Whitehouse.gov goes Drupal
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David All
Oct 26, 2009, 8:08:43 AM10/26/09
to openhouseproject
A huge step in the right direction. Hopefully this will ripple to House and Senate IT.
http://personaldemocracy.com/node/15131
WhiteHouse.gov Goes Drupal
WhiteHouse.gov has gone Drupal. After months of planning, says an
Obama Administration source, the White House has ditched the
proprietary content management system that had been in place since the
days of the Bush Administration in favor of the latest version of the
open-source Drupal software, as the AP alluded to in its reporting
several minutes ago.
The great Drupal switch came about after the Obama new media team,
with a few months of executive branch service (and tweaking of
WhiteHouse.gov) under their belts, decided they needed a more
malleable development environment for the White House web presence.
They wanted to be able to more quickly, easily, and gracefully build
out their vision of interactive government. General Dynamics
Information Technology (GDIT), the Virginia-based government
contractor who had executed the Bush-era White House CMS contract, was
tasked by the Obama Administration with finding a more flexible
alternative. The ideal new platform would be one where dynamic
features like question-and-answer forums, live video streaming, and
collaborative tools could work more fluidly together with the site's
infrastructure. The solution, says the White House, turned out to be
Drupal. That's something of a victory for the Drupal (not to mention
open-source) community.
Drupal proponents have long tried to make the case that open-source
software could be just as safe, just as stable, and and just as
reliable as pre-boxed software, even if hundreds, thousands, or even
millions of volunteer developers had their fingers in the mix at some
point along the way. The White House's seal of approval doesn't hurt.
According to White House new media director Macon Phillips, working
with GDIT on the competitively bid contract are both open-source
software practitioners and experts in keeping systems up and running.
Notably, the Drupal specialist firm Acquia is also working with the
White House on the project as a subcontractor. Why that's worth
noting: Acquia founder Dries Buytaert is also happens to be credited
as the programmer who created Drupal in the first place, and he
currently serves as the Drupal community's project lead in the
software's development. Acquia, writes Buytaert, "is to Drupal what
Ubuntu or RedHat are to Linux." (Translation for the rest of us: the
source for a polished, established, and supported version of a free
and open-source software system.) Drupal specialists Phase2, based in
Virginia, is also serving as a subcontractors on the GDIT-managed
WhiteHouse.gov contract, as are the IT infrastructure firm Terremark
Federal Group and Akamai, the distributed computing company already
tasked with keeping the White House website up and running.
Let's really try to extract the last drop of possible meaning from a
choice over a CMS. Squint a bit, and it's possible to see the White
House's move to open-source software as a move towards the idea that
collaborative programming can inspire -- or at least, support -- a
more distributed politics. That idea bubbled up in 2004, when young
programmers experimented with using Drupal itself to turn the Howard
Dean campaign into the Howard Dean network. This idea, that a politics
crafted by the people could be a powerful thing indeed, emerged in a
slightly mutated way during the Obama presidential campaign, but has
arguably receded below the surface during the first nine months of the
Obama Administration. First the WhiteHouse.govCMS gets more open,
then the White House OS? Perhaps.
For the lay user, the White House website looks much the same as it
has since inauguration day (though search should work noticeably
better). But by being open source, the White House is opening itself
up to all the bright ideas, powerful plug-ins, and innovative tools
that the considerable community of Drupal aficionados come up with.
It's a community that the White House says it is eager to tap into.
"Open source is a great form of civic participation," the White
House's Phillips told me this afternoon. "We're looking forward to
getting the benefit of their energy and innovation."
--------------------------------
WhiteHouse.gov Goes Drupal
WhiteHouse.gov has gone Drupal. After months of planning, says an
Obama Administration source, the White House has ditched the
proprietary content management system that had been in place since the
days of the Bush Administration in favor of the latest version of the
open-source Drupal software, as the AP alluded to in its reporting
several minutes ago.
The great Drupal switch came about after the Obama new media team,
with a few months of executive branch service (and tweaking of
WhiteHouse.gov) under their belts, decided they needed a more
malleable development environment for the White House web presence.
They wanted to be able to more quickly, easily, and gracefully build
out their vision of interactive government. General Dynamics
Information Technology (GDIT), the Virginia-based government
contractor who had executed the Bush-era White House CMS contract, was
tasked by the Obama Administration with finding a more flexible
alternative. The ideal new platform would be one where dynamic
features like question-and-answer forums, live video streaming, and
collaborative tools could work more fluidly together with the site's
infrastructure. The solution, says the White House, turned out to be
Drupal. That's something of a victory for the Drupal (not to mention
open-source) community.
Drupal proponents have long tried to make the case that open-source
software could be just as safe, just as stable, and and just as
reliable as pre-boxed software, even if hundreds, thousands, or even
millions of volunteer developers had their fingers in the mix at some
point along the way. The White House's seal of approval doesn't hurt.
According to White House new media director Macon Phillips, working
with GDIT on the competitively bid contract are both open-source
software practitioners and experts in keeping systems up and running.
Notably, the Drupal specialist firm Acquia is also working with the
White House on the project as a subcontractor. Why that's worth
noting: Acquia founder Dries Buytaert is also happens to be credited
as the programmer who created Drupal in the first place, and he
currently serves as the Drupal community's project lead in the
software's development. Acquia, writes Buytaert, "is to Drupal what
Ubuntu or RedHat are to Linux." (Translation for the rest of us: the
source for a polished, established, and supported version of a free
and open-source software system.) Drupal specialists Phase2, based in
Virginia, is also serving as a subcontractors on the GDIT-managed
WhiteHouse.gov contract, as are the IT infrastructure firm Terremark
Federal Group and Akamai, the distributed computing company already
tasked with keeping the White House website up and running.
Let's really try to extract the last drop of possible meaning from a
choice over a CMS. Squint a bit, and it's possible to see the White
House's move to open-source software as a move towards the idea that
collaborative programming can inspire -- or at least, support -- a
more distributed politics. That idea bubbled up in 2004, when young
programmers experimented with using Drupal itself to turn the Howard
Dean campaign into the Howard Dean network. This idea, that a politics
crafted by the people could be a powerful thing indeed, emerged in a
slightly mutated way during the Obama presidential campaign, but has
arguably receded below the surface during the first nine months of the
Obama Administration. First the WhiteHouse.govCMS gets more open,
then the White House OS? Perhaps.
For the lay user, the White House website looks much the same as it
has since inauguration day (though search should work noticeably
better). But by being open source, the White House is opening itself
up to all the bright ideas, powerful plug-ins, and innovative tools
that the considerable community of Drupal aficionados come up with.
It's a community that the White House says it is eager to tap into.
"Open source is a great form of civic participation," the White
House's Phillips told me this afternoon. "We're looking forward to
getting the benefit of their energy and innovation."
--------------------------------
David All
--------------------------------
(via iPhone)
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