Udvalget for Digitalisering og It 2024-25
DIU Alm.del
Offentligt
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Software Reuse through Open Source
Software in the Public Sector - A qualitative
survey on Policy and Practice
Johan Linåker, Sachiko Muto
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Abstract
Software Reuse through Open Source Software in the
Public Sector - A qualitative survey on Policy and Practice
This report delves into how Public Sector Organizations (PSOs) and the public sector at
large facilitate software reuse, specifically through Open Source Software (OSS) as an
instrument. The report is commissioned by the Danish Agency for Digital Government
(Digitaliseringsstyrelsen
1
) and Local Government Denmark (KL
2
), which provide input
on how Danish PSOs can specifically improve at reaping benefits by reusing existing
software and creating value by developing software in a way that can be reused.
A qualitative survey is conducted on a sample of 15 countries considered mature in
their digital practices, as indicated through a set of digital maturity indicators. These
countries are surveyed in terms of government policies, rationales, support
mechanisms, means of promotion, and success stories related to software reuse. The
surveyed countries exhibit diverse policies, emphasizing interoperability, digital
sovereignty, transparency, and cost efficiency. Economic arguments, interoperability,
and transparency are prominent goals, while digital sovereignty varies. Security
concerns are discussed, acknowledging both risks and benefits of OSS. The report
identifies emerging support structures, including Open Source Program Offices
(OSPOs), crucial for institutional capacity. Success stories highlight the transformation
to sustainable governance enabled through the use of neutral proxy organizations
acting as stewards for public sector OSS projects.
Recommendations are provided that focus on fostering software reuse through OSS
adoption, aiming to guide policy- and decisionmakers at national, regional, and local
government levels. The report contributes valuable insights for countries, like
Denmark, seeking to leverage software reuse through OSS in their digital
transformations.
Keywords: Open Source Software, Software Reuse, Policy, Open Source Program
Office, Software catalogue, Public sector, Public administration, Government
RISE Research Institutes of Sweden AB
RISE Report 2024:7
ISBN: 978-91-89896-48-2
1
2
https://digst.dk/
https://www.kl.dk/
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Content
Abstract...................................................................................................... 3
Content ...................................................................................................... 4
1
2
Introduction......................................................................................... 8
Research design ................................................................................... 9
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
3
3.1
3.1.1
3.1.2
3.1.3
3.1.4
3.2
Sampling ............................................................................................................ 9
Interview framework ........................................................................................10
Data collection and analysis ............................................................................. 12
Limitations and threats to validity ................................................................... 12
Policy and Stakeholders .................................................................................... 13
Internal versus external focus, inbound versus outbound ........................... 13
Type of intervention and level of prescriptiveness .................................... 14
Definition and ownership .......................................................................... 15
Scope.......................................................................................................... 16
Findings .............................................................................................. 13
Policy goals ....................................................................................................... 17
3.2.1
Economic factors
–
OSS to avoid double spend, lock-in, and promote a
competitive market .................................................................................................. 17
3.2.2
Interoperability
–
OSS as a mechanism for interoperable infrastructure
and public services ................................................................................................... 17
3.2.3
Digital sovereignty
–
OSS as a means empower sovereign decisions on use
of technology ............................................................................................................ 18
3.2.4
Security
–
OSS as a (potentially) robust building block in need
maintenance ............................................................................................................. 19
3.2.5
3.3
3.3.1
3.3.2
3.4
3.5
5
5.1
5.2
6
7
8
Transparency
–
OSS as an enabler for trust, control, and innovation ..... 20
Complementary support functions on different levels of government ..... 21
Various means for supporting policy implementations ........................... 22
Implementation and support ............................................................................ 21
Promotion for reuse ......................................................................................... 24
Success stories ................................................................................................. 26
Policy for software reuse through OSS ............................................................ 28
Implementation and support ........................................................................... 29
Recommendations ............................................................................. 28
Conclusions and future outlook ......................................................... 32
References ......................................................................................... 34
Country report: Colombia .................................................................. 36
8.1
8.2
Abstract ............................................................................................................ 36
Policy and Stakeholders ................................................................................... 36
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8.3
8.4
8.5
8.6
8.7
9
9.1
9.2
9.3
9.4
9.5
9.6
9.7
10.1
10.2
10.3
10.4
10.5
10.6
10.7
11
11.1
11.2
11.3
11.4
11.5
11.6
11.7
12.1
12.2
12.3
12.4
12.5
12.6
12.7
13.1
13.2
Policy goals .......................................................................................................37
Implementation and support ........................................................................... 38
Promotion for reuse ......................................................................................... 38
Success stories ................................................................................................. 38
References ........................................................................................................ 38
Abstract ............................................................................................................ 40
Policy and stakeholders ................................................................................... 40
Policy goals ....................................................................................................... 41
Implementation and support ............................................................................ 41
Promotion for reuse ......................................................................................... 43
Success stories ................................................................................................. 43
References ........................................................................................................ 43
Abstract ............................................................................................................ 46
Policy and stakeholders ................................................................................... 46
Policy goals .......................................................................................................47
Implementation and support ............................................................................47
Promotion for reuse ......................................................................................... 48
Success stories ................................................................................................. 48
References ........................................................................................................ 48
Abstract ............................................................................................................ 50
Policy and stakeholders ................................................................................... 50
Policy goals ....................................................................................................... 51
Implementation and support ............................................................................ 51
Promotion for reuse ......................................................................................... 52
Success stories ................................................................................................. 52
References ........................................................................................................ 52
Abstract ............................................................................................................ 54
Policy and stakeholders ................................................................................... 54
Policy goals .......................................................................................................55
Implementation and support ........................................................................... 56
Promotion for reuse .......................................................................................... 57
Success stories .................................................................................................. 57
References ........................................................................................................ 58
Abstract ............................................................................................................ 60
Policy and stakeholders ................................................................................... 60
5
Country report: Denmark .................................................................. 40
10 Estonia ............................................................................................... 46
Finland............................................................................................... 50
12 Country report: France ...................................................................... 54
13 Country report: Iceland ..................................................................... 60
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13.3
13.4
13.5
13.6
13.7
14.1
14.2
14.3
14.4
14.5
14.6
14.7
15.1
15.2
15.3
15.4
15.5
15.6
15.7
16.1
16.2
16.3
16.4
16.5
16.6
16.7
17.1
17.2
17.3
17.4
17.5
17.6
17.7
18.1
18.2
Policy goals ....................................................................................................... 61
Implementation and support ............................................................................ 61
Promotion for reuse ......................................................................................... 62
Success stories ................................................................................................. 62
References ........................................................................................................ 63
Abstract ............................................................................................................ 65
Policy and stakeholders ................................................................................... 65
Policy goals ...................................................................................................... 65
Implementation and support ........................................................................... 66
Promotion for reuse ......................................................................................... 66
Success stories ................................................................................................. 66
References .........................................................................................................67
Abstract ............................................................................................................ 68
Policy and stakeholders ................................................................................... 68
Policy goals ...................................................................................................... 69
Implementation and support ........................................................................... 69
Promotion for reuse ......................................................................................... 70
Success stories ................................................................................................. 70
References ........................................................................................................ 70
Abstract .............................................................................................................72
Policy and stakeholders ....................................................................................72
Policy goals .......................................................................................................72
Implementation and support ............................................................................73
Promotion for reuse ..........................................................................................73
Success stories ..................................................................................................73
References .........................................................................................................73
Abstract ............................................................................................................. 75
Policy and stakeholders .................................................................................... 75
Policy goals .......................................................................................................76
Implementation and support ............................................................................76
Promotion for reuse ..........................................................................................76
Success stories ..................................................................................................76
References ......................................................................................................... 77
Abstract ............................................................................................................ 78
Policy and stakeholders ................................................................................... 78
6
14 Japan ................................................................................................. 65
15 Luxembourg ....................................................................................... 68
16 Ireland ................................................................................................72
17 Country report: Malta .........................................................................75
18 Country report: The Netherlands ....................................................... 78
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18.3
18.4
18.5
18.6
18.7
19.1
19.2
19.3
19.4
19.5
19.6
19.7
20.1
20.2
20.3
20.4
20.5
20.6
20.7
21.1
21.2
21.3
21.4
21.5
22.1
22.2
22.3
22.4
22.5
22.6
22.7
23.1
23.2
Policy goals .......................................................................................................79
Implementation and support ........................................................................... 80
Promotion for reuse .......................................................................................... 81
Success stories ................................................................................................. 82
References ........................................................................................................ 82
Abstract ............................................................................................................ 85
Policy and stakeholders ................................................................................... 85
Policy goals ...................................................................................................... 86
Implementation and support ........................................................................... 86
Promotion for reuse ......................................................................................... 87
Success stories ................................................................................................. 87
References ........................................................................................................ 88
Abstract ............................................................................................................ 90
Policy and stakeholders................................................................................ 90
Policy goals ................................................................................................... 92
Implementation and support ....................................................................... 92
Promotion for reuse ......................................................................................... 92
Success stories .............................................................................................. 93
References ........................................................................................................ 93
Abstract ............................................................................................................ 96
Policy and stakeholders ................................................................................... 96
Policy goals .......................................................................................................97
Implementation and support ............................................................................97
Promotion for reuse ......................................................................................... 98
Abstract ............................................................................................................ 99
Policy and stakeholders ................................................................................... 99
Policy goals .................................................................................................... 100
Implementation and support ......................................................................... 100
Promotion for reuse ........................................................................................102
Success stories ................................................................................................102
References .......................................................................................................103
Abstract ...........................................................................................................106
Policy and stakeholders ..................................................................................106
19 Country report: New Zealand ............................................................. 85
20 Country report: Spain ........................................................................ 90
21 South Korea ....................................................................................... 96
22 Country report: Sweden ..................................................................... 99
23 United Kingdom ............................................................................... 106
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1
Introduction
Software reuse involves the reuse of software and its underlying source code and
related knowledge artifacts. One means of enabling such reuse is to release and share
software as Open Source Software (OSS) under an OSS license, implying that anyone
for any reason may use, inspect, modify, and redistribute the source code. For Public
Sector Organizations (PSOs), software reuse, both in general and through OSS,
provides important enablers for ensuring and improving interoperability, digital
sovereignty, innovation, and cost efficiency in the public sector.
In this report, we investigate how PSOs and the public sector at large enable and
facilitate software reuse, specifically through OSS as an instrument. The report is
commissioned by the Danish Agency for Digital Government (Digitaliseringsstyrelsen)
and Local Government Denmark (KL), providing input on how Danish PSOs can
specifically become better at reaping benefits by reusing existing software and creating
value by developing software in a way so that it can be reused.
We specifically examine a sample of 15 countries considered mature in their digital
practices, as indicated through a set of digital maturity indicators. These countries are
surveyed in terms of:
•
•
•
•
•
Government policies for software reuse through OSS, and the actors involved.
Rationale (e.g., security and transparency) for promoting and enabling
software reuse through OSS, including transparency and security
considerations.
Support for software reuse through OSS.
Means for promotion, exhibiting, and sharing of software for reuse.
Success stories of reused software, and lessons learned.
