Thank you!

[aescottathome]

I want to thank everyone for engaging in such thoughtful dialogue around the draft Federal Source Code Policy, which has now been finalized and released. Providing innovative channels for increased engagement is one of the President’s top priorities; and, the response we received here was outstanding. More than 2,000 comments poured in over 37 days. People from around the country engaged in constructive discussions on a range of issues.

We carefully reviewed all of your comments. And, as a result of your participation, the final policy has emerged much stronger.

For instance, we’ve further emphasized in the final policy that the pilot program’s 20 percent release requirement is a minimum baseline and that Federal agencies are encouraged to go above and beyond to release as much custom-developed code as possible. We’ve strengthened measures to ensure agencies have the support they need to open source their software appropriately and responsibly. And at the conclusion of the pilot program, we’ll evaluate its results to determine the best path forward.

In the coming months, we’ll launch a new website – Code.gov – so that we can all continue to unlock the tremendous potential of the Government’s software. After all, it's the People's Code. We want you to learn from it, improve it, and use it to propel America's next breakthrough in innovation.

I hope you'll stay engaged with us every step of the way.

Tony

[afeld]

For anyone reading: announcement post is at https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2016/08/08/peoples-code.

[neilmartis]

@afeld Thanks Aidan

[mikelmaron]

Thanks @aescottathome, appreciate all the effort to engage and review public comments. Would love to have a small window into what that mammoth process was like for you all -- what framework did you use to organize and prioritize all the issue discussion and PRs? How many folks were involved in the effort? Did the volume and kind of feedback meet your expectations, or where were you surprised?