White House Begins Open Sourcing Data.gov

The Obama administration has begun to open source pieces of the Data.gov platform and plans to launch a full-scale open source project early next year. This open data platform--called Data.gov-in-a-box--will allow other governments to easily stand up their own versions of Data.gov.

Data.gov developer and General Services Administration software architect Chris Musialek last Wednesday posted to open source development site Github some early test code for what appears to be a database management system and Web app that will serve as key pieces of Data.gov-in-a-box.

The release follows a September White House announcement that, as part of the Open Government Partnership, a multilateral government transparency effort that includes dozens of countries, it would take steps toward open sourcing Data.gov to make the platform available for other countries...