Findings from the country case studies are synthesized in this report, and a set of
recommendations are presented to allow for PSOs (both Danish and those in other
countries) to consider what steps to take to best leverage the opportunities software
reuse through OSS may bring.
The report is structured as follows: First, a brief overview of the research methodology
applied. Second, the synthesized findings from the case studies are presented in the five
overarching categories listed above. Thirdly, recommendations for policy and practice
are provided based on the synthesized findings. Lastly, conclusions are summarized,
followed by the 15 country reports provided in the Annex section.
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2
2.1
Research design
Sampling
The directive for this report was to select 15 countries that, overall, are in the best
position across major international maturity indicators on digital maturity, specifically
considering:
•
•
•
•
The Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI)
3
eGovernment Benchmark 2022
4
UN E-Government Survey 2022
5
OECD Digital Government
6
Taking maturity, geographical representation, and resource constraints into account, 15
countries were sampled, as presented in Table 1. Fourteen of these were selected with
the rationale that they were among the top ten in at least two listings. Four were chosen
because they were among the top five in at least one list. One additional country was
sampled to improve geographical representation (New Zealand) and provide examples
of mature OSS adoption (France).
Tabell 1 Overview of samples countries, the underlying rationale, and responsible investigator.:
Country
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
Iceland
Korea
Luxembourg
Malta
Spain
Sweden
The Netherlands
United Kingdom
Colombia
Rationale
Top 10 in at least two lists.
Top 10 in at least two lists.
Top 10 in at least two lists.
Top 10 in at least two lists.
Top 10 in at least two lists.
Top 10 in at least two lists.
Top 10 in at least two lists.
Top 10 in at least two lists.
Top 10 in at least two lists.
Top 10 in at least two lists.
Top 5 at least in one list
Top 5 at least in one list
https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/desi
https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/egovernment-benchmark-2022
5
https://publicadministration.un.org/egovkb/en-us/Reports/UN-E-Government-Survey-2022
6
https://www.oecd.org/gov/digital-government/
3
4
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Country
Japan
Ireland
France
New Zeeland
Rationale
Top 5 at least in one list
Top 5 at least in one list
Top 10 in at least one list, mature user of OSS
Top 10 in at least one list, geographical representation of the South
Pacific
2.2
Interview framework
A theoretical framework was developed based on the questions provided by the
directive for this study. The framework draws from earlier reports investigating best
practices of OSS in the public sector (Blind et al., 2022; Linåker et al., 2023).
Area
Question
Dimension: Policies
-
Are there any national policies or strategies prescribing the (re)use,
sharing and collaboration of software and OSS specifically?
-
Consider:
o
General strategies
for e-government services and internal
use
o
Specific domain,
e.g., Science, Employment Service, Digital
Infrastructure, Public procurement.
o
Digital sovereignty,
i.e., avoidance of lock-in to any specific
format, platform, technology, or vendor, and being able to
make technological decisions based on national laws, values,
and needs?
o
Cyber security
aspects related to of OSS used with the public
sector or society at large?
-
What is the scope and purpose of these policies or strategies?
-
Is it internally on the focal administration, and/or externally focused
on directing and supporting external organizations?
-
Where is it executed and enforced? E.g., level of government?
-
In which ministries or PSOs are the strategies anchored?
-
How is it enforced and realized?
-
Which stakeholders are involved?
-
What policies, recommendations, or guidelines are given related to
software (re)use, sharing and collaboration of software and OSS
specifically?
-
Are the policies, recommendations, or guidelines advisory
(recommended), preference (preferred but not mandatory), or
mandatory (required)?
-
Consider both acquisition of solutions (no procurement),
procurement of products or services, and internal or collaborative
development perspectives.
Dimension: Governance and support
10
Type of policy
Scope and
purpose of
policy
Stakeholders
Prescriptions
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Area
Current state
and use of OSS
Question
-
What role does software reuse through OSS play in the country?
-
Are there any formal or informal centers of competency (similar to
an Open Source Program Office (OSPO)) supporting the adoption of
OSS and reuse of software?
-
On what mandate and policy are they acting?
Compare and align with policies listed earlier.
Organizational
Support
-
What is their scope and purpose?
-
Is it internally on the focal administration, and/or externally focused
on directing and supporting external organizations?
-
Where is it executed and enforced? E.g., level of government?
-
How are these they organized and structured?
Funding
-
Consider OSPO archetypes described in the EC OSPO study:
National Government, Local Government, Association-based,
Institution-centric, Academic, and Independent OSPOs.
-
Is there any funding or state aid provided for promoting or enabling
the (re)use, sharing and collaboration of software and OSS
specifically?
-
Are there any additional types of support provided?
Dimension: Digital sovereignty and cyber security
-
See dimension for Policy, and Governance and support specifically in
relation to Digital Sovereignty.
Digital
sovereignty
-
How is development, governance, and ownership of intellectual
property related to software released as OSS managed?
Development
-
Are there any policies, recommendations, guidelines, or best practice
and release
in place?
-
How is long-term maintenance, quality, and sustainability of OSS
considered and ensured?
-
See dimension for Policy, and Governance and support specifically in
Cyber security
relation to Cyber security and OSS supply-chain security.
Dimension: Software inventory and promotion
Software
inventory
-
How are solutions inventoried and promoted for reuse, and
collaboration?
-
Consider any public software catalogs or use of external social
coding platforms such as GitHub and GitLab.
-
Are there any organized or informal activities promoting or enabling
Promotion
the (re)use, sharing, and collaboration on software and OSS
specifically?
-
How is the (re)use, sharing, and collaboration of OSS perceived
across public sector organizations, and levels of government?
Reuse
-
What actions are being made to improve the (re)use, sharing, and
collaboration of software, and OSS specifically?
Dimension: Success stories of reused software and OSS
Success
-
Which solutions are considered as a success in terms of (re)use and
collaboration within the country?
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Area
stories
Question
-
What is particularly good about the highlighted solutions?
-
What do they do to ensure that the solution is maintained?
2.3
Data collection and analysis
Data per country was initially collected through desk research and consulting online
resources. The country intelligence reports established through the Open Source
Observatory (n.d.) provided a starting point for many of the countries within Europe.
The policy analysis of individual countries presented in Blind et al. (2020) also
provided essential input and starting points for the research.
Case descriptions were compiled based on desk research and later verified and
complemented through interviews with at least one representative per country with in-
depth knowledge, typically coming from inside the government. The final case
descriptions were then cross-analyzed and synthesized with a narrative discussion
across five high-level themes and several subthemes. Recommendations for practice
were compiled to provide actionable takeaways for Public Sector Organizations (PSOs),
both within the Danish context and in other countries.
2.4
Limitations and threats to validity
We have not considered support and complementary initiatives from outside of the
public sector, e.g., coming from vendors, business associations, civil society, and the
larger OSS ecosystem. We acknowledge that these often provide much value in
maturing the public sector, in different ways. Yet, due to limitations in scope and
resources within the overarching assignment for this report, these parts are excluded.
We refer the reader to complementary sources of information such as the Joinup
Country Intelligence reports on OSS, which have provided valuable input to the
compilation of this report.
We further note that, while the synthesized findings and recommendations in this
study are based on case studies of 15 countries, readers should be aware that these do
not necessarily generalize or are suitable for all contexts. The study has used a
qualitative approach, providing detailed information for the reader to draw anecdotal
generalizations, comparing, e.g., organizational, cultural, and political factors between
case studies and the real-world context. Thorough investigations should be performed
before any recommendations are implemented, where the reports and findings from
this study may provide a starting point.
The data collected per country are also limited to online resources and complementary
interviews to expand, enrich, and validate findings. These interviews were typically
limited to one or two interviews per country due to the study’s resource constraints.
Hence, the completeness and correctness of reports are threats readers should
consider. Each case study has, however, been validated through member-checking with
interviewees after being synthesized, and references are provided as far as possible to
enable readers to trace sources.
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3
3.1
Findings
Policy and Stakeholders
Government policies for software reuse through OSS and the actors involved.
Summary:
The majority of surveyed countries have established policies
addressing software reuse through OSS, encompassing both inbound (acquiring
new software) and outbound (sharing acquired solutions). While policies differ in
scope and level of prescriptiveness, they are, in most cases, owned by central PSOs
with responsibility for areas such as digital government, transformation, and
procurement. The main emphasis in this study is on policies concerned with the
public sector’s own use of OSS, yet in a notable subset of countries,
such policies
had an external focus aimed at increasing the uptake of OSS in the domestic
technology sector.
As approached in this study, government policies refer to a set of principles, objectives,
and guidelines that have been explicitly formulated by a government or other
authoritative bodies at the national level and that are designed to influence or
determine decisions and actions or offer guidance. The policies included in the analysis
of this report are aimed at improving the conditions for the use and reuse of software,
with OSS viewed as a mechanism for furthering such practices. While adopted policies
do not always reflect the actual practice and impact of software reuse through OSS in
the country, they serve as evidence of an awareness at the political level of the value
that such practice can have for furthering desired outcomes in the public interest.
Across a diverse sample of 15 countries, we observed notable variations in policies
concerning scope, objectives, and levels of prescription. Despite this diversity, which at
least in part can be attributable to different institutional frameworks, distinct groupings
emerged based on a number of discernable criteria. In the following section, we
compare and contrast the policies according to these criteria to provide insights into
both commonalities and divergences. The resulting categorization allows for a more
nuanced understanding and a basis for drawing conclusions and offering
recommendations in subsequent sections.
3.1.1 Internal versus external focus, inbound versus
outbound
A first distinction can be made between government policies that focus on the
PSO’s
own use of or contribution to OSS (internal focus) and those policies that are aimed at
encouraging OSS uptake in the private sector (external focus). The overall emphasis in
this study is on the former category, and a majority of the countries in the sample have
policies of that nature. Yet the two Asian countries included in the analysis are notable
exceptions where the governments have adopted several policy measures since the early
2000s to actively encourage and support OSS uptake in their domestic tech industry.
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Such activities can also be observed to a lesser extent in Colombia, where there is a
national program in place to promote OSS use by SMEs.
The policies that are internally focused can be further divided into those focused on the
use (or consumption) of OSS and those that center processes of its development and
release. The former concerns acquisition and procurement of OSS for internal
purposes, while the latter pertains to the release of software developed through public
funds. Policies addressing the use and adoption of OSS are here referred to as inbound
OSS policies, while those concerning the development and release of OSS are termed
outbound OSS policies. The inbound and outbound context may be addressed by
distinct policies or joint policies addressing the two use cases together.
In Estonia, France, and the Netherlands, these aspects are considered in separate
policies, whereas in Malta and Iceland they are addressed jointly. It should be noted
that the borders between these policy domains are not always clear-cut, and the
distinction appears linked to the evolution of policies and to the maturity of OSS use.
Policies adopted in the early 2000s, such as in the UK, focused on inbound
consumption (procurement), while more recent policies, such as in Estonia, have
shifted to include the outbound aspect. In some countries, such as Colombia, the focus
is almost exclusively on promoting increased use of OSS, with no outbound direction or
guidance.
