A bill requiring US agencies to share custom source code with each other has become law

Agencies must share custom-developed code with each other in an effort to prevent duplicative software development contracts under the new bill signed became law by President Joe Biden.

The bipartisan Source Code Harmonization And Reuse in Information Technology (HR 9566), or SHARE IT Act, seeks to reduce the roughly $12 billion that lawmakers estimate the federal government spends each year on software purchases by requiring agencies to publicly list custom code and share that code. in other agencies.

Doing so, the bill’s sponsors said, would address the inefficiencies that occur when agencies unknowingly hire contractors to develop code that has already been developed for another agency. The new law does not apply to classified code, national security systems or code that would post privacy risks if shared.

The bill was sponsored by Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Gary Peters, D-Mich., in the Senate and Reps. Nicholas Langworthy, RN.Y., and William Timmons, RS.C., of the House. Both chambers approved the bill with overwhelming support Decemberwith no recorded up or down votes.

Under the law, the chief information officers of the agency are required to make policies within 180 days after the implementation of the said act. Such policies should ensure that custom-developed code conforms to best practices, establish a process for making metadata for custom code publicly available, and outline a standardized reporting process.

According to the new law, the metadata includes information about whether the custom code was created under a contract or shared in a repository, the contract number, and a hyperlink to the repository where the code was shared.

The law also has industry support. According to an announcement from Langworthy at the introduction of the House bill in September, the collaborative software companies Atlassian and GitLab Inc. upholding the law.

At the time, Stan Shepard, Atlassian’s general counsel, said in a release statement that the company shares “the belief that greater collaboration and sharing of custom code will promote openness, efficiency, and innovation across the business.”