18F is very unique in this regard. They somehow managed to get approval to issue their own ATOs (ie Authority to Operate) as well as provide and use their own Ubuntu-LTS gold master image as a base.<p>They largely circumvent a lot of the process with help from policy makers at the highest levels.<p>Even then, I&#x27;m pretty sure they don&#x27;t offer hosting&#x2F;authorizing deployments from party sources. So they essentially have a monopoly on the ability to use OSS freely for bulding government websites.