Where these policies are considered separately, they may also be owned by different
parts of the government, and the intervention may be based on distinct arguments or
justifications. For instance, inbound policies may reside in procurement rules under a
ministry of finance to ensure responsible use of government funds, while separate
outbound policies may be housed in a department responsible for digital
transformation, driven by principles of open innovation (more examples of how these
factors interact with each other are provided below).
3.1.2
Type of intervention and level of prescriptiveness
The policies examined in this report also vary in terms of the type of policy measure
and the degree to which software reuse through OSS is prescribed. In a first group of
countries, government intervention pertaining to OSS mainly takes the form of high-
level endorsements within policy documents of a more general nature. Examples
include Colombia, which in its National Development Plans (2018-2022 and 2022-
2026) mentions the promotion of OSS. Similarly, recent government programs in
Finland and Luxembourg have outlined the intention of the administration to
encourage OSS uptake, but these commitments have not, to a significant degree, been
translated into concrete guidance documents or specific policies at the national level.
A second distinct group comprises countries where explicit OSS advisory policies have
been adopted. These policies recommend considering, comparing, and evaluating OSS
on an equal footing with proprietary alternatives in acquisition and procurement
policies (inbound context) and as a mechanism for releasing and reusing software
developed with public funds (outbound context). Notable examples include Denmark
and Iceland where advisory policies encourage the adoption of OSS for both (re)use and
release of public software.
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Lastly, a distinct group of policies explicitly expresses a preference for OSS. In the
inbound context, these policies prescribe that OSS should be chosen before other
alternatives unless special circumstances apply in the acquisition and procurement
process. In the outbound context, the preference is for releasing public sector software
as OSS by default, unless specific considerations, such as security or confidentiality,
dictate otherwise.
In the UK, while rules have evolved separately, some policy documents integrate both
aspects, creating an expectation that OSS is the default option without specific
mandatory legislation for inbound or outbound. France and the Netherlands have
outbound policies mandating that public sector software be released as OSS unless
special circumstances apply, e.g., in relation to security, confidentiality, or integrity
aspects, while both have advisory policies for the inbound context. In Spain, all PSOs
are required to release any public sector software for internal reuse inside the
government, and if deemed appropriate use OSS as a means for enabling such reuse.
All PSOs are correspondingly obliged to consider any public software, OSS or not, in
the initiation of any acquisition and procurement process. Estonia has no general
inbound policy but has recently adopted a law stipulating that all software developed
with taxpayers’ money should be published with an OSS license
unless doing so would
harm national security.
3.1.3
Definition and ownership
Policies can further differ in terms of ownership and the process by which they have
been adopted. As noted above, such differences may be attributed to the varying
institutional frameworks and are also linked to underlying policy objectives. Some
policies have been adopted through the legislative process, as in the case of France and
the Netherlands, where the outbound policies are regulated by the Digital Republic law
(Loi n° 2016-1321 du 7 octobre 2016 pour une République numérique (1), 2016), and
the Open Government Act (Wet open overheid, 2023). The policies can also come in the
form of government instructions, as in France, where an advisory policy for the
inbound context has been issued by the Prime Minister’s office (Secretariat General du
Gouvernement Direction des Systèmes d'Information et de Communication, 2012).
Similarly, both inbound and outbound policies in the UK have been adopted directly by
the Government Digital Service, which is a part of the Cabinet Office.
Policies may also be detailed in more general policies, as in the case of Iceland, where
the in- and outbound policies are defined as part of the national digital strategy from
Digital Iceland, a unit within the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs (Digital
Iceland, 2021). In Sweden, there are no general policies except for certain guidance
provided in government reports. On the other hand, several PSOs have implemented
their own internal policies and guidelines, including the Agency for Digital Government
(DIGG, 2022a), the National Insurance Agency (Försäkringskassan, 2019), and
Sundsvall municipality (Sundsvalls kommun, 2023). There are also guiding documents
that have been developed in collaboration between the PSOs (eSam, 2022). These, in
turn, provide guidance for other PSOs for the course of action related to the (re)use and
release of software as OSS.
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3.1.4
Scope
The policies further differ in terms of who they apply to or address. The French
inbound policy, coming in the form of a government instruction, addresses PSOs on the
national level of government, while the outbound policy as defined by the law applies to
all PSOs. In Denmark, national policies are defined in guiding architectural documents,
on the one hand, by the Agency for Digital Government addressing all PSOs on the
national level of government, while on the other hand, a corresponding policy is
provided by the Association of Regions and Municipalities applying to PSOs on the
regional and local levels of government. In contrast, policies and guidelines found in
Sweden are typically limited to single PSOs. In the UK, the inbound policy "playbook"
applies directly to central government agencies on a ‘comply or explain’ basis and is to
be considered ‘good practice’ by the wider public sector.
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3.2
Policy goals
Rationale (e.g., security and transparency) for promoting and enabling software
reuse through OSS, including transparency and security considerations.
Summary:
The rationale for introducing government policies promoting software
reuse through OSS in the public sector stems from a variety of factors. Policy
documents typically draw on several such factors to make the case for encouraging
OSS. Economic factors are a driver in almost all cases, aiming to avoid double-
spending, vendor lock-in, and foster market competition. Digital sovereignty is
highlighted in some countries and is a driver for specific initiatives. Security
considerations emphasize the dual perspectives of risk and opportunities provided
through transparency, and in some cases, highlight the need for supporting and
contributing to the maintenance of critical OSS components used in the digital
infrastructure. Benefits of transparency are further mentioned, e.g., in terms of
collecting and managing data, making algorithm-based decisions, or defining
interfaces that third-party actors may interact with.
3.2.1 Economic factors
–
OSS to avoid double spend, lock-
in, and promote a competitive market
Present in all initiatives is some notion of encouraging responsible public spending and
reducing lock-in to specific vendors. The potential for cost savings and efficiencies were
particularly prominent in earlier policies and are seldom provided as the only reason
for promoting OSS in more recent policy documents.
Within the general focus on economics, there are distinct arguments made. For
example, the principle that the public sector should not pay for the same solution twice
is explicit in some policies that insist on individual contracting authorities acquiring the
rights to allow for reuse within the public sector. Examples include Colombia, Spain,
and the UK.
The (re)use of OSS is also seen as a means to increase competition among suppliers in a
procurement process. As the source code, and ideally all necessary knowledge and
infrastructure are openly available, suppliers unfamiliar with OSS can enter a market,
although a knowledge barrier may still exist. Studies in the context of France, as of
Europe, both show the potential increase in competitiveness, growth in small- and
medium-sized companies, and a positive impact on GDP (Nagle, 2019; Blind et al.,
2022).
3.2.2 Interoperability
–
OSS as a mechanism for
interoperable infrastructure and public services
The European Interoperability Framework (EIF) and National Interoperability
Frameworks (NIFs) have also proved to be important impetuses for several of the
policies. The motivation is often combined with other value drivers such as cost
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efficiencies and innovation, but technical interoperability is, in some cases, seen as an
overarching driver for reuse and the adoption of OSS.
In Estonia, the decision to use OSS appears to have been driven by technological
pragmatism and the need to make rapid progress on its digital transformation, building
on existing components while ensuring interoperability between different parts of the
government. Recently, the Estonian government has recognized the value of tapping
into a global community of developers.
In Spain, the National Interoperability Framework underpins the legislation requiring
PSOs to share and reuse public sector software as far as possible, where OSS is seen as
a mechanism for the reuse to be used if such release contributes to greater transparency
for the PSO’s operations.
Although not as explicit, other countries, such as New
Zealand, Sweden, and Iceland, also explicate the value in promoting interoperability
and harmonization across public services and the national digital infrastructure.
3.2.3 Digital sovereignty
–
OSS as a means empower
sovereign decisions on use of technology
Digital (or technical) sovereignty highlights the importance and means of being able to
make technical sourcing and design decisions based on local law, norms, and values. In
France, digital sovereignty is implicitly highlighted as a policy goal through the Digital
Republic law, which states that administrations shall ensure that their information
systems remain under control, sustainable, and independent (Loi n° 2016-1321 du 7
octobre 2016 pour une République numérique (1), 2016).
In Sweden, digital sovereignty is also implicitly mentioned in several PSO-specific
policies. The general discourse on the topic, however, has received much attention in
general debates regarding cloud and data management. eSam, a national collaboration
between 30+ PSOs, is, for example, driving an investigation into possible
communication and collaboration tools allowing for hosting and data management in
line with European legislation in the area. Private vendors have now initiated packaging
of services based on different OSS-based solutions such as Nextcloud for document
management, Element for chat, and Jitsi for video conferencing. The Swedish
Insurance Agency and Tax Agency are also investigating a public sector alternative for
the corresponding solutions. Looking beyond the surveyed countries, Germany also
provides a similar example through the development of their OpenDesk solution, a
compilation of OSS-based solutions aiming to provide a sovereign option to the desk
suite for civil servants, including the collaboration and communication tools surveyed
and implemented in Sweden.
Communication is also an important area in Luxembourg, where digital sovereignty has
been invoked as a rationale for specific initiatives such as the development of LuxChat,
an OSS instant messaging service developed for the public sector in partnership with an
ecosystem of several providers to safeguard the proper use of data. In France, a
corresponding alternative is developed through the Tchapp project.
The Basque country, a region in Spain, provides an example where the transition to
OSS-based tools and infrastructure has matured to a state where all the public sector
uses OSS-based operating systems and productivity suites. A partial motive has also
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been to localize the software to the regional language, further increasing the sense of
independence in the region.
Policies in Japan and Korea, the two Asian countries included in the sample, have been
formulated with the clear aim of supporting technological independence. In contrast
with the rest of the countries in the sample, OSS promotion is aimed at the private
sector as part of an industrial strategy. Korea, in particular, has invested significant
resources and built institutional competence, not to guide public sector users but to
support uptake in its tech sector.
3.2.4 Security
–
OSS as a (potentially) robust building
block in need maintenance
Security in terms of OSS is commonly highlighted with both positive and negative
perspectives. One discourse emphasizes the risks associated with having source code
openly available, potentially exposing vulnerabilities to identification, introduction, and
exploitation. Another perspective views OSS as robust and secure, leveraging
transparency for multiple eyes to review the source code, thereby identifying and
addressing issues early on, reducing the risk of vulnerabilities. The security of OSS
depends on its sustainability—how well-maintained the OSS is over time without
disruptions or quality weakening.
While many policies stress the importance of a functioning and interoperable digital
infrastructure without vendor lock-in, there's often limited attention to the
sustainability of the OSS building blocks that underpin it. France is an exception, where
the government instruction Circulaire 5608 recommends dedicating 5-10 percent of
any funds saved through an OSS-related acquisition to contribute back to the
concerned OSS projects and their dependencies.
The emphasis on sustainability is often found in guidelines that help implement and
realize defined policies. In Sweden, many PSO-specific policies and guidelines highlight
the value of contributing any changes or additions back to OSS projects. The
Netherlands also emphasizes this through several reports commissioned by the
government. In France, the guidelines and support from the National government
OSPO focus on encouraging contributions back to OSS projects used and developed
further.
