White House contributes to open-source project

The White House has released some of the open source code for Whitehouse.gov, according to a posting on the site.

"This code is available for anyone to review, use, or modify," wrote White House blogger Dave Cole. "We're excited to see how developers across the world put our work to good use in their own applications."

Much of the site is already open source as part of the Drupal project, he added. The White House adopted the open-source Drupal content management system for the Web site last year. Today's release adds custom code to Drupal, making the White House a participant in open-source development.

The release adds four modules to enhance three key characteristics: scalability, communication and accessibility.

For scalability, Whitehouse.gov is releasing a module named ContextHTTPHeaders, which allows site builders to add metadata to Web pages that can control them page by page. For example, a site developer can easily create instructions that lead to browsers caching certain types of pages for a longer period of time than others.

Another scalability-related module, called Akami, enables the Web site to integrate with the content-delivery network of that same name.   

The GovDelivery module allows site developers to tailor e-mail messages to the preferences of recipients.

On the accessibility front, a module named NodeEmbed allows developers to manage photo and video content to ensure it complies with accessibility rules, Cole wrote.