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Make all new source code open and reusable, and publish it under appropriate licences (or provide a convincing explanation as to why this cannot be done for specific subsets of the source code).

How point 15 improves the service

Making their source code open means:

  • other services can reuse the software they’ve created
  • other services don’t end up doing work they’ve already done and they reduce costs in government as a whole
  • they avoid starting technology contracts that they can’t end easily

How they’ll be assessed

Their assessment and the questions the assessors ask them will vary depending on their service and what it does.

In the discovery assessment

To pass, the service team usually need to show they will make their source code open and reusable

In the alpha assessment

To pass, the service team usually need to:

  • explain how they plan to make all new source code open and reusable
  • confirm that they own the intellectual property
  • explain how someone else can reuse their code

In the beta assessment

To pass, the service team usually need to:

  • explain how they’re making new source code open and reusable
  • show their code in an open internet source code repository
  • describe how they accept contributions and comments on the code
  • explain how they’re handling updates and bug fixes to the code
  • explain the licences they’re using to release code during beta
  • confirm that they own the intellectual property
  • explain the code they’ve not made open and why
  • explain how a team in another department can reuse their code
  • explain how they’re using code from other teams or services