The level of security and trust in OSS is further highlighted through its adoption and
use among cybersecurity agencies, such as the House of Cybersecurity in Luxembourg
and the National Agency for the Security of Information Systems (Agence nationale de
la sécurité des systèmes d'information
–
ANSSI) in France. Both actively (re)use OSS
and participate in the collaborative development of several tools. ANSSI also has an
explicit and diverse approach to promoting and contributing to the sustainability of
several core OSS projects of both internal and national interest.
In Japan, the government has established a software security task force, assuming
private sector use of OSS. It has published guidelines for appropriate software
management methods and responses to vulnerabilities and license issues.
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3.2.5 Transparency
–
OSS as an enabler for trust, control,
and innovation
Transparency is a recurring theme in many policies. In France and the Netherlands,
transparency is a driving factor in their outbound policies, enacted in the legislation of
their respective countries. This effectively considers source code as public data and
administrative documents that should be released openly upon request from the public.
In the Netherlands, this approach is a response to earlier incidents where algorithms
used in public services resulted in discriminatory recommendations.
Similarly, in Colombia, Sweden, and New Zealand, the use of open technologies is
expressed as a way to enhance trust between the government and other stakeholders,
including citizens. In Spain, the potential for creating transparency in government
services is explicitly mentioned as a factor to consider in deciding whether a public
sector software should be released as OSS or not.
In some cases, these policies are part of a broader push for open government and open
innovation. Luxembourg, for example, views OSS as a means to enable the co-creation
of government services by involving both public and private actors. This reflects a
broader trend toward openness and collaboration in the development and provision of
government services.
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3.3
Implementation and support
Support for software reuse through OSS.
Summary:
Many policy support initiatives are in place or emerging among the
surveyed countries. Some initiatives have been fragile in terms of support and
funding leading to dormancy in some cases while in others, the support efforts have
been picked up in later years. The report identifies the emergence of support
functions and centers of competency for OSS and software reuse, also referred to as
Open Source Program Offices (OSPOs). These OSPOs have developed at national,
institutional, and local government levels, playing a crucial role in building
institutional capacity for software reuse through OSS. Association-based OSPOs
specifically help less capable PSOs to pool resources and enable a sustainable
maintenance and governance of common OSS projects.
3.3.1 Complementary support functions on different
levels of government
In industry, the use of support functions and centers of competency is a well-
established practice for implementing a company’s OSS strategy in line with the
overarching business goals. These functions are commonly referred to as Open Source
Program Offices (OSPOs), a construct and practice that has also transitioned to the
public sector and can be found at various levels of government, providing support for
the use and release of OSS, and promoting software reuse within government, in line
with any overarching government policy (Linåker et al., 2023). The different types of
OSPOs complement each other in supporting different parts of the government, and by
providing interfaces to each other, sharing resources and knowledge, and more
effectively implementing their specific, and any overarching policy.
The responsibility for supporting the implementation of any national policy for OSS
and software reuse typically resides with the PSO(s) responsible for digital government
and transformation in a country. These PSOs, or the units within responsible for the
support, may be referred to as national-government OSPOs. In France, this is
constituted specifically by the Free Software Unit within DINUM, while in other
countries the role is more blurred on the organizational level, as with Digital Iceland in
Iceland and Red.es in Spain.
In the Netherlands, an Institution-centric OSPO (Linåker et al., 2023) has been set up
in the Ministry for the Interior and Kingdom Relations, with an internal focus on the
ministry and its related national-level PSOs. The OSPO is, however, a main driver for
implementing the country’s “Open, unless” policy and an implicit support for other
parts of the government as well. They are, however, also in the process of supporting
the establishment of a national-government OSPO under the Office of the Government
CIO, which would have a wider responsibility for supporting the implementation of the
policy. In Sweden, there was no national government OSPO either, although what may
be referred to as a series of institution-centric OSPOs exist among primarily the
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national-level PSOs such as the Agency for Digital Government, Swedish National
Insurance Agency, and Statistics Sweden.
The lower levels of government also showed to have OSPOs in place in various cases. In
Spain, regional OSPOs were exemplified, among others by the regional government of
Galicia. Larger municipalities were also referred to in the study, including the cities of
Barcelona, Amsterdam, Paris, and Aarhus. Local governments, however, seldom alone
have the resources or capabilities to provide the necessary support. Instead, a common
approach is to pool their resources and set up association-based OSPOs (Linåker et al.,
2023) where they can share knowledge and initiate, develop, and collaborate on OSS.
ADDULACT in France, OS2 in Denmark, and the Dutch Association of Municipalities
(VNG).
3.3.2 Various means for supporting policy
implementations
Several countries maintain guidelines and recommendations on how to practically
implement their overarching policies. Outbound policies generally have the most
detailed guidelines in terms of aspects and steps to consider or follow when releasing
public sector software as OSS. These guidelines typically have two main parts: one
clarifying the legal context and supporting the decision on whether a piece of software
should be released as OSS or not. The second part typically focuses more on how to go
about releasing the software as OSS and building a community if that is a desired goal
for the software.
The former part relates to whether the related policy is advisory or provides a
preference for releasing public sector software as OSS. In the Netherlands, the Ministry
of the Interior and Kingdom Relations have developed process charts, and detailed
guidance has been developed to support their “Open, unless” policy. In France, the Free
Software Unit provides three criteria related to the usability of the software for other
OSS projects, the general need for it, and the technical profile of the end-users. Based
on the criteria, they propose four levels of openness for how the software may or should
be shared.
In the UK, the Government Digital Service maintains a Service Standard that specifies
the requirement for public authorities to "[m]ake new source code open," in order "for
people to reuse and build on" the code, notably by publishing the code in an open
repository and retaining ownership of the associated intellectual property rights,
making it available for re-use under an open license. It provides more detailed guidance
on how to implement this requirement in the Service Manual.
Concerning the practical process for releasing OSS, many guidelines provide rich advice
both in itself, such as in New Zealand and France, but also by highlighting external
sources of best practice, as done by Digitaliseringsstyrelsen in Denmark. In the former
cases, the external ecosystem has further been actively involved in the development of
the guidelines. In New Zealand, the guidelines stem from a crowdsourcing process
facilitated by an external OSS expert who was brought in for the task. In France, the
corresponding guidelines have been iteratively developed and validated through
different actors inside and outside the government.
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An important source of knowledge in the process has been the BlueHats network, a
cross-sector community of individuals and organizations focused on the adoption and
development of OSS in the public sector (Direction Interministérielle du Numérique,
2021). Related to BlueHats, the Free Software Unit at DINUM also facilitates a Free
Software council, with experts and actors from across the public sector and larger OSS
ecosystem. The board's role is to provide advice on topics of concern within the
intersection of OSS and digital transformation of the public sector (Direction
Interministérielle du Numérique, n.d.-c).
The case of Blue Hats exemplifies the importance and value of leveraging an external
community to help support the implementation of OSS policies. The NOSAD network
in Sweden provides another example of how public servants can interact and share
knowledge amongst each other and together with the larger OSS ecosystem. The
network facilitates regular meetups, operates communication channels, and an online
knowledge base with resources to enable reuse and collaboration of OSS and open data.
The Netherlands has adopted another network structure for knowledge sharing
through their OSPO network which brings PSOs with internal OSPOs.
Another example of enabling reuse and collective knowledge sharing is represented
through the association-based OSPOs. OS2 in Denmark, for example, has created
standardized processes and structures for governance and collaboration on the
development of OSS projects. These help both the members (of which most are
municipalities) to initiate and come together on projects addressing common needs
and engage with suppliers on terms and conditions understood and recognized by both
sides in a procurement process. The Dutch Association of Municipalities is on track to
establish similar processes and structures based on lessons learned from a pilot project.
Despite the many initiatives and means for supporting policies on the reuse of software,
the cases further show that the sustainability of these varies along with their funding.
Malta and Iceland, for example, both had projects initiated in the early 2010s with the
ambition to grow and enable the adoption of OSS, and as a mechanism for reuse, while
both dissipated a few years later. In Iceland, support was continued and picked up by
Digital Iceland, while in Malta, there is no active support being provided by MITA.
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3.4
Promotion for reuse
Means for promotion, exhibiting and sharing of software for reuse.
Summary:
Several countries maintain software catalogues to showcase and enable
software reuse. In some cases, the use of a national catalogue is mandated by law.
Catalogues differentiate in various aspects, such as the type of software they index
(public sector software in general and/or OSS), how they are maintained (e.g.,
national government OSPO or through crowdsourcing), and the level of accessibility
(open to the public or for PSOs only). The public-code.yml metadata standard helps
enable interoperability and cross-border reuse. The Netherlands is planning for an
additional step through the creation of a national software repository for hosting
and collaborating on OSS projects' development and maintenance.
Several countries maintain software catalogues covering software developed and/or
used by Public Sector Organizations (PSOs). In Spain, the use of the national catalogue
is mandated by law, requiring all PSOs to publish acquired applications to enable reuse
by other PSOs. Source code, documentation, license conditions, and associated costs
should be shared and declared. The national catalogue is maintained by the Technology
Transfer Center, a state-level PSO. PSOs can also maintain their own versions and
integrate with the national catalogue. Several catalogues are also maintained by
regional governments, which also integrate into the national catalogue.
While the Spanish catalogue is closed for PSOs only and not limited to OSS, the French
counterpart code.gouve.fr is publicly open and explicitly focuses on OSS used and/or
developed by French PSOs. The catalogue is maintained by the national government
OSPO constituted by the Free Software Unit inside DINUM. All OSS listed in the
catalogue have adopted the public-code.yml metadata standard
7
for public sector OSS
projects, which facilitates findability and adoption. By including the metadata file in the
catalogue of an OSS project, it can be queried and included in other catalogues,
enabling interoperability between regional, national, and international catalogues,
further promoting reuse. Other countries, such as Italy and the Netherlands, have also
adopted the standard, improving cross-border reuse and adoption of OSS projects.
In Estonia, OSS solutions developed for the government are made public and freely
available at koodivaramu.eesti.ee. The Estonian government recognizes the value of
open principles, allowing these solutions to be adapted more easily by businesses and
potentially increasing the export of digital government solutions. Similarly, in the
Netherlands, the Developer Overheid platform provides a library of both APIs and OSS
catalogues from various PSOs across the Dutch public sector. There is a long-term goal
to evolve the platform into a common source code storage and collaboration platform,
possibly based on the OSS social coding platform GitLab. The German government,
through their Centre for Digital Sovereignty, has adopted a similar approach with their
OpenCode platform
8
. The European Commission has also created their own
7
8
https://yml.publiccode.tools/
https://opencode.de/en
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environment
9
. Currently, however, most public sector OSS projects are hosted on
GitHub, as in most cases investigated in this study, although some exceptions use
public or internally hosted instances of GitLab.
A less formal but generally recognized example is offentligkod.se in Sweden, a software
catalogue listing OSS used and/or developed by Swedish PSOs. The catalogue was
initiated by the Swedish PSO-centered knowledge-sharing network NOSAD. All reports
are contributed on a volunteer basis either by the PSOs directly or the vendors
providing services based on the OSS. The catalogue is referred to by the Swedish
National Procurement Office in their framework for the acquisition of OSS-based
software and services.
