DSC Supports the Federal Government’s Collaborative Open Source Initiatives
Adopting open source policies, initiatives, and laws is more than a technological shift — it’s a commitment to transparency, security, and collaboration. As the Digital Service Coalition (DSC), we stand at the forefront of advocating for these values, recognizing the critical role open source software plays in advancing government projects and services.
In the landscape of federal procurement, software stands as a colossal expenditure, with the government annually investing approximately $12 billion in a mix of commercial off-the-shelf products and custom-developed applications. This spectrum of software solutions ranges from ubiquitous office suites to bespoke digital infrastructure tailored for specific agency needs — think websites detailing government activities, comprehensive public databases, regulatory analysis models, and even mobile applications for reserving spots in national parks. Despite the diversity and utility of these custom software solutions, significant inefficiencies loom over their management and dissemination: the absence of inter-agency software sharing and contributions back to the open source community.
The Fiscal and Functional Case for Sharing Custom Software
The term “open” in the context of supporting open standards, open source, open data, and more, refers to a philosophy or approach that emphasizes transparency, accessibility, and the free exchange of information and resources. Open source software refers to software whose source code is made available for anyone to inspect, modify, and enhance. It is typically developed in a collaborative manner, allowing individuals and organizations to contribute to improving the software and its security.
The rationale for promoting the sharing of open source software across federal agencies is straightforward and compelling. By reutilizing custom-developed software, agencies can avoid the redundant expenses of developing or purchasing software that their federal counterparts have already acquired. Historical initiatives and pilot programs underscore the potential savings and enhanced operational efficiency achievable through such collaborative practices. Notably:
- Establishing Code.gov, a platform facilitating government-wide code sharing, has unlocked access to over $1 billion worth of software initially developed for specific agencies.
- A targeted pilot for the shared use of geospatial software across government entities trimmed acquisition costs by 5%, largely by eliminating bureaucratic overhead.
- Agencies require the use of the open source U.S. Web Design System (USWDS) under the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act (IDEA), P.L. 115–336, which has resulted in savings exceeding $18 million.
Open source tools are vital for government development projects, offering a means to address bugs, security issues, and improve overall software quality. Furthermore, the development of open-source software security policies emphasizes the need for safe consumption and publication practices. This is coupled with the necessity for better management, coordination, and guidance in using these tools within governmental frameworks. The DSC members have and will continue to, share and support acquisitions and efforts such as these.
The Case for Contributing to the Community
The DSC recently spoke with Department of Homeland Security’s Jordan Kasper, Senior Advisor for Technology and Delivery, as a guest speaker in a members-only event. We discussed the current DHS Policy on open source solutions that encourage better code sharing and publication practices. We also talked about coding in the open and how security is improved through these measures, as supported by the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)’s Open Source security roadmap.
As a follow-up to this conversation and as a part of our commitment to supporting the government’s adoption of open source best practices, we propose the adoption of the following steps for industry to take, including ourselves:
- Develop and Share in the Open: By making the code available publicly, stakeholders and the broader community can review, audit, and understand the workings of the software. This transparency fosters trust and can lead to more secure and reliable software, as more eyes on the code can help identify and fix issues faster. Developers are more likely to write clean, well-documented code, knowing it will be viewed and used by others. Additionally, the open environment fosters innovation as contributors bring new ideas and improvements.
- Enhance Collaboration on non-acquisition RFIs: Actively collaborate and respond to Requests for Information (RFIs) found on Regulations.gov that ask for industry subject matter expertise but may not result in a specific procurement. This collaborative effort can lead to developing more secure, robust, and effective government software solutions. Examples of this were recently closed RFI’s from NIST related to the Executive Order on Artificial Intelligence, from ONCD the RFI on OSS Security, and from CISA the RFI for Secure by Design.
- Promote a “Contribute Back” Culture: By encouraging contributions back to the open-source community by sharing improvements, enhancements, and new features with the original projects or the wider open source community from government projects and procurements. As reinforced by the DHS policy and others, this is legal and should become more of a standard practice instead of an exception. As the developer community, we can actively support this by proposing it in our solutions, establishing it as a routine practice, and sharing awareness of how and why this is important with our government partners.
In addition, the efforts we can take in practical application to support these open source efforts are bolstered by support for proposed legislative measures. The DSC, along with its members, is deeply committed to advocating for legislative measures that align with our principles. Our coalition stands firmly behind the introduction and advancement of pivotal legislation aimed at enhancing software security and promoting collaboration within federal agencies. Notably, in 2022, the Securing Open Source Software Act was proposed to protect federal agencies by strengthening the security of software. More recently, the SHARE IT Act has passed the Senate committee and is legislation that mandates the sharing of custom-developed source code among agencies, effectively reducing redundant solutions and fostering a more efficient and collaborative government digital infrastructure. Our support for these initiatives underscores the dedication we have to advance secure, open, and cooperative digital service practices in the public sector.
DSC Leadership in Open
As a part of our commitment to innovation, several DSC companies play a leadership role in supporting open collaboration in our digital transformation work. Here are some examples and highlights from the member companies that demonstrate what steward leadership in action on this topic can look like.
540
Modernization Manifesto: (The “D” principle) Default to modern norms — Agile Delivery, CI/CD processes, Containerization, API-first, Cloud native, and Open-Source Solutions.
