October 25, 2009 12:29AM 

# White​house​.gov Switches to Drupal 

By [Jim Harper](https://www.cato.org/people/jim-harper) 

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There was [some](http://drupal.org/node/375843) [buzz](http://techpresident.com/blog-entry/why-white-houses-embrace-drupal-matters-0) earlier this year when the White House used the free, open-source Drupal content management platform for [Recov​ery​.gov](http://www.recovery.gov/Pages/home.aspx). Now the administration’s marquee Web site [White​house​.gov will be using it](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/10/24/national/w111355D33.DTL&tsp=1).

The AP story linked just above does a good job of recounting the benefits of open source in this application: chiefly, low cost and high security.

[Arnold Kling wrote recently](http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/10/nobel_for_insti.html) on the Library of Economics and Liberty blog relating the work Elinor Ostrom did to win the Nobel prize in economics to how the Internet enables private provision of public goods—no regulation, little to no centralized authority at all.

Open source is nothing if not an example of that, and it’s good to see this use of open source joining many others across the big, beautiful Internet.

##### Related Tags 

[Technology and Privacy](https://www.cato.org/technology-privacy) 

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