White House to 'open source' Data.Gov as the Open Government Data Platform

As 2011 comes to an end, there are 28 international open data platforms in the open government community. By the end of 2012, code from new "Data.gov-in-a-box" may help many more countries to stand up their own platforms. A partnership between the United States and India on open government has borne fruit: progress on making the open data platform Data.gov open source.

As 2011 comes to an end, there are 28 international open data platforms in the open government community. By the end of 2012, code from new "Data.gov-in-a-box" may help many more countries to stand up their own platforms. A partnership between the United States and India on open government has borne fruit: progress on making the open data platform Data.gov open source...

...As part of a joint effort by the United States and India to build an open government platform, the U.S. team has deposited open source code — an important benchmark in developing the Open Government Platform that will enable governments around the world to stand up their own open government data sites.

The development is evidence that the U.S. and India are indeed still collaborating on open government together, despite India's withdrawal from the historic Open Government Partnership (OGP) that launched in September. Chopra and VanRoekel explicitly connected the move to open source Data.gov to the U.S. involvement in the Open Government Partnership today. While we'll need to see more code and adoption to draw substantive conclusions on the outcomes of this part of the plan, this is clearly progress....