The inside of the House of Representatives is getting a face lift. Rather, the back end.
According to a notice from the chief administrative officer of the House, the chamber has decided on open source content management system Drupal to host its plethora of websites and is now seeking developers.
Noted Gov 2.0 scribe Alex Howard said the announcement was a “win for open source.â€
“That makes the ‘People’s House’ one of the largest government institutions to move to the open source web content management platform,†he writes.
According to a blog post by Dries Buytaert, original creator of Drupal, Congress now maintains more than 500 different websites on a number of different content management systems, some of which are open source.
Buytaert said Drupal, which is also used for Whitehouse.gov and Energy.gov, met the House’s needs by being able to:
1. Accommodate hundreds of independent websites, each with different sets of features.
2. Provide the ability to deploy new sites quickly and efficiently.
3. Enable House Members to use the web designer or developer of their choice by leveraging the Drupal community.
The Drupal platform also aims to standardize the various House site platforms, which may help in beautifying some of the eyesores currently in its portfolio of websites.
In fact, FierceGovernmentIT reports incoming House members already have websites supported by Drupal.
