White House opens Code.gov repository

The Obama administration has launched a central code resource for digital tool development as part of its open source software policy.

 

The White House has opened a new source code resource to share a trove of custom software developed for federal projects.

Federal CIO Tony Scott wrote in a Nov. 3 blog post that the newly opened Code.gov is a follow-on to this past summer's White House federal open source policy aimed at improving agency sharing of federally developed software source code.

Scott demoed the launch at the 2016 Code For America Summit.

Scott said the code developed for digital tools such as We the People app, the White House Facebook chatbot and Data.gov, is "the People's Code." Code for all those tools, he said, is now available through Code.gov in a single location.

Code.gov, itself an open source site, has almost 50 open-source projects from more than 10 agencies. Those numbers will grow, he said, as the new open source policy works its way into federal agencies' IT efforts.

The new platform also aims to help accelerate the policy's implementation through federal government agencies. Agencies can begin populating their enterprise code inventories immediately using the metadata on Code.gov.

Additionally, developers from outside government can tap the federal code to build similar services and foster new connections with their users, Scott said.