There’s a petition on whitehouse.gov to require the government to release the source code for healthcare.gov–”specifically all code written by CGI Federal”–as open source. This means that the source code would be posted on the Internet for non-government/non-contractor programmers to inspect, and to try to fix. Open source projects typically have a “source code control system” on a Web site that allows programmers to check out a source file, make changes, and check it back in to the library. The change doesn’t take effect (get merged into the official released body of code) until it’s been reviewed and approved by other programmers.

Open source projects generally work out well because, under ordinary circumstances, you can count on the goodwill of volunteers who want the project to succeed. But here, we’re talking about Obamacare, a bitterly politicized program, and if it becomes an open-source project, you can count on political animus to lead to attempts to sabotage the project in various ways, ranging from crude sabotage to the injection of viruses and virus-vectors. Any code checked-in would have to be vetted by the NSA before it’s incorporated into the site.

That’s a pretty serious objection, but I don’t think it’s sufficient to blow the idea out of the water. Just because normal open-source projects are generally peaceful doesn’t mean that vandals haven’t tried to sabotage them. But open source projects have an excellent record of policing their own code.

I signed the petition to ensure that the proposal gets a wider hearing and is completely aired. If we could pull it off, there’s something innately satisfying about the thought of taking the concept of “citizen participation in self-government” to a whole new level.

It turns out that there’s a third way, between the artificial poles of outsourcing everything to bloated pork-fed contractors and doing everything inside the government. If private citizens can do some particular job better, let ‘em.