If you haven’t heard or noticed, the White House Web site – www.whitehouse.gov - has switched from a proprietary back-end Content Management System (CMS) to an open source platform built using Drupal.

Check out the TechPresident story on the back-end rebuild.

This is a big deal, as it is rare for large government agencies, particularly high profile ones such as the White House, to build their public-facing Web sites using open platforms.

As an agency that builds a lot of Web sites for government agencies, the White House’s decision to go with Drupal might signal a major shift in how government agencies, and their IT leadership specifically, look at open source solutions.

While we do not ascribe to the notion that open source is always the best solution for every client, we also think that the tendency for many government agencies to not even consider them as viable options is short-sited. Organizations should weigh the pros and cons of a variety of Web site CMS platforms, regardless of whether they are open source, and then the select the solution that best fits their needs.

Hopefully the White House’s decision to go with Drupal will begin to remove some of the unwarranted stigma still attached to open source platforms among the public sector IT community.

Jose Villa

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• Karina Tweedell says:

  November 14, 2009 at 4:53 pm

  I like the quote by Phillips from the article you suggested above, “Open source is a great form of civic participation”. It’s not only good that the White House’s decision helps promote open source solutions, but also that regular people can now be more active comping up with new features for the website. It is almost as this step with Drupal makes our government’s website a little bit more democratic.