White House Opts For Open Source Website

The Obama Administration said on 24 Oct it has relaunched Whitehouse.gov using the Drupal open-source content management platform. Founded and developed by a 2-year-old company named Acquia that touts the software as “social publishing,” Drupal marks a transition for the White House site from running on proprietary software to being an open-source site.

In addition to Acquia, General Dynamics Information Technology, Phase2 Technology, Akamai and Terremark Federal Group were involved in the development of the Whitehouse.gov. Several federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Education and the General Service Administration, are already using Drupal.

“I think Drupal is a great fit in terms of President Barack Obama’s desire to reduce cost and to act quickly. Drupal’s flexibility and modularity [enable] organizations to build sites quickly at lower cost than most other systems. In other words, Drupal is a great match for the U.S. government,” Dries Buytaert, original creator and project lead of Drupal and co-founder and CTO of Acquia, said on his blog. “This is a big day for Drupal, and for open source in government, and something all of us in the community should be very proud of.”

Buytaert said the use of Drupal for the White House site is a “clear sign that governments realize that open source does not pose additional risks compared to proprietary software, and furthermore, that by moving away from proprietary software, they are not being locked into a particular technology, and that they can benefit from the innovation that is the result of thousands of developers collaborating on Drupal.”