Politics & Government

Arlington Board OKs Sharing Website Code with Open-Source Community

County developing new site using open-source software.

With a nod to the open government movement, the Arlington County Board this weekend unanimously approved making portions of the programming behind the county website publicly available.

Elected officials gave their blessing Saturday to using the General Public License for website source code developed by the county, according to a news release. Arlington is one of the first local governments in Virginia to share its code with the open-source community, the release states.

"The licenses for most software and other practical works are designed to take away your freedom to share and change the works. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change all versions of a program—to make sure it remains free software for all its users," according to the license preamble.

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The license allows individuals, local governments, nonprofits and others to reuse, copy, modify and improve its code, essentially building upon the county's work.

“The website is critical to County government and our community,” Chairman Walter Tejada said in a statement. “The action today shows our commitment to open, innovative government—and to developing a website that’s fast and easy for our residents, businesses and others to use.”

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Arlington is in the process of developing a new county website built on open-source software. The site uses WordPress, an open-source content management system popular with bloggers. Typically, open-source software is free, so it cuts down on costs for those who use it.

The county currently has more than 15 websites built in WordPress, according to a news release, including the library website.

The county website received nearly 6.5 million visits in 2012, the release states.

The new website will be rolled out in phases over the course of the year, and the county is planning on using social media to invite people to participate in online testing.


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