WhiteHouse.Gov gives Drupal an open source stimulus – Three WhiteHouse.Gov projects released to Drupal as Open Source

The White House Blog - WhiteHouse.gov Releases Open Source Code

“As part of our ongoing effort to develop an open platform for WhiteHouse.gov, we're releasing some of the custom code we've developed. This code is available for anyone to review, use, or modify. We're excited to see how developers across the world put our work to good use in their own applications.

By releasing some of our code, we get the benefit of more people reviewing and improving it. In fact, the majority of the code for WhiteHouse.gov is already open source as part of the Drupal project. The code we're releasing today adds to Drupal's functionality in three key ways:

1. Scalability: We're releasing a module called "Context HTTP Headers," …

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2. Communication: Many government agencies have active email programs that they use to communicate with the public about the services they provide. …  To enable more dynamic emails tailored to users' preferences, we've integrated one of the popular services for government email programs with our CMS in the new module, "GovDelivery".

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3. Accessibility: We take very seriously our obligation to make sure WhiteHouse.gov is as accessible as possible and are committed to meeting the government accessibility standard, Section 508.  … To help us meet this, while making it easier to manage the rich photos and video content you see on our site, we've developed "Node Embed."

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I don’t do Drupal, but I still thought this is kind of cool. Our tax dollars are going into the development of WhiteHouse.Gov anyway, so it’s good to see a little return on that investment. I think I find it more even amazing that the government/White House/etc lawyers let this happen…

So look Corp America, if the the Executive Branch of the US Government can release some of their code as open source, what’s holding YOU back?