9
https://code.europa.eu/
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3.5
Success stories
Success stories of reused software, and lessons learned.
Summary:
There are several success stories of public sector OSS projects, such as
X-Road, Signalen, and gvSIG, demonstrating the potential and opportunities for
(re)use and collaborative development of OSS. The highlighted projects exemplify
the common practice of hosting projects in independent organizations where the
Public Sector Organizations (PSOs) are either members or owners. These joint
organizations help pool resources and collaborate on planning, procurement,
development, and maintenance of the project(s). More capable PSOs, such as larger
cities and municipalities, typically play a leading role in the development and
ensuring the long-term sustainability of the projects.
There are several successful projects reported in the different cases investigated. One
common denominator is that many of these OSS projects are hosted under a
foundation or association where the PSOs as members or owners co-fund and
collaborate on the development and maintenance of the OSS projects, either through
internal or procured resources.
X-Road is among the better known OSS projects initiated by the public sector. It has
been implemented in over 20 countries, including Colombia, Finland, Iceland and
Japan. According to the NIIS website X-Road community and have 3445 contributors
and 373 million users worldwide. In 2017, the governments of Estonia and Finland
established the Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions (NIIS) in order to deepen
their cooperation in a more formal manner and jointly manage the development of X-
Road.
Another example of such organizations is OS2, an association-based OSPO in Denmark
which hosts 25+ OSS projects varying across three levels of maturity, from a prototype
phase to the mature level and being used across multiple PSOs. OS2forms, a type of e-
service platform, is highlighted as an example, gathering 11 municipalities who jointly
fund and coordinate the development and maintenance of the project by leveraging
OS2s standardized processes and the use of three separate vendors to avoid the risk of
lock-in.
A similar example can be found in the Dutch OSS project Signalen, an incident report
system for public spaces, which emerged organically and is primarily developed and
maintained by a team of developers within the City of Amsterdam. Currently, the
intention is to move the ownership of the project to VNG and for the association to
serve as a neutral hosting ground. VNG, in this regard acts as an association-based
OSPO similar as to OS2 and ADDULACT (France), with a primary focus on bringing
municipalities together, who commonly lack the needed resources and capabilities to
consider OSS both from a use and development perspective.
The potential of OSS and its re-use was also used when the UK Government created a
“'one-stop-shop” for digital government services, as well as a common platform for all
government websites, GOV.UK. This platform is built on open technologies and most
components are being developed on GitHub under the MIT License. GOV.UK provides
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a common basis and slot-in templates for government units to adopt on their websites,
so that departments can easily add services to their website. GOV.UK was developed by
GDS and has been adopted by all government departments, meaning that all central
government websites run on the same platform and use common components. GOV.UK
is considered a success for GDS and the UK Government, having been adopted by other
governments, driven by the OSS approach.
We also observed cases of individual projects that moved beyond the domain of a single
PSO to a project-specific foundation, i.e., not to an association similar to OS2 or VNG
who has the goal of enabling its members to initiate new OSS projects, not necessarily
related. Notable examples include the gvSIG project
–
a catalogue of tools for managing
and visualising geographical information data (gvSIG, n.d.), founded in 2004 and
maintained jointly by Generalitat Valenciana and the gvSIG association. Another
corresponding example regards Decidim, an OSS platform for enabling citizen
participation, primarily on a city level (Decidim, n.d.). Since the initial application of
Decidim in Barcelona in 2016, the development has progressed beyond the city and is
now facilitated by the independent not-for-profit organization The Decidim Free
Software Association, which is similar to the setup of the gvSIG project. Yet another
example is the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Stopcovid19 website. After being
released as OSS it received more than 2,000 improvement requests. The source code
has been reused all over Japan and as of 20 April 2021 63 sites using the source code
were built in 54 regions.
The examples further show the importance of capable actors leading the development
of new OSS projects initially and driving the transformation to a sustainable
governance and maintenance model. Amsterdam in the case of the Signalen project,
Valencia in the case of gvSIG, and Barcelona in the case of Decidim all proved essential
to help the transition, and enable other PSOs, especially on the municipal level to
onboard and participate in the collaborations.
A more informal approach exhibited in Sweden demonstrated how a set of PSOs have
collaborated on the development of a moderator panel and outlook-plugin for Jitsi
which is hosted under the GitHub organization of the Agency for Digital Government.
This has proved an exploratory process for how PSOs can collaborate on the
development, as well as how to think about the long-term maintenance of the project,
now providing a template for how new components can be developed collaboratively.
The example shows that a formal organization may not always be needed to enable a
sustainable governance and maintenance of a project, although it is worth noting that
the collaboration behind the plugins is still early in their maturity process.
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5
5.1
•
Recommendations
Policy for software reuse through OSS
Investigate and consider how software reuse, specifically through
OSS as an instrument, can be used for improving:
o
interoperability
among public services and digital infrastructure, and
towards third party actors, both on a national and international level.
o
digital sovereignty
by empowering PSOs to make technical design
and sourcing decisions based on national, regional, and local law,
norms, and values.
o
transparency in public services,
e.g., in terms of collecting and
managing data, making algorithm-based decisions, or define interfaces
that third-party actors may interact with.
o
cost efficiency
by facilitating shared development and maintenance
costs, lower license fees, and increased competition in tenders.
Any investigation should include or consult with the broader ecosystem of
actors both inside and outside public sector with knowledge and expertise in
OSS and software reuse with the different areas,
Establish an inbound policy detailing how software reuse through
OSS is to be considered in the acquisition process of a new software
solution.
The policy can either be advisory or preferential, implying that
shared solutions (government internal or publicly available as OSS) can, or
should, be evaluated on equal grounds as other options, or preferred if no
special circumstances apply, e.g., related to security, integrity, or
interoperability aspects.
Establish an outbound policy detailing how software reuse may be
enabled through the sharing of acquired software solutions, either
internally within government or publicly as OSS.
The policy can either
be advisory or preferential, implying that the acquired solution (e.g., internally
developed, or externally through procurement) either can, or should be shared
if no special circumstances apply, e.g., related to security, integrity, or
interoperability aspects. The policy should further clarify how the ownership of
IP should be considered in an external acquisition process as this may be a
precondition to be able to share the acquired solution accordingly.
Establish an external-focused policy detailing how software reuse
and collaborative development through OSS may be promoted or
enabled within national industry.
Such policy entails extending the focus
beyond the public sector’s own use to consider the contribution of OSS to
economic growth, innovation, startups, as shown in a study published by the
European Commission (Blind et al., 2021). The policy can be expressed either as
an addition or update to existing innovation or industrial policy or as a specific
policy promoting OSS to drive growth in the technology sector and the wider
economy as witnessed in South Korea.
For policy-
and decisionmakers in a country’s national, regional, and local levels of
government, it is recommended to:
•
•
•
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Several complementary policies, e.g., addressing different levels of government may
provide an option, yet they should ideally be aligned and help cover all types of
PSOs within the country. Any policy should be owned and actively maintained by a
central PSO with responsibility for, or well-established trust in the contexts of
digital government, transformation, or procurement in the concerned context.
Further, any policy should be explicitly founded and explained in the context of
concerned policy goals.
5.2
•
Implementation and support
Establish national government OSPOs to ensure effective
implementation of any policy on software reuse through OSS per the
defined policy goals.
These OSPO(s) may are typically hosted in, or under,
central government entities responsible for digital government and/or in
domain specific PSOs guiding the broader public sector. In France, the Free
Software Unit inside DINUM constitutes the OSPOs, while in other countries
the role is more blurred on the organizational level as with Digital Iceland in
Iceland and Red.es in Spain. Another form of OSPO structure is constituted by
the Association-based OSPOs exemplified by OS2 in Denmark. These are
specifically tasked with supporting their members or owners but could also
function with a wider mandate in supporting the public sector nation-wide if
granted the resources needed.
PSOs should identify, set up, and leverage administrative and legal
bodies as neutral arenas and stewards to pool resources, host, and
collaborate on joint OSS projects and enable software reuse.
In
Denmark, OS2, an independent association, has been set up and evolved
organically, driven by the member PSOs, including municipalities, regions, and
state agencies. In the Netherlands and France, the Association for
Municipalities (VNG) and ADDULACT respectively has taken on this role.
Municipalities, cities, and regions with the capabilities and
resources should take on a leading role and drive the development
and other PSOs on the local level in leveraging OSS in their digital
transformation.
This will benefit all parties as the collective action can
increase cost efficiency, open innovation, technical sovereignty, and
interoperability. The cities of Barcelona, Amsterdam, and Valencia exemplify
larger municipalities may develop, and drive OSS towards sustainable
governance and maintenance.
PSOs across the public sector should be provided support in defining
how software reuse through OSS may be leveraged in their own
policies for digital transformation, in line with the national policies,
and establish OSPOs to execute on these.
Scaling the institutional
capacity across the public sector is pivotal as the use, development and
collaboration of OSS otherwise may risk being constrained by the National
Government OSPO(s). The OSPOs provide interfaces between PSOs
horizontally and vertically across the public sector and enable collaboration and
sharing of OSS. In the Netherlands, the institution-centric OSPO within the
29
To enable the implementation and support of any policy on software reuse through
OSS,
•
•
•
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•
•
•
•
•
•
Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations is supporting PSOs under it,
while also supporting the establishment of a National government OSPO.
Initiate and facilitate common networks across the public sector to
promote knowledge-sharing and new collaborations.
Networks can
help bridge between PSOs and other stakeholders, including vendors, industry,
academia, civil society, and hacker communities. In France and Sweden, such
networks are a force multiplier in sharing knowledge, and enabling stakeholders
to meet and collaborate on new and existing OSS projects. In the Netherlands,
said networks are being used to support the growth and establishment of new
OSPOs while also raising awareness and knowledge across PSOs.
Engage in the national and international OSS ecosystem through key
organizations, networks, and communities.
Several of the OSPOs in the
different countries are engaged in the European Commission’s OSPO network
where they meet monthly to share knowledge, and identify and collaborate on
joint initiatives, e.g., the cross-border reuse of OSS solutions, and meta data
standards to facilitate identification of public sector OSS in the different
countries.
Establish guidelines related to inbound policies, detailing when and
how OSS should be considered in the acquisition and development
of new software solutions.
These guidelines should cover various options
and configurations (e.g. OSS, open core-offerings, and proprietary solutions)
and offer guidance on how these can be identified, evaluated, and compared on
common criteria, including requirements fulfilment, total cost of ownership,
health and sustainability, need and availability of professional support,
interoperability, data management, etc.
Establish guidelines related to outbound policies, detailing when
and how software developed through public funds can be released as
OSS.
These guidelines should cover the decision process of considering
decision parameters listed in any overarching policy, e.g., in terms of security,
or integrity that may warrant the software, or parts of it to remain closed.
Guidance should further be provided on how to practically go about in releasing
and publishing the software as OSS, and, e.g., choosing a suitable license, and
building a sustainable community around the OSS.
Invest in specialised training and education programs focused on
OSS to enhance workforce capabilities nationally across the public
sector and vendor ecosystems.