Projects
- API Handbook: The Enterprise APIs for data sharing (EADS) handbook was open-sourced to allow for a consistent definition of API behaviors across the DoD and other federal agencies (currently used in OSD, Air Force, Army, and Navy API systems)
- JSON-ISM: A DoD compliant standard for security markings and dissemination controls to allow for sensitive / classified data to be passed in JSON payloads.
- Govicons: Gov Icons is an icon, font, and CSS toolkit with 136 government themed icons, for easy scalable vector graphics on projects that need government based icons.
Ad Hoc
- Playbook: My service is built on top of primarily open source software.
- Blog
- Using open-source LLMs to optimize government data
- The Ad Hoc COVID Report prototype is now open source
AVB Digital
AVB Digital, a joint venture partnership between two DSC members, Vaultes and Bixal, is deeply committed to the principles of open source, as evidenced by their work on SBA.gov. Leveraging Drupal, the solution features a custom theme in alignment with USWDS, while our developers adhere rigorously to Drupal’s best practices and coding standards. This ensures the maintainability and compatibility of the codebase.
Central to the approach is the dedication to contributing back to the Drupal community. They actively share the custom solutions and enhancements, embodying the collaborative spirit fundamental to open source development. By sharing their innovations, they enrich the Drupal ecosystem and enable others to benefit from and build upon our work.
Furthermore, they have identified and addressed several bugs within Drupal core, Drupal contrib modules, and USWDS. The team has submitted patches to rectify these issues, which are integrated into their build process until they are officially incorporated into the respective projects’ releases. Additionally, a custom module developed by the team, which displays a notice indicating content availability exclusively in English, will be released as a Drupal contrib module, further contributing to the broader Drupal community.
CivicActions
CivicActions is proud to showcase 20 years of using free and open source technology and open systems.
- Leader in Drupal, an open source content management system
- Supporters of 67 open source projects
- Maintainers of DKAN open data platform
- Core maintainers of the U.S. Web Design System base theme
- Developed more than a dozen open data platforms for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)
- CivicActions Employee Guidebook is published under Creative Commons (CC BY 4.0) license
- Developed a new, native Accessibility Conformance Report called OpenACR
- Over 120 open repositories on GitHub
- Maintainers of CivicActions Accessibility, an open project and community of practice for those who work for digital inclusion
Exygy
Blogs:
- Which License Should I Use? MIT vs. Apache vs. GPL
- Open Source Software in Government: The Intersection of Two Public Goods
- Open Source: Influencing the Future of Social Impact
Projects:
- CiviForm: Exygy is the digital steward of CiviForm, where residents can find and apply for public assistance programs in one place through unified, accessible applications, and government teams can better reach communities in need. The tool has already enabled thousands of Seattle residents to apply for public assistance and reduced the average time to apply from 30 minutes to 5 minutes. Today, three additional governments are adapting CiviForm’s open source software.
- CiviForm on GitHub
- Bloom Housing: Based on DAHLIA, Bloom Housing is a platform that simplifies, centralizes, and makes it easy for people to search and apply for affordable housing. It is built on an open-source code base that can be adopted across jurisdictions, helping communities easily digitize the affordable housing process. Bloom Housing is currently serving 6+ jurisdictions across California and beyond!
- Bloom Housing on GitHub
Fearless
Blog
MetroStar
The heart of innovation is collaboration and MetroStar meets customers where they are with our human-centered, open source approach.
Open Source Solutions
- Comet — React and TypeScript Component Library implementation of USWDS that includes charting and data visualization capabilities and custom components in a modular package
- Onyx — Data experimentation platform built on Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS) technologies that allows teams to mine large amounts of disparate data and generate insights quickly.
- Quartz — Fully automated GitOps platform based on the U.S. Department of Defense’s Platform One DevSecOps Reference Architecture.
Community
PyData DC is a community of like-minded tech fanatics who believe open-source is the key to innovation. We partnered with PyData and NumFOCUS to give back to the data and analytics community.
Positions: Senior Director of Open Source Solutions
- Tim Marcinowski — MetroStar Amplifies Open Source Strategy with Appointment of Former Perlogix Leadership
Open Source Blogs
- MetroStar and Quansight Enable Open Source AI Testing Throughout DoD
- MetroStar’s Open Source Platform Accepted Into Tradewind Marketplace
Case Studies
MetroStar partnered with the U.S. Air Force to develop a secure, classified, open-source platform to tame their data deluge.
Open Source Recognition in Case Studies
Nava PBC
Blogs
- Translating policy into action: What we learned at the world’s largest healthcare conference
- Why human-centered testing is crucial to building government software
Mobomo
- Mobomo’s Digital Service Playbook: https://www.mobomo.com/playbook/
Blogs
USWDS specific Drupal contributions:
- https://www.drupal.org/project/ui_suite_uswds
- https://www.drupal.org/project/ui_suite_uswds_paragraphs
- https://www.drupal.org/project/uswds_paragraph_components
- https://www.drupal.org/project/uswds_ckeditor_integration
Pluribus Digital
Blogs
- FDIC: Publish open data for diverse users through modern APIs and visual browser applications
- Principles in Action — Default to open: we gain by sharing. If we can share our approach, experience, source code, etc. then we tend to gain more in goodwill and trust than we might ever lose in an imagined competitive advantage.
- Product Development through agile application development on open-source tech stacks.
Skylight Digital
- Digital to the core. Open by default: Open Source Policy
