This Site Shares Open Source Code from Various US Government Projects

The open source movement grows larger every year with thousands of new projects and teams added into the mix. This movement is so large that even the US government has joined with Code.gov.

Ultimately, this site helps on two fronts. It helps the tech world by sharing code openly and freely to give upcoming developers a chance to study how projects are built. And, it also gives the government a chance to improve their code by collaborating with developers.

You can browse everything available on the explore page which sorts code based on individual projects. You’ll find projects from the Department of Agriculture, Energy, Treasury, and related government organizations such as NASA.

projects from various government departments

Almost every project you look into has its source code on GitHub. This solidifies the Octocat’s legacy as the #1 premiere destination for all things open source.

For example, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has a project for owning a home that helps aspiring homeowners weigh the costs of a mortgage and how to manage that. This page leads directly to a custom repo on GitHub with all source code available for the tool.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Inside that repo, you’ll find all the code from their Owning A Home web page, including JavaScript tools for calculating interest rates, credit reports, and typical home prices.

interest rate calc government tool

These tools may not seem like anything special and they certainly aren’t the forefront of modern technology. However, this grants the open source movement a huge amount of credibility.

Right now, the Code.gov site is listed as being “currently in beta” and I’m not sure when that’ll change. It’s still fully usable as a resource for browsing projects from the government to study what code they’re using and how it’s all created.

Also, check out the site policy to learn where this initiative came from and where it may go in the future.

This site is part of a government initiative with a program aiming to “require agencies to release at least 20% of new custom-developed Federal source code to the public”. Whether this will hold true is yet to be seen but the fact that it’s been started is a step in the right direction.

To learn more, visit Code.gov which is also freely available on GitHub.

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