These programmes, covering OSS
opportunities and risks, development processes, culture, and related business
models, can be developed and provided by OSPOs and related networks of
PSOs, or by wider cross-sector communities.
Create a catalogue of public sector software to promote and enable
reuse within the public sector.
Several countries maintain software
catalogues to showcase and enable software reuse. The use of the catalogue
should be encouraged (or enforced as in Spain). Catalogues should preferably be
as inclusive as possible and consider both public sector software in general and
OSS), have an organization responsible for maintenance, consider use of
crowdsourcing for information gathering, be as open as possible for
transparency and enabling for further reuse, and strive towards adopting the
public-code.yml meta data standard to improve findability of software, and
interoperability across catalogues.
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•
Create a national software repository for hosting and collaborative
development of public sector OSS projects.
Maintaining an own instance
may improve interoperability to other services such as a national software
catalogue, gain control and transparency over data produced, and lower barriers
for adoption and sharing of OSS among PSOs.
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6
Conclusions and future outlook
This report has surveyed the policies and practices related to software reuse, focusing
on OSS in 15 digitally mature countries. The resulting analysis, grounded in desk
research and interviews, provides a comprehensive overview with individual case
studies for each country.
Most surveyed countries have established policies addressing software reuse through
OSS, encompassing both inbound (acquiring new software) and outbound (sharing
acquired solutions). While policies differ when it comes to scope and level of
prescriptiveness, they are, in most cases, owned by central PSOs with responsibility for
areas such as digital government, transformation, and procurement. The main
emphasis in this study is on policies concerned with the public sector’s own use of OSS,
yet in a notable subset of countries, such policies had an external focus aimed at
increasing the uptake of OSS in the domestic technology sector.
The introduction of government policies promoting the (re)use of OSS in the public
sector is driven by a variety of factors, with policy documents commonly referencing
several of these elements to advocate for the encouragement of OSS. Key policy goals
observed include:
•
•
•
interoperability among public services and digital infrastructure and towards
third-party actors, both on a national and international level;
digital sovereignty by empowering PSOs to make technical design and sourcing
decisions based on national, regional, and local law, norms, and values;
transparency into how public services function, e.g., in terms of collecting and
managing data, making algorithm-based decisions, or define interfaces that
third-party actors may interact with; and
cost efficiency, e.g., by enabling shared development and maintenance costs,
lower license fees, and increased competition in tenders.
•
Economic arguments were generally present among the policies, with varying
emphasis, while interoperability and transparency played a strong role in specific cases.
Digital sovereignty was present to varying degrees in many policies but not so
prominent as compared to the general EU level. The security aspect of OSS is
mentioned with both positive and negative views. One perspective emphasizes the risk
of exposing source code, making vulnerabilities easily identifiable and exploitable.
Another viewpoint sees OSS as secure due to its transparency, allowing numerous eyes
to review and address issues early, reducing vulnerability risks.
Many policy support initiatives are in place or emerging among the surveyed countries.
Some initiatives have been fragile in terms of support and funding, leading to
dormancy in some cases, while in others, the support efforts have been picked up in
later years. The report identifies the emergence of support functions and centers of
competency for OSS and software reuse, also referred to as Open Source Program
Offices (OSPOs). These OSPOs have developed at national, institutional, and local
government levels, playing a crucial role in building institutional capacity for software
reuse through OSS. Association-based OSPOs specifically help less capable PSOs to
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pool resources and enable sustainable maintenance and governance of common OSS
projects.
Several success stories were identified. Often, these started out as initiatives of a single
PSO with subsequent adoption elsewhere enabled by a transformation to a sustainable
governance and maintenance. In terms of promotion, many of the countries have
established software catalogs that list software used and available for reuse, either
internally within the government or publicly as OSS.
Based on the findings, several recommendations are made for PSOs on the national,
regional, and local levels of government. The authors of the report hope these
recommendations serve as actionable insights for policy- and decision-makers in
Denmark and other countries seeking to leverage software reuse through OSS as
instruments in their digital transformations.
What we have not observed is a forward-looking approach to planning, steering, and
following up on goals and practices for enabling software reuse through OSS, and its
impact, short and long term. Current indicators for digital maturity, of which some
were used for the sampling in this report, to various degrees touch on the topic of OSS
in relation to digital transformation, but none go into detail looking at actual steps take
to enable software reuse, or potential policy goals attached. We thoroughly recommend
that such metrics are developed, both among countries aiming to leverage OSS as an
instrument in their digital transformation, and among the organizations maintaining
the indicators for digital maturity as they act as a guiding light for countries looking to
mature and evolve. The recommendations of this report may serve as part of the
foundation for such indicators.
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7
References
Blind, K., Böhm, M., Grzegorzewska, P., Katz, A., Muto, S., Pätsch, S., & Schubert, T.
(2021). The impact of Open Source Software and Hardware on technological
independence, competitiveness and innovation in the EU economy. Final Study Report.
European Commission, Brussels.
DIGG. (2022a). Policy för anskaffning samt utveckling av programvara (2022-2606).
Retrieved
on
December
18,
2023,
from
https://www.digg.se/download/18.72c5e64d183579af3fd1b6b/1664286148262/policy-
for-anskaffning-samt-utveckling-av-programvara.pdf.
Digital Iceland. (2021). Digital policy. Retrieved on November 16, 2023, from
https://island.is/en/o/digital-iceland/digital-strategy.
Direction Interministérielle du Numérique. (2023). Documentation. Retrieved on
November 28, 2023, from https://code.gouv.fr/documentation/.
eSam. (2022). Råd. Delning och användning av öppen källkod (ES2022-09). Retrieved
on
December
18,
2023,
from
https://www.esamverka.se/download/18.74e1936a1808eb1ad123f609/1652347194550
/ES2022-
09%20Delning%20och%20anv%C3%A4ndning%20av%20%C3%B6ppen%20k%C3%A
4llkod.pdf.
Försäkringskassan. (2019). Riktlinje för öppen källkod. Retrieved on December 14,
2023, from https://github.com/Forsakringskassan/riktlinje-oppenkallkod.
KL. (2023). Task Description: mapping and analysis of software reuse in other
countries' digitization strategies (Report ID: 3370517).
Linåker, J., Nummelin Carlberg, A. & O’Riordan, C. (2023).
Institutionalising Support
for Open Source Software in the European Public Sector. Final Study Report. European
Commission, Brussels.
Under publication.
Loi n° 2016-1321 du 7 octobre 2016 pour une République numérique (1). (2016).
Retrieved
on
November
24,
2023,
from
https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000033202746/.
Nagle, F. (2019). Government Technology Policy, Social Value, and National
Competitiveness. Harvard Business School Strategy Unit Working Paper No. 19-103.
Open Source Observatory. (n.d.). Retrieved on January 22, 2023, from
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/open-source-observatory-osor/open-source-
software-country-intelligence.
Secretariat General du Gouvernement Direction des Systèmes d'Information et de
Communication. (2012). Orientations pour l'usage des logiciels libres dans
l'administration. Usage du logiciel libre dans l’administration, septembre. Retrieved on
November 22, 2023, from https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/circulaire/id/35837.
34
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Sundsvalls kommun. (2023). Riktlinje för öppen källkod. Retrieved on December 14,
2023, from https://github.com/Sundsvallskommun/riktlinjer-oppenkallkod.
Wet open overheid. (2023). Retrieved on December
https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0045754/2023-04-01.
22,
2023,
from
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3051604_0036.png
8
8.1
Country report: Colombia
Abstract
Policy and stakeholders:
The promotion of OSS is included in Colombia’s National
Development Plans of 2018-2022 and 2022-2026, giving the Directorate of Digital
Government (Mintic) the responsibility for promoting open technologies without
prejudice to investment in closed technologies. Resolution 537 of 2018 granted public
entities licenses for the reuse of technological solutions previously exclusive to the
Ministry of ICT.
Policy goals:
Policy initiatives aimed at promoting OSS are introduced with the
arguments of avoiding double-contracting and ensuring better management of public
resources. OSS is also seen as a way to foster open innovation and to improve
relationships and trust between government, citizens, and business.
Implementation and support:
Mintic maintains a Free Software Initiative which
focuses on promoting uptake of widely used and well-maintained OSS, including
Python, OpenRefine, and X-Road. It provides installation guides and offers training
programs for public sector users as well as SMEs.
Promotion for reuse:
The Public Software Colombia portal showcased 86 solutions,
with 50 published under Resolution 537. However, these are no longer updated and
utilized by public entities.
Success stories:
The most significant example of OSS use in the Colombian public
sector is the implementation of X-Road which was announced in 2020 and which has
been rolled out to 64 government entities. Within the global X-Road community,
Colombia now has the biggest number of individual contributors.
8.2
Policy and Stakeholders
In recent years
Colombia’s national government has committed significant political and
capital resources in its
“National
Development Plans” (DNP, 2018; DNP, 2022) towards
realising the social and economic benefits of digital transformation. Colombia placed
3
rd
in the 2019 OECD digital government ranking and has been classified as a
“Watch
Out” economy
according to the Digital Evolution scorecard (Bhaskar, Chakravorti, et al,
2020). Colombia is third in Latin America among the countries with the most
contributions to OSS and is number 30 in the world.
10
Public sector initiatives relating to the use of OSS should be seen as part of a wider
effort by the Colombian government to realise the benefits of digital transformation.
The origins of several of these initiatives can be traced to recommendations, technical
support, and evaluation provided by international organisations such as the World
10
eafit.edu.co/noticias/agenciadenoticias/2023/Los-tiempos-del-software-no-libre-terminaron-
Chris-Aniszczyk-director-de-tecnología-de-CNCF
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Bank, OECD, ITU and USAID (OECD, 2019, USAID
11
For example, the OECD has
provided support for Colombia’s progress according to the
six dimensions included in
the OECD Digital Government Policy Framework
–
among them
“open by default”
12
,
which refers to the existence of government policies and strategies that encourage
OSS.
13
Similarly, USAID has promoted
Colombia’s uptake of
its 9 principles for digital
government, including “use open standards, open data,
OSS,
and open innovation”.
14
While not the sole focus of any policy, OSS is nevertheless mentioned and promoted in
numerous official texts. The use of open standards and open technology infrastructure
is one of three horizontal strategic themes in the NDP. More specifically, article 147 of
Law 1955 of 2019, which established NDP 2018-2022, assigned to the Directorate of
Digital Government (Mintic) the task of
“promoting
technologies based on free
software or OSS, without prejudice to the investment in closed technologies.”
15
This
task was subsequently re-affirmed in the NDP 2022-2026.
Against this background the
NDP set a specific target
that 27 of its national governmental entities should be using
OSS by 2020. In 2021
16
, Mintic announced that this target was surpassed and that 76
national entities of the Executive Branch already use these tools.
The Public Software Colombia initiative was established within Mintic in 2017 and has
its origins in an agreement between the Information and Communication Technologies
Fund (FONTIC) and the World Bank in 2015.
17
The goal was to support MINTIC in
fostering innovation by conceptualizing an open collaboration scheme, designing and
implementing an open data initiative, and preparing a national strategy for sharing
technological solutions among government institutions. A direct outcome of this
initiative was Resolution 537 of 2018 which granted public entities licenses for the
reproduction, communication, transformation, and distribution of source codes,
enabling widespread use of technological solutions previously exclusive to the Ministry
of ICT.
