White House adopts Drupal open source CMS

David M Williams
Monday, 09 November 2009 16:51

Opinion and Analysis

This argument, along with protecting intellectual property and competitive advantage, ensures proprietary software will continue to flourish because while open source software has a better price tag, risk-adverse managers will always need to consider the possibilities of attack and whether the software used increases this.

The independent Open Source Vulnerability Database (OSVDB) presently lists 363 known flaws in Drupal. If even one of these is current, unpatched and relatively trivial to exploit then the White House can realistically expect to find itself a target by malcontents, no matter their level of technical expertise (because somebody, somewhere will surely publish an example exploit on the Internet which can then be appropriated for the task.)

In fact, because Drupal is freely available, a rogue nation or individual can perform their own hacking experiments day and night without once tipping off the White House.

Fortunately Drupal is not known for being nearly as buggy as WordPress, but even so the White House can protect itself with vigilance and diligence. This includes stripping unnecessary services and features out of the default installation as well as evaluating updates to the software when and as they are made available.

Nevertheless, despite concerns of critics, Dries Buytaert, the original developer of Drupal – and now White House subcontractor – sees the White House choice as implicit recognition that open source does not in itself pose additional risks compared to proprietary software.

Additionally, in times of economic instability using Drupal sends a positive message that the Government is itself seeking to spend taxpayer money in more effective and responsible ways.

The Government clearly is confident the benefits outweigh any perceived risks by critics, and Drupal now joins the likes of Plone and SourceForge which are used by the CIA and Miltary, respectively. It is reasonable to expect both bodies are sensitive and mindful of security concerns!

Ultimately, the choice of Drupal was specifically because it was perceived to be the best tool to deliver a flexible, progressive and engaging experience for WhiteHouse.gov visitors. This is a direct result of its open source roots. By being readily available, by being readily extendable, Drupal has received vast amounts of realistic production testing and usability feedback.

Pundits are keenly looking to see if the White House turns into a Drupal contributor itself, injecting its own add-ons and patches into the core code.

Meanwhile, others are undoubtedly hoping the integration of open source into Government continues with version control systems like SVN tracking the composure and alteration of legislation.