New SHARE IT Act Mandates Federal Code Sharing to Cut Software Costs

Siloed operations in government code lead to billions in redundant spending. A new law that took effect last month aims to change that.

The Source Code Harmonization and Reuse in Information Technology (SHARE IT) IT Act requires agencies to actively share their custom code and make it publicly available.

Policy-makers say the law will transform how digital services are conceived and delivered, and will ultimately save the government money.

“This bipartisan bill is a critical step forward in advancing the digital capacity of the federal government and will benefit Americans as they access government services online,” said Sen. Gary Peters, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and a co-sponsor of the Senate version of the bill.

“Each year, federal agencies spend billions for software that may be duplicative because it is not shared between agencies, despite existing infrastructure to do so,” said co-sponsor Sen. Ted Cruz. “I am glad to join Chairman Peters in introducing this common-sense solution that will save taxpayer funds by holding federal agencies accountable for sharing the code they procure.”

What is the SHARE IT Act?

The law directs the federal CIO to release a governmentwide framework by December to track progress and align software development with national digital priorities.

By July 21, which was 210 days after enactment, agencies had to make metadata for their custom-developed code publicly available, including its origin, contract details and sharing locations.

Agencies must also store their custom code and related materials — such as documentation, data models, schemas and architecture designs — in public or private repositories accessible to all federal employees. Additionally, they must secure the rights needed to allow governmentwide access, sharing, use and modification of any custom code created under new contracts.

Traditionally, agencies have not shared custom software or its underlying code with each other. This practice leads to duplicative contracts and unnecessary spending “as agencies hire contractors to reproduce code that another agency already purchased,” according to a Senate fact sheet.

Government’s Progress in Sharing Code

Sharing code is not a new priority. A 2016 Office of Management and Budget memo directed agencies to share code, but a lack of accountability mechanisms prevented agencies from making any real progress toward the effort. Now with the White House pressuring agencies to find new efficiencies and cut costs, the need to share code and to realize those benefits is becoming more urgent.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is one agency working to enact SHARE IT, said Remy DeCausemaker, the agency’s open source lead. He noted the law will lead to millions in savings via harmonization of source code.

“If we could reuse just 1% of the code that we already wrote, that’s $5 million of savings. If it goes up to 10%, it’s like $25 million. Fifty percent? It’s like $250 million,” said DeCausemaker. “There are 400 federal agencies in the federal register … we could all be able to reuse the code that we’ve written that could save us the agencies and the American taxpayers a lot of money.”

CMS along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proper all met the July 21 deadline to make their code and metadata available via public repositories. This is a part of a larger digital transformation effort as HHS prioritizes transparency and information sharing to eliminate siloes.

“All custom-developed software — whether it’s by feds or contractors — needs to be available in a public repository. It needs to have metadata talking about what’s in it and how it’s funded and contract IDs and feedback mechanisms,” said DeCausemaker at the Federal IT Efficiency Summit July 10 in Tysons, Virginia. “Reusing that code has high potential for saving a ton of money because we spend so much time and effort rewriting things that have already been built.”

For HHS CDO Kristen Honey, CMS’ Open Source Program Office (OSPO) has been a North Star for other agencies to adapt an “open by default” mindset while advancing the agency’s mission at the pace of innovation.

That office “is an example of how you can be the change at the office level … while also simultaneously thinking of the whole department as one unified, ideally data driven HHS and one federal government,” Honey told GovCIO Media & Research. “We’ve been able to repurpose [CMS’ efforts] across the whole department and offer it to all the divisions.”

DeCausemaker said CMS sees itself as a code-sharing leader and wants to collaborate with other agencies on their efforts.

“Our agency is very excited about the SHARE IT Act and we’ve been leading the way with the implementation at CMS and helping HHS and any other agencies if they want to adopt our open-source solutions,” he said. “They’re public and they’re on the internet right now.”

Honey said the fundamental shift will promote integration of complex systems and empower information exchange at all stakeholder levels.

“With technology and instant information exchanges, we can reimagine what health care looks like … but a key element of that is bringing down the information siloes so that the frontline people can speak truth to power and change behavior at the highest levels,” Honey said.