Driving Government Innovation with Open Standards
As a long-time supporter of the open source community, Adobe fully understands the critical role of reusable software code in the digital transformation of the public sector. Open source, however, is only one piece of the puzzle. We at Adobe believe that the combined usage of open source and open standards yields the most innovative and interoperable solutions for government IT programs.
Our Adobe developers contribute to various open projects and standards in the public sector. Dr. Roy Fielding, Senior Principal Scientist at Adobe and co-founder of the Apache HTTP Server Project, has worked extensively with the U.S. government to develop modern web-based infrastructures and policies that utilize open source technologies. Adobe has also created Digital Design Templates for Government, an open source package that empowers public sector website managers at all levels of government to employ U.S. Digital Service and 18F draft U.S. Web Design Standards.
At Adobe, we have made our commitment to transforming the way governments engage with their citizens known through solutions like Adobe Experience Manager (AEM), which facilitates high quality content creation and publishing across web, mobile, and social platforms. What might be less known is that AEM is built on an Open Source core which utilizes dozens of best-in-breed of open source projects the Apache Community, including foundational components of AEM like Apache Felix, Sling, and JackRabbit. This hybrid approach to Open Source allows Adobe to ensure interoperability with software developed by others vendor and government agencies while still maintaining the industry leading technology that is supported by Adobe.
Commercial software, like AEM, that adheres to open standards provides governments at the local, state, and national levels with cost effective solutions that maximize efficiency and streamline services. The New Mexico Department of Transportation was able to build an interactive website that delivered fresh, meaningful content to 100,000 site visitors each day using AEM. The Government of Canada leveraged AEM in its Web Renewal Initiative, which is the largest single web re-platforming project in the world right now. The new web presence will provide a single point of online access for its citizens, by merging hundreds of websites onto a cohesive digital platform. Beyond Government, this approach has been proven widely in the commercial world and across many thousands of the most high-traffic .com sites in the world, including our own adobe.com, a top 25 website in the world.
Openness is key. In embracing both open standards and open source, governments can help to increase competition among cloud technology providers to increase choice and lower costs for consumers. Adobe applauds Code for America for helping governments better serve their communities through this digital transformation through this openness of technology.
Learn more about Adobe’s support for open standards and other digital government solutions at adobe.com/government.
