{
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    "title" : "Best Practices for Open Source in Government (Using GitHub) |Digital.gov",
    "description": "Best Practices for Open Source in Government (Using GitHub)",
    "home_page_url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/","feed_url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/2013/11/06/github-for-government/index.json","item" : [
    {"title" :"Best Practices for Open Source in Government (Using GitHub)","summary" : "Working on getting your agency to release an open source policy? Awesome! But if you want an effective open source program, you have to tightly integrate open source into how your agency procures, builds, and distributes technology. You’re not alone! There’s a growing community of","date" : "2013-11-06T07:46:20-04:00","date_modified" : "2025-01-27T19:42:55-05:00","authors" : {"nkunin" : "Noah Kunin"},"topics" : {
        
            "open-source" : "Open source",
            "software-engineering" : "Software engineering"
            },"branch" : "bc-archive-content-3",
      "filename" :"2013-11-06-github-for-government.md",
      
      "filepath" :"news/2013/11/2013-11-06-github-for-government.md",
      "filepathURL" :"https://github.com/GSA/digitalgov.gov/blob/bc-archive-content-3/content/news/2013/11/2013-11-06-github-for-government.md",
      "editpathURL" :"https://github.com/GSA/digitalgov.gov/edit/bc-archive-content-3/content/news/2013/11/2013-11-06-github-for-government.md","slug" : "github-for-government","url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/2013/11/06/github-for-government/","content" :"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://s3.amazonaws.com/digitalgov/_legacy-img/2013/11/github-octocat.jpg\"\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"image\"\u003e\n  \u003cimg\n    src=\"https://s3.amazonaws.com/digitalgov/_legacy-img/2013/11/github-octocat-233x250.jpg\"\n    alt=\"Animation of a cat and an octopus.\"/\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\n\u003c/a\u003eWorking on getting your agency to release an open source policy? Awesome! But if you want an effective open source program, you have to tightly integrate open source into how your agency procures, builds, and distributes technology.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYou’re not alone! There’s a \u003ca href=\"http://government.github.com/community\"\u003egrowing community\u003c/a\u003e of \u003ca href=\"https://github.com/government?tab=members\"\u003egovernment technologists\u003c/a\u003e on \u003ca href=\"https://github.com/\"\u003eGitHub\u003c/a\u003e working on these issues – a place where you can quickly get the best advice. We’re contributing to this forum because we saw governments at all levels dealing with the same kinds of questions:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHow do I choose an open source license?\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWhat procurement boilerplate should I use for open source software?\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eShould I have a contribution agreement? What should it say?\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDoesn’t the Antideficiency Act prevent public contributions to my open source project? (Spoiler: it doesn’t!)\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCan I build my technology project in the open from the beginning?\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese are just fraction of the answers you’ll need to build a successful open source program. Historically, there haven’t been a lot of best practices on how to do this work within the constraints of government – until now!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you haven’t used GitHub before, it’s a platform for sharing code and collaborating on content. Agencies are increasingly releasing repositories of open source code on \u003ca href=\"http://github.com\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eGitHub\u003c/a\u003e. We’re seeing \u003ca href=\"https://github.com/project-open-data/project-open-data.github.io\"\u003etremendous successes\u003c/a\u003e, and also some \u003ca href=\"http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/10/obamacare-github/\"\u003emajor failures.\u003c/a\u003e But most importantly, we’re all learning as we go, in a forum where we can get immediate feedback from the public and technology experts in the private sector. We’re not just providing a semi-private community for federal employees, we’re also showcasing the latest open government work from around the world.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSigning up is simple – just make sure you have a \u003ca href=\"https://help.github.com/articles/setting-up-email-verification\"\u003everified government email\u003c/a\u003e on your \u003ca href=\"https://github.com/\"\u003eGitHub account\u003c/a\u003e. You can have multiple email addresses per account.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://s3.amazonaws.com/digitalgov/_legacy-img/2013/11/Github-signup.jpg\"\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"image\"\u003e\n  \u003cimg\n    src=\"https://s3.amazonaws.com/digitalgov/_legacy-img/2013/11/Github-signup.jpg\"\n    alt=\"Screenshot of the Github sign up page.\"/\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\n\u003c/a\u003eOnce that’s done, point your favorite browser at \u003ca href=\"https://government-community.githubapp.com\"\u003ehttps://government-community.githubapp.com\u003c/a\u003e. You should be automatically added to the organization and can head to \u003ca href=\"https://github.com/government\"\u003ehttps://github.com/government\u003c/a\u003e at any time to get started. If you’re having issues joining the community, email \u003ca href=\"mailto:government@github.com\"\u003egovernment@github.com\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe know it’s hard to stay on top of emerging open source standards. Especially when the best practices themselves are improving and changing so quickly! We’re here to help. GitHub for Government was setup by \u003cstrong\u003eBen Balter\u003c/strong\u003e, a first-round Presidential Innovation Fellow. He’s written code for the CFPB, FCC, and the White House – he understands the promise and challenge of setting up an open source program.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you have overall questions, reach out! I’m \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/noahkunin\"\u003e@noahkunin on Twitter\u003c/a\u003e and I’ll make time for anyone who’s engaged with this work. You can also check out the CFPB’s new \u003ca title=\"CFPB GitHub Portal\" href=\"http://cfpb.github.io/\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eopen source portal on GitHub\u003c/a\u003e. Hope to see you in the community soon!\u003c/p\u003e\n"}
  ]
}