8.3
Policy goals
The increased use of OSS tools is presented by Mintic as a way to promote open
innovation through more efficient, effective and transparent relationships between
markets, citizens and the government.
OS adoption is also encouraged with the more specific aim of optimizing the
management of public resources and to avoid the situation where the government pays
for the same solution more than once.
11
WEF_Enabling_Colombia’s_Transition_to_a_Data_Driven_Economy_2021.pdf
(weforum.org)
12
The OECD Digital Government Policy Framework: Six dimensions of a Digital Government |
en | OECD
13
OECD Reviews of Digital Transformation: Going Digital in Colombia | en | OECD
14
Digital Ecosystem Country Assessment (DECA) Colombia (usaid.gov)
15
Colombia country review: Regulation at the forefront of digital transformation
(digitalregulation.org)
16
https://www.mintic.gov.co/portal/inicio/Sala-de-prensa/181632:Software-libre-es-una-
realidad-en-76-entidades-de-la-Rama-Ejecutiva-con-apoyo-del-MinTIC
17
https://gobiernodigital.mintic.gov.co/portal/Iniciativas/Software-libre/
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8.4
Implementation and support
Mintic’s
Public Software
initiative evolved into a broader Free Software Initiative in
2019 and 2020, and the current focus is on promoting uptake of community tools that
are regularly updated, well-documented in recognized repositories like Github, Gitlab,
Bitbucket, and widely used globally. The Ministry has been promoting the
implementation of different tools such as Open Refine, R Language, X-Road and
Python. Video tutorials have been published to guide users through installation steps,
introductions, functionalities, and practical use cases. Other activities include free
national training programmes for SMEs on X-Road.
18
8.5
Promotion for reuse
The Public Software Colombia portal showcased 86 solutions, with 50 published under
Resolution 537. However, these are no longer updated and utilized by public entities.
The inventory of these solutions is available on the Colombian state's open data portal,
named "Public Software Colombia, history of published projects."
19
8.6
Success stories
In line with the principle to use open standards and open technology, Colombia
announced in 2020 its intention to use X-Road for the first significant pilot of the NDP
2018-2022:
a data exchange platform aimed at accelerating Colombia’s responsible
digital transformation. The project is the most significant example of OSS use in the
Colombian public sector and it is being implemented as part of a public-private
partnership that includes the World Economic Forum.
20
In 2022, it was reported that
X-Road had been rolled out to 64 government entities. Within the global X-Road
community, Colombia now has the biggest number of individual contributors
21
and the
country’s contribution has been acknowledged by the Estonian government.
22
8.7
References
Bhaskar, Chakravorti, et al. (2020).
“Which economies showed the most digital
progress?”, Harvard Business Review (2020)10.
DNP, Departamento Nacional de Planeación. (2018). Plan Nacional de Desarrollo
2018-2022
“Pacto por Colombia, Pact por la Equidad”.
Retrieved on 15 November 2023
from:
colaboracion.dnp.gov.co/CDT/Prensa/Resumen-PND2018-2022-final.pdf
DNP, Departamento Nacional de Planeación. (2022), Plan Nacional de Desarrollo
2022-2026
https://www.dnp.gov.co/plan-nacional-desarrollo/pnd-2022-2026
18
WEF_Enabling_Colombia’s_Transition_to_a_Data_Driven_Economy_2021.pdf
(weforum.org)
19
Software Público Colombia, histórico de proyectos publicados | Datos Abiertos Colombia
20
Launching citizen-oriented digital services in Colombia
—
X-Road® Data Exchange Layer
21
X-Road World Map
—
X-Road® Data Exchange Layer
22
The next round of European integration hinges on our ability to do GovTech together. It will
not be easy - The European Files
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OECD. (2014). Recommendation of the Council on Digital Government Strategies.
Retrieved
on
15
November,
2023
from:
www.oecd.org/gov/digital-
government/recommendation-on-digitalgovernment-strategies.ht
OECD. (2017). Assessing the Impact of Digital Government in Colombia: Towards a
New Methodology, OECD Digital Government Studies, OECD Publishing,
Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264283282-en.
OECD (2019), OECD Reviews of Digital Transformation: Going Digital in Colombia,
OECD Publishing, Paris,
https://doi.org/10.1787/781185b1-en.
USAID (2020) DIGITAL ECOSYSTEM COUNTRY ASSESSMENT (DECA) Colombia
JULY 2020. Retrieved on 16 November 2023 from:
Digital Ecosystem Country
Assessment (DECA) Colombia (usaid.gov)
World Economic Forum. (2021). Enabling Colombia’s
Transition to
a Data Driven
Economy.
Retrieved
on
7
November
2023
from:
https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Enabling_Colombia%E2%80%99s_Transition
_to_a_Data_Driven_Economy_2021.pdf
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9
9.1
Country report: Denmark
Abstract
Policy and stakeholders:
There are several guiding policies in place, mainly from
the Agency for Digital Government that encourages the consideration of OSS in a
procurement and acquisition process, as well as the release of software developed
through government funds. Corresponding policies are also provided by the Association
for Municipalities and Regions concerning lower levels of government.
Policy goals:
The ability to reuse and gain control of the software, and thereby
avoiding double contracting, and vendor lock-in are the main policy goals highlighted
in the guiding policies.
Implementation and support:
Several guidelines for the release and acquisition of
OSS are provided by the Agency for Digital Government, Association for Regions and
Municipalities, and the public sector association OS2. The latter provides an
association-based Open Source Program Office, facilitating and enabling the
collaborative development and maintenance of common public sector OSS projects
between its members, while providing a source of best practice and support.
Promotion for reuse:
A catalogue called Digitaliseringskataloget indexes services
that are part of the common nation digital infrastructure used by all 98 municipalities.
The platform provides an overview both of software in the common public sector
infrastructure and its different parts, as well as documentation and knowledge related
to the infrastructure. Public sector OSS projects are listed mainly listed either on OS2
or GitHub.
Success stories:
Several examples are provided in the context of OS2. OS2forms, a
type of e-service platform, gathers 11 municipalities who jointly fund and coordinate
the development and maintenance of the project by leveraging OS2s standardized
processes and the use of three separate vendors to avoid the risk of lock-in.
9.2
Policy and stakeholders
There is currently no law or general policy prescribing the use or consideration of OSS
in an acquisition and procurement process, nor in terms of releasing release
government-owned software as OSS. There are, however, guidelines authored by the
Agency for Digital Government that encourage and support the adoption and release of
OSS for state-level PSOs (Digitaliseringsstyrelsen, 2022a), echoing findings and
proposals from the software strategy authored by the National Technology Council in
2002 (Teknologirådet, 2002).
The national IT project guidelines also emphasize in its principles that procured or
developed software should be based on the reuse of existing solutions to the largest
possible extent (Digitaliseringsstyrelsen, 2022b). If there are no existing solutions that
can be used as is, customization of existing solutions should be preferred before
developing any solution from scratch. Similar encouragement is provided by the
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national principles form 2014, which highlights that public sector software should be
released as OSS to enable reuse as far as possible (Digitaliseringsstyrelsen, 2014).
Further clarity on legal matters was brought by a legal notice issued in 2020 by a law
firm (Advokatfirmaet Poul Schmith, 2020), commissioned by OS2 (Offentligt
digitaliseringsfællesskab) - an association-based OSPO where municipalities initiate
and collaborate on OSS projects addressing common needs. The legal note made it
clear that municipalities can collaborate on OSS solutions with each other through the
association, as well as share software where there is an ownership of the intellectual
property, regardless of whether it is being developed internally or through external
resources. There are now calls for the need to also expand the legal review to also
consider regional and national PSOs, and specific topics such as how public entities of
different sorts (including universities and government-owned enterprises) may mix
funding to sponsor development.
9.3
Policy goals
The guidelines form the Agency for Digital Government highlight the need for flexible
yet interoperable solutions that can be reused and modified based on current needs.
The importance of reuse is further echoed in a set of earlier released principles on OSS
use in the public sector, noting that taxpayers should not need to fund the acquisition
of software solutions several times (Digitaliseringsstyrelsen, 2014).
The architectural principles, also authored by the Agency for Digital Government
(2022c), specifically emphasize that PSOs should avoid becoming dependent on any
vendor or proprietary technology. Similar encouragement is also provided on the
municipal level in corresponding principles from the Association of Municipalities (KL,
n.d.). Open standards and sustainable OSS solutions should be considered and used as
far as possible. The choice between OSS and proprietary technology should, however,
be based on what creates the best value in relation to the needs at hand. The national
principles from 2014 further describe how OSS can enable and improve the
competitiveness among software vendors and enable sovereignty and control over how
the software is used, developed, and shared (Digitaliseringsstyrelsen, 2014).
Adoption and consideration of OSS in the acquisition process on the municipal level
have been established in Aarhus municipality formally since 2011 through a local
government decision and later enforced through the city's official OSS policy (Aarhus
Kommune, 2014). The policy highlights that it is not a goal in itself. Instead, it is viewed
as a means of achieving their overarching wishes of adopting software based on open
standards, avoiding recurring licensing fees, avoiding lock-in effects to vendors and
proprietary technologies, and enabling the general strife towards engaging in
collaboration that further helps to increase the potential benefits.
9.4
Implementation and support
There are several guidelines to help guide PSOs in both acquiring and releasing OSS in
alignment with the different policies. The most recent guidelines from the Agency for
Digital Government present strategies to use in the acquisition process for how OSS
may be considered and how to scan the market for available options
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(Digitaliseringsstyrelsen, 2022a). The guidelines further discuss licensing options and
how to develop, collaborate, and establish a sustainable community. Further and
complementary
guidelines
are
also
provided
in
earlier
publications
(Digitaliseringsstyrelsen, 2014; Teknologirådet, 2002).
Additional guidelines related to the acquisition process are provided by OS2 (2017),
which is also the preferred source of knowledge in the public procurement guidelines
(KL, 2023). OS2 further provides standardized processes for the collaborative
development and maintenance of OSS projects among its members (Frey, 2023), and
help to implement the municipal-level architectural principles (KL, n.d.). The
association was created in 2012 and consists of 80+ out of 98 municipalities, but it also
includes a smaller number of regions and national public agencies. Membership is
voluntary and commonly driven by a member PSO's IT, digitization, or finance
department.
The main goal and purpose of the association are to develop and maintain a governance
framework that members can work within to own and share IT solutions based on
business needs. The association is facilitated by a central secretariat of four members
plus nine part-time product owners, i.e., employees at the member PSOs who work
part-time overseeing the technical planning and maintenance of specific OS2 projects.
Member fees are used to pay wages and expenses of the secretariat. Each OSS project
has its separate funding from the users of the project, which is dedicated to the
development of the OSS.
The larger and more resourceful municipalities play a pivotal role in the OS2
collaborations. Aarhus, which is the second largest city, is one of the key members.
