What’s Required?

The Source Code Policy was issued on August 8, 2016 and requires both agencies and OMB to take specific actions within 90 and 120 days, as well as on an ongoing basis. This section is meant to help agencies meet those deadlines and boot up their overall source code strategy.

Milestone - 90 Days

November 6, 2016 will mark 90 days from the issuance of the policy. By November 6, 2016, the following must be accomplished:

  • OMB must:
    • Launch Code.gov
    • Provide content on Code.gov regarding:
      • How best to measure source code (Section 5.1)
      • Advice on how agencies can strengthen internal capacity to efficiently and securely deliver OSS as part of regular operations (Section 7.1)
      • Advice on existing code repositories and common third-party repository platforms that agencies can use to satisfy the requirements of this policy (Section 7.4)
      • Advice on various open source licenses that agencies can use when releasing custom-developed code as OSS (Section 7.5)
      • Insight into how agency implementation of this policy will be assessed by OMB (Section 7.7)
  • Agencies must:
    • Develop an agency-wide policy that addresses the requirements of the Source Code Policy and correct or amend any policies that are inconsistent with the requirements of the Source Code Policy (Section 7.6)

Milestone - 120 Days

December 6, 2016 will mark 120 days from the issuance of the policy. By December 6, 2016 the following must be accomplished:

  • OMB must:
    • Provide content on Code.gov regarding:
      • Metrics to assess the impact of the pilot program (Section 5.1)
      • Metadata schema to help agencies fill out their enterprise code inventories (Section 7.2)
  • Agencies must:
    • Update their enterprise code inventories using the metadata schema provided by OMB (Section 7.2)

Day 121 and onward

After these initial deliverables have been met, OMB and agencies will work together to implement the policy and build overall capacity for code reuse and open source across the Executive Branch. Generally, agencies should plan to:

  • Update, refine, and expand their code inventories to promote government-wide sharing and reuse of code; and
  • Build their internal open source pipeline in order to efficiently develop and publish open source code as part of the Open Source Pilot Program.