The White House announced today the launch of Code.gov, a website that showcases open source projects belonging to the United States government and provides relevant resources for government agencies. Through this website, the White House hopes to improve public access to
government programs and encourage software reuse across government agencies.
The website's launch comes after four months of the White House's review of federal coding policies, which specifically state that government agencies should "make developed code available for government-wide reuse and make it discoverable" via Code.gov, with some exceptions.
The US government launches the Code.gov website for software
The new website has nearly 50 open-source projects from over 10 agencies, with an expected increase and growth in this number in the coming months through the agencies working on implementing federal coding policies, according to the blog post published by Tony Scott, the Chief Information Officer.
Tony said, "We are very excited today about the launch of the website, and we have a vision that suggests the possibility of transforming the Code.gov website into another creative platform that empowers citizens to participate in the creation of government services and make them more efficient, accessible, and transparent."
"And we imagine that the website will become a useful source for the state, local governments, and developers looking for ways to benefit from government code in order to build similar services, enhance new relationships with its users, and help us continue to achieve the president's vision for a digital government in the 21st century."
Over the past few years, the US government has taken numerous unprecedented measures to assist Americans in engaging with the government in new and meaningful ways, and enhance the federal government's ability to provide better citizen-focused services, by harnessing 21st-century technology and innovation.
It is worth noting that the White House recently opened the source code used in President Obama's chatbot, "Bot", on the Facebook Messenger platform, as well as other open-source initiatives such as Vets.gov and Data.gov. Even the source code for the new website Code.gov is open-source.