US launches Code.gov open-source repository

The US government has officially launched The People's Code, via a new single destination for all software being released under the Federal Source Code Policy: Code.gov.

Announced back in August, the Federal Source Code Policy requires that custom software developed by or for the US federal government be released under a permissive open-source licence, and that the source code must be made publicly available. 'If we can reconceive of our government so that the interactions and the interplay between private sector, nonprofits, and government are opened up,' President Barack Obama said at the time, 'and we use technology, data, social media in order to join forces around problems, then there’s no problem that we face in this country that is not soluble.'

Now, the US chief information officer Tony Scott has announced the official launch of Code.gov, a single destination for all publicly-released US government source code. 'The code for these platforms is, after all, the People’s Code – and today we’re excited to announce that it’ll be accessible from one place, Code.gov, for the American people to explore, improve, and innovate,' Scott claimed, detailing various projects including voter registration portals and a Facebook bot which are already available via the site.

'Built in the open, the newly-launched Code.gov already boasts access to nearly 50 open source projects from over 10 agencies – and we expect this number to grow over the coming months as agencies work to implement the Federal Source Code Policy,' continued Scott. 'Further, Code.gov will provide useful tools and best practices to help agencies implement the new policy. For example, starting today agencies can begin populating their enterprise code inventories using the metadata schema on Code.gov, discover various methods on how to build successful open source projects, and much more.'

The source code can be accessed now via the official website.