Despite the U.S. CIO’s Exit, Open Source Is Entrenched in the Federal Government

In mid-June, as the United States’ first federal CIO, Vivek Kundra, announced that he has decided to leave his post, many people wondered if the open source initiatives that he drove in his short time as CIO would fade with him. Well-versed in open source technologies, Kundra had promised to overhaul the way the government deployed and managed its technology, with a special focus on decreasing costs. As recently as April of this year, we took note of two open source tools called IT Dashboard and TechStat that Kundra oversaw the development of as well as releasing them for public availability. According to Kundra, the tools led to over $3 billion of cost savings in the U.S. government. Now, a nonprofit is taking note of the fact that many open source initiatives are alive and well in the U.S. government’s pipeline, and there is much interest in Android.