 5 2 15 12 11 9 14

In the above list, 14 is the greatest element since 15. If 14 where changed to a number, say 16, then it would become the greatest number since 18.

Ok, I think I've officially over-analysed this.

Re:Seriously, Drupal is the greatest thing

[Bing Tsher E]

Sliced bread actually sucks. Bigtime.

The 'crust' on a loaf of bread protects the bread inside, and keeps it fresh. Slicing the whole loaf just promotes early spoilage. The promotion of pre-packaged sliced bread goes hand in hand with the idea that bread needs to be pumped full of chemicals and preservatives to keep it fresh.

The more I hear about Vivek Kundra's work

[Nethemas the Great]

the more impressed I am by his lack of respect for the status quo of government IT. Keep up the good work. It's about about time someone applied some common sense.

Um... bullshit?

[nacturation]

About the UK and Open Source:

No, this side of the Atlantic would have involved a closed-tender process; a decision made by closed doors based on proprietary software and we'd be completely in the dark about costs, about delays, and about functionality.

http://www.google.com/search?q=uk+government+open+source

Odd... seems the opposite to what the esteemed "ChiefMonkeyGrinder" claims. Of course, one of the links there is "words, not deeds" so perhaps all the noise about open source is just that.

Re:Um... bullshit?

[yuna49]

Of course, one of the links there is "words, not deeds" so perhaps all the noise about open source is just that.

Indeed if you read the article you would have seen a comment by a VP at Ingres that sounds remarkably similar to the criticism from the UK commentator cited at the top of the story:

This is not the first time such platitudes have been made by the government. Over the past 12 months the office of the CIO has continually pointed to open source as the key to reducing capital expenditure on large public sector IT projects. We at Ingres work with public sector bodies daily and have not seen the enforcement of these policies at a practical level and so view this announcement cautiously. Right now there is a very large negotiation underway to renew Oracle's contract with the MOD which in theory should be put to competitive tender but sadly is being conducted behind closed doors.

Of course, Ingres has a vested interest as a competitor to Oracle, but I'm not surprised to hear that the Ministry of Defence conducts its IT negotiations behind closed doors, "in the interests of security," I'm sure.

Re:Um... bullshit?

[aitala]

How about http://data.gov.uk/ ? That's Drupal too.

Or is the site not really part of the Gov't?

Eric

GPL or public domain?

[Col. Klink (retired)]

The GPL requires copyright ownership, but work done by the Federal Government can not be copyrighted. I looked at a couple of the modules and they all include GPL v2 license. Shouldn't they be public domain?

Re:GPL or public domain?

[Col. Klink (retired)]

There's no requirement that work done by the Federal Government has to be published or released. Unreleased code can be classified or avoid FOIA for various reasons, but it cannot be protected by copyright.

In this case, they actually did release code and they attached a copyright notice to it. They don't have to publish it, but if they do, they can't copyright it either.

Re:GPL or public domain?

[ProdigyPuNk]

I'm sure this is a minor oversight and the person responsible just didn't realize this. Here's some more info on copyright re: the government:

3.6) Can the government copyright its works? This one has to be taken slowly, and we'll look at federal and state governments separately, because the rules are different. With one exception, works of the United States government are public domain. 17 U.S.C. 105. The only exception is for standard reference data produced by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce under the Standard Reference Data Act, 15 U.S.C. 290e. However, there's a big loophole here: while the U.S government can't get copyright for its own works, it can have an existing copyright assigned to it. So if the U.S. government produces a work, it's not copyrighted. But if an independent contractor working for the government produces a work, it is copyrighted, and nothing prevents that contractor from assigning the copyright back to the government. This reconciles the fact that the U.S. government can't copyright its works with the fact that if you stay up late on weekends, you'll see Public Service Announcements against drunk driving that say "Copyright U.S. Department of Transportation." Also, there are some entities that might seem to be part of the U.S. government, but are not. For example, the U.S. Postal Service is no longer a branch of the U.S. government. In addition, while under U.S. control, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and organized territories of the U.S. are not considered to be part of the U.S. government for purposes of copyright law.

Re:GPL or public domain?

[yuna49]

What an insightful observation! I'd guess the developers just followed the usual procedure and attached the GPL license text.

Have other projects using the GPL had to deal with this issue? Can Drupal modules be released as "public domain" even if the rest of the code is GPL? Since the Federal Government has no copyright to transfer, it's probably not even possible for them to give the code to the Drupal developers and let them place it under the GPL or transfer the rights to the FSF.

Re:GPL or public domain?

[Zeinfeld]

Nope, the code was almost certainly produced by a contractor and thus the copyrights vests in the contractor in the first instance. The contract will require the contractor to relinquish at least some rights to the government, this typically extends to a general requirement to 'open source' the code. GPL is actually the most restrictive open source license that is commonly used. If you are a contractor wanting to prevent other parties from selling your code in a commercial product that is not open source, the GPL allows you to do that. If on the other hand you want to make the code as open as possible then BSD or public domain are better. The original Web code running in the Clinton White House was the NCSA server. It may have changed to Netscape Server at some point, but that was pretty much understandable when the NCSA server was falling into disrepair pre-Apache. Incidentally the reason that the Clinton White House adopted the Web as their standard over the alternatives was that they had free use of the NCSA copyright code because it had been developed under a US government funded grant. At this point the British Government has gone way beyond open source to open data. This is a much bigger deal as I really could not care less what office suite the civil service use, it has no effect on me. Allowing access to government data in machine readable format is a much, much bigger deal. That is something I cannot do for myself. Rather than having this bizarre obsession with open source on the desktop, I wish people could take a look at the bigger picture of government IT contracting and ask why every IT project attempted turns into a fiasco. The amount spent on desktop and O/S apps is a drop in the bucket compared to what has been wasted on the NHS IT system.

