GitHub Universe 2016 - Featured Presentations, 26 Oct 2016

Previous Meeting

Next Meeting

⏯

youtube image

►

From YouTube: The People's Code - GitHub Universe 2016

Description

Senior Technology Advisor Alvand Salehi, from the White House Office of the Federal CIO, discusses efforts of the US Federal Government to embrace open source and work with the community to improve the function of government through code.

About GitHub Universe:
GitHub Universe is a two-day conference dedicated to the creativity and curiosity of the largest software community in the world. Sessions cover topics from team culture to open source software across industries and technologies.

For more information on GitHub Universe, check the website:
https://githubuniverse.com

A

Hello universe, you know I usually like to say hello world, but universe has such a nice ring to it. Doesn't it I want to say chris wanstrath has done an incredible job leading this organization? Let's give him another round of applause. That's nobody.

A

So I'm Alvin Stu Leahy I'm, a tech advisor at the White House I work in the office of the federal CIO, which is led by the one and only Tony, Scott and I'm here today, really to celebrate with all of you, I'm here to celebrate the tremendous potential of open source software I'm here to celebrate the brilliant minds that contribute to nonstop innovation every single day.

A

That's all of you here in this room today and I'm here to celebrate something very special, which is the fact that for the first time ever last month, the White House released the first-ever federal policy that actually advocates for open source software.

A

But before I get into the details of that, I want to put up a picture of one of my role models and I know. Sometimes everyone will say: oh man, some of these cheesy quino's, always put up pictures of people for inspiration like Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, chris wanstrath. I got you but indulge me for a second. I want to do the same thing today and this individual is a young man.

A

Who's had his fair share of trials and tribulations, you all know him and he always emerges much stronger as a result, probably guessed it by now.

A

Sorry, it was actually really hard for me to get through that with a straight face. Bart Simpson, all jokes aside: we all love him, but what I really like is what he's written here on the chalkboard he's written it several times. I, don't know if he got in trouble for it or not. Open-Source is good for me and I will fully embrace it just by a quick show of hands. How many of you here in the audience have ever contributed to an open source repository?

A

Okay, well done for those of you watching at home, virtually every single person raised their hand and I think that makes sense because you guys are ready, github universe, but that's also why this is such an exciting time and it's why it's so exciting that we were able to achieve this incredible milestone for the federal government.

A

No one really would think that the federal government in 2016 would be the ones to embrace open source software, but I'm very excited that last month we were finally able to release the federal source code policy, and one of the best things about this policy, in my mind, is the fact that people were engaged with this policy.

A

From the very start, we released a draft of this policy back in March for public comments, and we received some of the highest number of comments ever in history, and the reason is because we tried something different for one of the first times we actually use github to power our public comments and, as a result, we got over 2,000 public comments on the actual policy. Take a look. This is a quick snapshot of some of the comments we're receiving. One of my personal favorites is the one on the top.

A

That is pretty awesome, but the fact is that I don't even know if Chris envisions github eight years ago being used to power public comments for a federal policy. Github is a tremendous vehicle and, objectively speaking, it helped us a lot in engaging with every single one of you. So let's talk about some stats that actually make this policy important and necessary. The federal government every single year engages in over 42,000 software transactions. What's the cost, a whopping six billion dollars every single year spent on software?

A

What's interesting is a number of those acquisitions in software are actually duplicative transactions, meaning that several agencies are paying for the same software multiple times. Needless to say, that's a very inefficient way to spend your hard-earned tax dollars and, quite frankly, it has to stop and we're gonna make sure that it stops now so introducing government-wide code reuse. Now that this policy has been released from this point forward, all software transactions for custom developed government code must ensure that that code can be shared and reused across the entire federal government.

A

That will reduce duplicate of acquisitions and it'll, make sure that we save as much taxpayer dollars as possible. The second big win in this policy- and this is one that I think most of you will will be very excited about- is actually releasing government code as open-source.

