Why Open Source? Ask The U.S. Government

Big news from the open source world! The U.S. government just announced the finalized Federal Source Code Policy that requires agencies to release at least 20 percent of new custom developed code as Open Source Software for three years. Wired has a great article that goes in-depth into this new policy and discusses the sea change that has led to the newfound popularity of open source software, not only in government, but with major corporations as well. The article sums it up best: “...governments and corporations are realizing that open source is often the best way to develop software.”

We can’t agree more with the government’s reasoning:

Making source code available as OSS can enable continual improvement of Federal custom-developed code projects as a result of a broader user community implementing the code for its own purposes and publishing improvements. This collaborative atmosphere can make it easier to conduct software peer review and security testing, to reuse existing solutions, and to share technical knowledge.

Source: Federal Source Code Policy

As a commercial open source identity and access management vendor, ForgeRock is excited to see open source get this level of validation. It’s an acknowledgement that our goal of building the best open source IAM platform is only going to see more support as organizations realize the benefits of open source.

We’ve been ardent advocates of open source since day one and continue to participate and support the community. Our customers benefit from our open source approach because they get access to the source code, have transparency around the entire development process, and can contribute code back to ForgeRock for potential incorporation into the product. Developers can also freely download our software for use in development environments and POCs. At its core, our commercial open source model gives you the benefits of an enterprise vendor as well as the benefits of the open source model. It’s really the best of both worlds. ForgeRock is part of what Accel partner, Jake Flomenberg calls the new wave of “open adoption software”, open source software solutions that are enabling innovative organizations.

Our developer friendly platform is the foundation of digital businesses around the world. We give organizations a simple approach to deliver identity services for users, devices, connected things, and cloud services that helps them to bring new products and services to market much faster and more efficiently legacy vendors. Our customers like TomTom are driving innovative initiatives like the Internet of Things while others like GEICO are focused on delivering an omnichannel customer experience and unifying customer identities. Open source is primed to take a greater role in government and enterprise software deployments and we’re excited to be a part of the revolution.

Visit our website for more information on our commercial open source model
The ForgeRock Identity Platform
Download a free trial of the ForgeRock Identity Platform