White House Web site makes open-source move

The WhiteHouse.gov Web site now employs open-source software called Drupal to manage and publish its content, a high-profile endorsement for the project and the 2-year-old start-up Acquia that supports it.

Drupal is open-source software, meaning that anyone may see, modify, and redistribute the source code underlying the software that's actually installed on a computer. Specifically, Drupal is governed by the GNU General Public License. Acquia sells support for Drupal, and there are plenty of add-on modules to tailor it to particular uses.

The White House's Web site now uses Drupal and other open-source software.

(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

The White House announced the move in an Associated Press story that somewhat clumsily tried explaining, "the programming language is written in public view, available for public use, and able for people to edit." Debugging and upgrading the site's code "now...can be done in the matter of days and free to taxpayers."

Well, sort of. First of all, Drupal is a program, not a programming language, and second, just because software is available for free doesn't mean that using it is free. It takes time and expertise to install, configure, and maintain software. Indeed, Drupal and Acquia founder Dries Buytaert said in a blog posting announcing the White House's use of Drupal that companies involved in the Web site switch included not just his but also General Dynamics Information Technology, Phase2 Technology, Akamai, and Terremark Federal Group.

And although open-source software in general can offer a tight feedback loop between the programmers creating the software and the people using it, there's no guarantee that debugging and security patches automatically arrive faster or that software is easier to maintain than with proprietary software.

This move is just the sort of thing that can lead to a lot of misunderstandings about the idea of openness, a term that's up there with motherhood and apple pie these days when it comes to values everybody wants to embrace. Don't confuse the fact that Drupal is cooperatively created and debugged in public with the openness of the present administration's government.

This line in the AP story in particular raised my hackles: "Aides joked that it doesn't get more transparent than showing the world (the) code that their Web site is based on."

That's just silly. Drupal-powered blogs and forums can enable online information sharing and public participation in discussions, but that sort of thing can be accomplished with proprietary software as well. Likewise, it's perfectly possible to use open-source software in a system that's locked-down and closed.

That's not to pluck the feather out of Drupal's cap--or indeed out of the caps of Red Hat's Linux operating system, Apache software for hosting Web site and powering its search, and the MySQL database, all of which also are used in the White House project, according to publisher, tech pundit, and open-source fan Tim O'Reilly.

It's not without reason that open-source software is very popular to power Web properties, including plenty of high-powered ones such as Google and Facebook. The White House's move is an endorsement that could help others--notably the many customers in the federal government itself--feel more comfortable with open-source software.

[Random_Walk]

...what, not SharePoint?

(heh - couldn't resist :) ).

All kidding aside, it's good that the gov't starts using something that we the taxpayers can get access to source-code-wise. After all, we pay for all the software (even if it's free, as in Drupal's case). Plus, any improvements or changes can get folded back into the project, meaning that the gov can actually contribute something useful back to taxpayers, instead of locking up changes and improvements in a disk somewhere.

[Please_Help_Us]

Sounds like the Obama administration understands open source about as well as the economy.

[dylerl]

yeah they do understand open source very well and obviously they understand the economy very well as well as we are now seeing the economy grow more rapidly than anyone had expected, profits for companies are up, the programs they put in place to spur housing sales and automotive sales have worked, the dow is up, and the job market is coming back. Sounds to me like they understand these things perfectly and you saying they do not understand open source because of what a journalist wrote in an article is idiotic, that journalist is not part of the administration, so you are wrong on all fronts and should not open your mouth unless you know what you are talking about!!!

[tanweb]

This growth is artificial. And even though the unemployment rate is growing at a smaller rate... it is still growing. Bush did the same d@mn thing after the dot com bust, then the bubble burst... it'll happen again.

[Please_Help_Us]

Sorry...you're right. I should not open my mouth. No one could possibly disagree with your point. Whatever it was.

[RodrigoAlvarez]

Yep, gotta love those JOBLESS recoveries. Hopefully the painfully inadequate Obama administration doesn't hurt Drupal's good name.

[craigber]

What isn't explained here is why this move was made and what they moved from. I have no doubt that the move was championed/encouraged/insert verb here/ by long time Microsoft basher and White House tech advisor Eric Schmidt. Open Source is no better and no worse than proprietary software.

Random_Walk...what makes you think the government is going to contribute back to the Open Source products they are using here?

[Random_Walk]

"Random_Walk...what makes you think the government is going to contribute back to the Open Source products they are using here?"

Why not? They've done so before... Here's a pretty huge example of the NSA building an entire distro: http://www.nsa.gov/research/selinux/

[exposur3]

Because we've done so for four years now, specifically with Drupal. Here's our primary contractor for our Drupal development efforts and everything that they've coded has been contributed back to the Drupal community: http://drupal.org/user/325708

[citizencontact]

Compliance with Open Standards Should be Goal

I wish that the White House web site would conform with the open standards that are recognized for web documents. It is not enough to include the doctype declaration in the HTML that claims that the page is XHTML + RDFa, but there must be follow through to actually realized the goal. Any tools that are used, whether free or not, should be good enough to put out good code. I've personally used Plone which is also costs nothing and has open code that can be examined and changed. But Plone, understanding it is not perfect, at least by default produces code that conforms with the open standards it claims to.

As I went through and used the W3C validator Tool on pages (for example: http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.whitehouse.gov ), I found invalid XHTML + RDFa. If it had been valid, it would also then more easily reach the accessibility guidelines (WAI and Section 508). Also the data contained in the web pages could be machine processable as well as being human readable (the more truthful the doctype declaration, the easier for the data to be consumed by standards compliant software).

I applaud the White House trying to make positive steps forward in terms of transparency. I just hope that they can also put in steps to ensure that the data and documents published conform with the standards they claim to want to abide by.

For more information:
http://www.w3.org/TR/gov-data/
http://validator.w3.org/
http://www.validsites.org/

Daniel Bennett

[Dalkorian]

I hope you sent your concern to the webmaster of the White House website instead of simply babbling here on some tech blog.

It is cool White House is using Drupal. I have used Joomla, other projects and saw so many small government entities using Open Source for years because they have no funds. Counties, towns... always have 1-2 IT staff who use Open Source software. It is cheaper. White House is just following the trend. Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle... know it. Oracle is trying to buy MySQL probably just to kill it.

If FBI and CIA approved Drupal to be used for White House it should be damn GOOD. Code is open and any hacker from China, Russia, Ukraine can see it and try to break in. Definitely will try Drupal.