The Benefits of Open-Source? It's Right There in Black and White (House)

Looking for validation that open-source is the way of the future? Look no further than our neighbours south of the 49th as the White House reaffirmed its commitment to open-source technology by releasing for comment a draft policy that would support improved access to custom software code.

Basically, this policy, which supports the Second Open Government National Action Plan for the United States of America, will require that any new software developed specifically for or by the U.S. Federal Governemnt is made available for sharing across all federal agencies.

The reasons? Efficiency, cost savings, eliminating redundancy and duplication, and promoting innovation and collaboration.

These are many of the reasons why the White House chose Drupal for its relaunch in 2009 and has been an active contributor to the Drupal Content Management System. And those reasons align with why we're such strong supporters of the open-source community -- and Drupal in particular.

The policy is open for public comment and we're watching with interest in how this policy is going to be received. In general, we believe it's going to be positive because more and more people are embracing open-source and understand the benefits that open-source brings to development. Drupal's founder Dries Buytaert also spoke to this issue this weekend.

There are multiple reasons why we embraced Drupal so strongly here at Echidna. We continue to invest heavily in Drupal and empower our developers to contribute back to the community. We know the value of open-source and have seen first hand how it can drive performance, innovation, and security.

More importantly, our clients have seen the value of Drupal. And as we continue to attract and ever-larger and more enterprise-level in nature clientele, we increasingly see that open-source is not just entertained, but preferred. Drupal gives us a competitive advantage.

From London, ON to Washington, D.C., and all around the globe, the benefits of open-source are clear to see and are embraced by the world's top companies and innovators. We're proud to play a significant role in that movement and we're excited about what the future holds.