Whitehouse.gov Could Be a Springboard for Open Source for America

Like many of you, I awoke Monday to read that whitehouse.gov was now running on open source products, including Drupal, Red Hat Linux, Apache web server, MySQL, and Apache Solr.

It goes without saying that this news has generated lots of excitement. I am, however, more interested in what this news means to Open Source for America (OSFA), a group advocating open source adoption by the U.S. federal government. I recently spoke to OSFA spokesman and Red Hat executive Tom Rabon and concluded:

Overall, it seems there is plenty of work ahead for OSFA, especially in the area of getting decision maker buy-in. Lucky for OSFA that its membership, and its members' willingness to help OSFA reach its goal, continue to grow as well.

In discussing the use of open source at whitehouse.gov, Tim O'Reilly, an adviser with OSFA, wrote, "While open source is already widespread throughout the government, its adoption by the White House will almost certainly give permission for much wider uptake."