WIREDGOV

Dstl is sharing code openly with industry, academia and individuals.

The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) has, for the first time, placed a piece of software into the open source domain for editing and improvement by the public.

Dstl is using the social coding site Github.com to host the code for a web application which allows those that use it to collate ideas and capture the inventive power of a workforce. The application was developed by Dstl to provide a low-cost and quick prototype to help a user in this area.

Dstl’s Chief Technical Officer Andy Bell hopes people accessing the code – whether small and medium-sized enterprises, academia or individuals – will use it and contribute to its development to benefit both Dstl and the public. He says:

Sharing code in this way allows us to reach out to a wider population of experts, so that they can draw on our work, using the application to potentially improve their products allowing us to learn from their knowledge and expertise, possibly enhancing our code or finding and fixing any bugs.

Other government departments, including the Cabinet Office and the Department for Energy and Climate Change, are already using Github.com to share code publicly.

Dstl’s code can be found on the Github site.. For further information on the technical side, email: oss@dstl.gov.uk.

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