Government best practices

Agency examples

A means of recording useful examples of open source in government.

Projects that included a requirement to open source the final product

• FCC Drupal Modules
• DARPA XDATA

Projects that were built in open source from the beginning

• Assorted PIF projects
• Central CKAN
• Data.gov Relaunch
• Idea box
• Owning a Home
• Qu, a streaming data platform
• Regulations parser
• Social Media Registry
• SCAP Security Guide
• Web Experience Toolkit
• Apache Tika
• Dept of Energy, NEPAnode
• Dept of Energy, NEPAnode MapWarper
• Prozorro, Ukrainian procurement system

Agency Open Source Policies

• OMB releases Memo M-04-16 - the first civilian open source guidance
• DOD - FAQ about Open Source Software
• Mil-OSS - Open Source Policy in the Military
• Open Source for America - List of Federal Policies
• Open Source Software Institute - Federal Government Policies
• Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
• NASA Open Source Process
• NASA Earth Science Data Systems Working Groups - Open Source WG
• DARPA Open Source Center of Excellence (at JPL)

Presentations

• Jay Nath, City of San Francisco. “Open Source Government“, TEDxSoMa, June 28, 2011
• Jim Stogdill, Accenture. “Creating Open Source Government“, Ignite Philly 2, 2008.
• Red Hat, “Open Source Government“, May 19, 2009
• Gunnar Hellekson, Red Hat. “Applying Open Source Principles to Government“, O’Reilly Open Source Conference 2009.
• FLOSS Weekly #160 with Randal Schwartz and Simon Phipps, Interview with David Wheeler, April 6, 2011

Other Guides and Resources

• Open Source for Government - Government Employee Handbook
• Mil-OSS - Open Technology Development: Lessons Learned & Best Practices
• How to Evaluate Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS) Programs
• An excellent guide for deciding when an open source project is right for your program.
• Publicly Releasing Open Source Software Developed for the U.S. Government September 2011
• Includes a very valuable chart describing which rights the government has to software, and under which circumstances.
• Total cost of ownership of open source software
• Navigating Laws & Regulations on Open Source Software, David Wheeler 2012
• Government Computer Software Acquisition and The GNU General Public License, October 2011
• Government Open-Source Software (GOSS) “Handbook for Govies”, Released June 29, 2011 — Version 1.7

Other Lists and Data on FOSS in Gov

• Gov-OSS.org - Raw data here
• Another List
• MIL-OSS list
• A DARPA Catalog
• A few more…

Other FOSS Gov Communities

• Open Source Software - Govloop Group

Suggestions? Questions?

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About this site

This site is collaboratively authored by a peer-group of government employees that share best practices in furtherance of open source, open data, and open government efforts. Interested in joining? Find out how.