Open source has officially made its mark on the US government.

Early last month, the US government released for public comment a draft policy that supports improved access to custom software code developed for the Federal Government. According to US Chief Information Officer Tony Scott, “This policy will require new software developed specifically for or by the Federal Government to be made available for sharing and re-use across Federal agencies.” It’s also said to include a pilot program that will allow a portion of that new federally-funded custom code to be released to the public.

Apart from delivering on the commitment the government made in the Second Open Government Action Plan, one of the main reasons behind this move is cost savings. Scott has said that by adopting an open source software development methodology, the government can avoid duplicate custom software purchases and therefore save taxpayer dollars. It also allows the brightest minds inside and outside of the government to review and improve the code.

Though this may be the first official draft policy directed towards open sourcing custom-developed government code, this certainly isn’t the first time the government has used open source. They have achieved great open source successes in the past including NASA’s COSMIC collection, and recently with the Department of Education’s College Scorecard and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s housing counselor search tool. And by the looks of the budding development policy, we can expect more open source initiatives to come.

Eager to offer some input and comment on this draft policy? Make sure you do so soon as the public comment period will end on April 11, 2016. After which, the comments received will be analyzed and used in the development of any final policy.