Re:Very good.

[larry bagina]

What the fuck planet are you living on? Nancy Pelosi drained the swamp and has given us the most ethical, open, and transparent congress ever!

France: a nation of warriors.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's always amusing to see ignorant Americans ridicule the French, even though the French have known warfare for thousands of years longer than America has even existed.

When the French have seen war, it has been on their own soil most of the time. They have seen entire generations fight to the death for their freedom, and that's only within the past hundred years. Meanwhile, America has barely even been scratched on its home soil. Pearl Harbor wasn't even on mainland America, but thousands of miles away. And during some battles of WWI, the French would lose a number of soldiers and civilians every 10 minutes of fighting equivalent to that of the American losses on 9/11.

The French have shown more valor, bravery and courage under fire than America ever has. The French are true warriors, and true defenders of freedom.

Re:France: a nation of warriors.

[Anonymous Coward]

Beyond that, they are America's oldest and most loyal ally. We may have a "special relationship" with the U.K., but how many times have we been at war with France?

Re:France: a nation of warriors.

[chthon]

Chlodovech (or Clovis)

Charles Martel

Charlemagne

There was for cebnturies rivalry between England and France, but Louis XIV basically created the France that we know now.

Napoleon gave most other European nations enough to think about. I think they more won the war finally due to attrition than anything else.

I think it is only since the Franco-German war of 1870 that France got this reputation.

But look at the first world war. France did not run. They had some difficulties, but ultimately (with the help of the English and the resistance of Belgium at the Yzer) stopped the German troops before they reached Paris.

Look at their record at Verdun, they did not run, they made huge sacrifices.

And the second world war ? Leadership in all the allied nations had not taken into account the advances in battlefield technology, and it was Belgium, England and France that where on the run.

Re:France: a nation of warriors.

[MartinSchou]

France was a Major Power in May 1940, and before the end of June it had surrendered.

To be fair, that would have happened to any of the world powers at the time, provided that the areas attacked weren't too large.

First of all, Germany had built up a huge war machine.
Secondly they rewrote the rulebook on how you manage an offensive war. They didn't stop for anything, including supplies. It wasn't called Blitzkrieg (lightning war) for nothing.
Thirdly, the German army at the time was at a pretty significant technological advantage. Their armoured units were top notch, as were their air force and I'm guessing their infantry were similarly equipped.

Could they have taken the US with a similar tactic in 1940? Unlikely, because the US is a massive area. But I'd be surprised if they couldn't have taken the states from New York to Virginia or North Carolina. That would cripple the US leadership. Establish a foothold, take control of local industries to aid in building more military hardware and supplies and settle in for a long war. Then you move over to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan to gain even more industry as well as food supplies.

Could they have taken USSR, if they had started there, instead of taking on everyone? Again, a little doubtful for the same reasons, but notice just how far they DID get. That was done while they had to fend off the Allies on the western front as well. And if they had consolidated their takings instead of constantly pressing forward, they wouldn't have had such vulnerable supply lines, they wouldn't have had to try to advance in winter time on open plains etc.

Pointing fingers at France because they were conquered in less than a month is a bit like laughing at a random fat guy because he got the snot beaten out of him when he stepped into the ring against Mike Tyson.

Re:Let's not lose perspective. This is minor.

[gnieboer]

Um, yes.

If anyone is basing their decision on who should be the leader of the world's largest economy/military/nuclear stockpile based on whether they use Drupal for their website and release any source their team creates, then... FAIL.

Doesn't mean it's not a good idea that shows action behind words.

Re:Tax money

[gnieboer]

...I still can't help but yawn at this news. ... It was probably just some developer that the federal government has hired who recommended the use of Drupal and suggested open sourcing the modules that they developed.

True, but the interesting thing I think is that the people that the developer has the contract with took the suggestion, ran it through a government staff, and got the idea approved. A staff that gains nothing (directly) by giving the code away, has to take the time to understand the implications of their decision (since they'll be on CNN and fired if they do something dumb), and would normally consider something like this a security risk by default.

So I think it's fairly groundbreaking for a government bureacracy. And it gives the rest of government a precedent to use when having a similar discussion with their bosses.

Re:Very good.

[WillDraven]

But what about the swamps delicate ecosystem?!

Re:Tax money

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

This has nothing to do with the President or probably even his CTO that he nominated. It was probably just some developer that the federal government has hired who recommended the use of Drupal and suggested open sourcing the modules that they developed.

I'm curious as to why you think that. Is it because you have information we don't or do you just have a bias against the current administration so you mentally refuse to assign credit to them for acts you approve of?

In case you're interested in reality, this project was the baby of David Cole, a well known Drupal developer and OSS supporter who was appointed by Obama to several positions in the White House technical staff (currently senior advisor to the CIO) and who previously worked as data analyst for the Obama campaign and later on the transition team planning the new infrastructure. Now he probably did not come up with the idea since he just gave a talk with the guy who open sourced 24 Drupal modules developed by the New York State Senate. (An event that seems to have slipped under the radar of Slashdot.)

Site developed by a team of private contractors

[snowwrestler]

The new Whitehouse site was developed by a team of private contractors including Acquia, Phase 2 Technologies, and General Dynamics IT. The modules are posted to Drupal.org by staff from Acquia and Phase 2, so I would assume they hold the copyrights.

My company worked with Phase 2 on a Drupal site and the contract did make provisions for them to retain the copyright of certain kinds of work.