A

So what does that mean from this point forward? We're launching a three-year pilot program that requires that at least at least 20% of all of the government's custom-developed code moving forward be released to the public as open source software.

A

Now I see some expressions here. A lot of you guys are excited some of you rightly or thinking. Why 20%, why? Don't you just open it all up? Well, if you go on github public comments, you'll see a lot of you guys actually voiced that question as well, and it's a good question. The answer is this: as you all know, the government is massive and unfortunately, unlike a start-up, we can't just get change overnight.

A

This is a massive federal bureaucracy. It's gonna take time. It's gonna take resources, so getting something actually started is the biggest victory of all and, quite frankly, this 20% figure is just a starting point. It's by no means the ending point, because we're gonna do everything we can to make sure that every single federal agency has the resources that they need to open source as much software as possible and, more importantly, to open source it responsibly and effectively. So it's actually useful to all of you guys.

A

In fact, several agencies are actually already open sourcing by default and they're gonna lead the way the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau 18f, which sits within the General Services Administration. These guys have open source by default policies and they're gonna be the ones that we look to to actually set a really good example for the rest of the federal government. So some of you might be thinking well Alvin. What are some examples of open source software and government that actually would even be useful? Why do I care?

A

Well the White House a while back open source there We the People petition website, which is where you can petition the White House on really any single issue that you want and if you haven't done so I would really encourage you to take advantage of it. But, more importantly, all of the code for this is on github. So anybody can fork this. They can modify the website itself and they can go ahead and take it and create their own petition website if they want not bad right. One of my favorite examples is analytics that usa.gov.

A

This is a snapshot into web traffic that is taking place on government websites in real time, and this was actually created as a joint project by 18f and the u.s. digital service at the White House. What's really cool about this one, as you take a look, it's on github, it's open, but several state and local governments have already forked this and they fourth the API that underlies and powers this data and they've done it for their own governments. Take a look.

A

We got the city of Philadelphia they've used exactly the same code that powers analytics at usa.gov to do it for their own City. We got the city of Sacramento, doing it, and many many more and I can't wait now that this policy is in effect to see what comes about as a result.

A

So we thought about this for a long time, a lot of lively debates within the government outside the government. Amongst yourselves, we planned we finally were able to cross the finish line and release this policy, and now it's time to execute so get ready for code dot-gov.

A

A

What is Kodaka code gov is the primary implementation website. That's actually gonna come out of this policy and it's gonna be the one-stop shop for all of you guys to go ahead and be able to look at all of the custom developed code from this point forward for the government.

A

Now this is a very interesting project, because we're gonna be building it in the open, I mean it would be kind of ridiculous if we didn't have given our policy right, but the reason that's important is because I want all of you guys to help us build this platform.

A

We're gonna launch this in the coming months, but what's really important is this is the people's code, which means that is all of your code and if you guys actually want to make an impact and give back to the country and be a part of this amazing movement that we're trying to actually have in government. This is your opportunity. We put the code up on github, Chris, I, hope, that's, okay with you, and we have a bunch of Help Wanted tags. We have requests for discussion.

A

We have different asks for all of you guys in the brilliant minds around the country to help us build this, and, quite frankly, when we launch in a couple months, I want to make sure that this is the best damn open-source platform that the world has ever seen.

A

What's even more important, is you guys can imagine a lot of people questioned whether the federal government should actually open sources software. There are a lot of valid points on both sides and we've made sure to address all of those in the policy.

A

But what's really important to me and to our team into the White House into the entire federal government is to make sure that you guys help us ensure that all of the people who doubted us know that when the federal government decided to actually open source software that that decision was a good one and that is completely up to you has quite frankly folks. After all, like I said before, this is your code. This is our code.

A

This is the people's code and I can't wait for all of us to work with each other to ensure that we unlock the tremendous potential of the nation's open-source software. Thank you. Thank you very much.

A