White House opens source code

The White House has released Data.gov source code as part of an initiative to bring greater transparency to governments worldwide, GCN reports.

The project, Data.gov in a Box, is a joint effort between the US and Indian governments. Teams have been working together since August and plan to roll out the complete open source code, called Open Government Platform (OGPL), early in 2012.

OGPL is based on code from both Data.gov and India's India.gov.in government data sites.

Federal Computer Week says under the Open Government Directive, which president Barack Obama issued on 9 December 2009, federal agencies wrote transparency plans and, in many cases, set themselves deadlines to meet benchmarks in the plans.

White House chief information and chief technology officers, Steven VanRoekel and Aneesh Chopra say this highlights "an important milestone" in the US government's move to share with India an open source code that eventually "will enable governments around the world to stand up their own open government data sites", Government Executive states.