White House site is now running on Drupal
// Posted in Tech by Rene Zuleta on 10.26.09.
WhiteHouse.gov has gone Drupal. After months of planning, says an Obama Administration source, the White House has ditched the proprietary content management system developed by General Dynamics INformation Technology (GDIT) and that had been in place since the days of the Bush Administration in favor of the latest version of the open-source Drupal software, as the AP alluded to in its reporting yesterday.
New White House website running on Drupal
The Drupal switch came about after the Obama new media team, with a few months of executive branch service (and tweaking of WhiteHouse.gov) under their belts, decided they needed a more malleable development environment for the White House web presence. They wanted to be able to more quickly, easily, and gracefully build out their vision of interactive government.
Drupal proponents have long tried to make the case that open-source software could be just as safe, just as stable, and and just as reliable as pre-boxed software, even if hundreds, thousands, or even millions of volunteer developers had their fingers in the mix at some point along the way. The White House’s seal of approval doesn’t hurt.
More than talking about the technical details of this change and talking about if Drupal is the best choice or not, to me the most important thing here is the fact that the White House is choosing an Open-Source solution for this project. This is a powerful message.
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