Their policy from 2014 details several actions to support and enable the
implementation of the policy (Aarhus Kommune, 2014). Tasks address both the
establishment of acquisition guidelines, procurement templates, a white book
addressing legal questions and concerns, internal and external communication plans,
and a project management model for developing and collaborating on OSS projects. A
dedicated task force, similar to a local government OSPO, was established to support
and lead the implementation of the various tasks. While some of the tasks were
implemented, others were left after the project ended due to limited financing.
There is currently no formal national government OSPO present providing hands-on
support for implementing the guidelines and principles from the Agency of Digital
Government. OS2 fills a complementary role on the national level, given its wide
member base which includes some regions and state agencies. It is worth noting that
project-based national government OSPO was present through the National Knowledge
Center for Software (Videncenter for Software), which ran during the period 2006-
2008, although with a general focus on executing the national software strategy and not
only on OSS (Open Source Observatory and Repository, 2012). The Knowledge Center,
e.g., developed guidelines clarifying legal conditions for adoption and development of
OSS (Mygind, 2008), and established the national software catalogue
Softwarebørsen.dk (Open Source Observatory and Repository, 2012).
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9.5
Promotion for reuse
Although no longer available, the national software catalogue Softwarebørsen.dk
provided an important resource by indexing software applications used and of interest
to the Danish PSOs (Open Source Observatory and Repository, 2012). The catalogue
was a collaboration between the National Knowledge Center for Software and the
vendor ecosystem in Denmark.
Today a wider-purpose Digitalization catalogue platform Digitaliseringskataloget is
available although mainly focused on indexing services that are part of the common
nation digital infrastructure used by all 98 municipalities (KOMBIT, n.d.). The
platform provides an overview both of software in the common public sector
infrastructure and its different parts, as well as documentation and knowledge related
to the infrastructure.
Another, though narrower, software catalogue is that of OS2, listing the 25+ OSS
projects developed and maintained by the association (OS2, n.d.). The projects are in
turn mainly hosted on GitHub, which also hosts seven PSOs identified as government
institutions, including the Royal Library, the National Tax Administration, and the
National Museum of Denmark (GitHub, n.d.)
9.6
•
•
•
•
Success stories
OS2forms
–
A Drupal plugin enabling the creation and management of forms
and forms data, similar to e-service platforms.
OS2iot
–
An IoT platform enabling the management of IoT devices and the
collection and management of data produced by the devices.
OS2valghalla - A web-based system for managing democratic elections.
OS2kitos
–
A tool to create an overview of personal data and manage GDPR
compliance within an organization.
Successful examples of OSS projects include:
Looking at OS2forms specifically, the project gathers 11 municipalities who jointly fund
and coordinate the development and maintenance of the project by leveraging OS2s
standardized processes and the use of three separate vendors to avoid the risk of lock-
in. A technical steering committee with representatives from five of the municipalities
meets biweekly to walk through the backlog and roadmap. A governance steering
committee with Chief Digital Officers from the municipalities also meets recurringly to
decide on the overarching strategic direction of the project. The collaboration is
facilitated by a project coordinator from OS2, supporting the continuous procurement
of development and conformance with governance and processes defined by OS2.
9.7
References
Aarhus Kommune. (2014). Handlingsplan for opensource i Aarhus Kommunie » En del
af
vores
it-strategi.
Retrieved
on
December
11,
2023,
from
https://gambit.aakb.dk/opensource/Handlingsplan_for_OpenSource_i_Aarhus_Kom
mune.pdf.
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Advokatfirmaet Poul Schmith. (2020). Notat vedrørende OS2-fællesskabet og Open
Source. Retrieved on December 11, 2023, from https://opendenmark.dk/wp-
content/uploads/2020/06/Notat_endeligt-1.pdf.
Mygind, D. (2008). Gode råd: Sådan bruges open source i det offentlige.
Computerworld.
Retrieved
on
December
12,
2023,
from
https://www.computerworld.dk/art/44741/gode-raad-saadan-bruges-open-source-i-
det-offentlige.
Digitaliseringsstyrelsen. (2014). Open source-software i det offentlige.
Digitaliseringsstyrelsen. (2022a). Vejledning om brug af open source i den offentlige
sektor. Retrieved on December 6, 2023, from https://arkitektur.digst.dk/node/1173.
Digitaliseringsstyrelsen. (2022b). Vejledning til statens itprojektmodel. Retrieved on
December 8, 2023, from https://digst.dk/media/18239/01-vejledning-til-statens-it-
projektmodel-v-13.pdf.
Digitaliseringsstyrelsen. (2022c). Arkitekturregel 2.3: Undgå afhængighed af
leverandører og proprietære teknologier. Retrieved on December 8, 2023, from
https://arkitektur.digst.dk/node/512.
Frey, R. (2023). How We Lead Successful Open-Source Collaborations in the Danish
Public Sector. IEEE Software, 40(4), 19-24.
GitHub. (n.d.). GitHub and Government. Who is using GitHub? Retrieved on
December 20, 2023, from https://government.github.com/community/.
KL. (n.d.). Kriterier for den fælleskommunale rammearkitektur. Retrieved on
December
14,
2023,
from
https://rammearkitektur.kl.dk/om-
rammearkitekturen/introduktion-til-rammearkitekturen/kriterier-for-den-
faelleskommunale-rammearkitektur.
KL. (2023). Den gode it-anskaffelse. Retrieved on December 12, 2023, from
https://videncenter.kl.dk/viden-og-vaerktoejer/organisering-strategier-og-
portefoeljestyring/den-gode-it-anskaffelse#id--87.
KOMBIT. (n.d.). Digitaliseringskataloget. Retrieved on December 12, 2023, from
https://digitaliseringskataloget.dk/.
Open Source Observatory and Repository. (2012). The best software for the purpose:
softwarebørsen.dk.
Retrieved
on
December
12,
2023,
from
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/document/2012-02/the-
softwareborsen.pdf.
OS2. (2017). Open Source anskaffelse
–
Licenser, jura, udbud og kontrakter. Retrieved
on December 12, 2023, from https://faq.os2.eu/open-source-anskaffelse-licenser-jura-
udbud-og-kontrakter?collection=59.
OS2. (n.d.) Open source produkter i OS2-fællesskabet. Retrieved on December 12,
2023, from https://www.os2.eu/os2-it-loesninger.
Teknologirådet. (2002). Open source software i den digitale forvaltning. Analyse og
anbefalinger udarbejdet af en arbejdgruppe under Teknologirådet Oktober 2002.
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Retrieved
on
December
11,
2023,
http://webhotel4.ruc.dk/~nielsj/research/publications/tr-opensource-da.pdf.
from
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3051604_0046.png
10
Estonia
10.1 Abstract
Policy and stakeholders:
the role of OSS has been emphasized in Estonian policy
documents promoting interoperability since the early 2000s. These documents
promote but do not prescribe OSS when developing and acquiring software for the
public sector. In 2021, the Estonian parliament adopted rules mandating that software
developed with public funds be made available for reuse both within and outside the
public sector.
Policy goals:
Public sector use of OSS has been motivated by technical considerations
promoting interoperability. Co-developing eGovernment solutions with the private
sector and (re)using open and interoperable building blocks is viewed as the best way to
accelerate digital transformation of the public sector. More recently, the Estonian
government has recognized the value of having a global community of developers
contribute to the software it uses.
Implementation and support:
In 2017, the governments of Estonia and Finland
established the Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions (NIIS) in order to deepen
their cooperation in a more formal manner and jointly manage the development of X-
Road.
Promotion for reuse:
Estonia maintains
koodivaramu.eesti.ee, on GitHub since 2019.
a
public
OSS
catalogue,
Success stories:
The Estonian government initiated X-Road, the OSS data exchange
layer that serves as the foundation of eGovernment services in Estonia and that is now
implemented in over 20 countries worldwide.
10.2 Policy and stakeholders
Estonia is a world leader in digital government, regularly topping international
rankings such as the
European Commission’s DESI Index for Digital Public Service,
the
eGovernment Benchmark and the United Nations E-Government Survey. The use of
OSS is widely considered to have played a crucial role in the digital transformation of
Estonia since the early 2000s,
23
e.g. the Estonian government was the initiator of X-
Road which is perhaps the most well-known and widely adopted public sector OSS
initiative.
The earliest policy document on OSS dates from 2003, with the Estonian Informatics
Centre promoting the use of OSS in the public sector. Concrete recommendations
included using OSS components when possible, organising trainings to introduce OSS,
and installing Linux on workstations (Joinup, 2020).
Address to Meet the Chiefs lunch in Canberra | Department of Social Services Ministers
(dss.gov.au):
“Estonia
has been an exemplar in this area for more than 20 years. The
government’s approach is simple – it’s a distributed architecture and is based on open-source
software. And it works.”
23
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3051604_0047.png
The principles of openness, reusability, technology neutrality and adaptability are all
emphasized in Estonia’s
“State IT Interoperability Framework”,
a first version of which
was published in 2004 by the Ministry of Economic Affairs. Version 3.0 was adopted in
2011 and emphasizes the that public sector institutions should follow the principles of
openness when developing the architecture of their information systems and procuring
software. The use of open standards is
mandated
and OSS must be
considered
in public
procurement. The reusability principle means both that public sector solutions are
meant to be reused by all the market operators and that when creating their own
information systems, public sector institutions should consider solutions made by other
institutions.
In 2021, the Estonian Parliament amended the Estonian State Property Act paving the
way for rules requiring software to which the state owns the property rights in whole or
part should be made available publicly. If only parts are owned by the state, those parts
owned by the state should be made available. Certain exceptions apply, e.g. when
publishing code would be a detriment to the state, such as potential threat to public
order and national security or cybersecurity reasons.
10.3 Policy goals
Public sector use of OSS has mainly been driven by technical considerations promoting
technical interoperability. Co-developing eGovernment solutions with the private
sector and (re)using open and interoperable building blocks has been viewed as the
best way to accelerate digital transformation of the public sector.
More recently,
Estonia’s Digital Agenda 2030
from 2021 puts emphasis on open
innovation and reiterates that the development of digital government should rely on
architectural principles that allow for reuse. Solutions created for the Estonian state
based on these principles, it is argued, can be more easily adapted both with regard to
business and technology, thereby increasing the export potential of digital government
solutions. (Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, 2021). The Estonian
government has also recognized the value of having a global community of developers
contribute to the software it uses.
24
10.4 Implementation and support
In 2017, the governments of Estonia and Finland established the Nordic Institute for
Interoperability Solutions (NIIS) to deepen their cooperation in a more formal manner
and jointly manage the development of X-Road. With a budget of 2.5 million EUR in
2021, equally shared by its three members (Estonia, Finland, and Iceland), the NIIS
develops and maintains the X-Road software. NIIS publishes how-to and
troubleshooting articles and maintains a helpdesk supporting its now global
community.
25
Other supporting activities include the X-Road Community Event 2021
and a public bug bounty program for X-Road.
The next round of European integration hinges on our ability to do GovTech together. It will
not be easy - The European Files
25
https://nordic-institute.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/XRDKB/overview?homepageId=4915263
24
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3051604_0048.png
10.5 Promotion for reuse
The government Estonia has maintained a software catalogue on koodivaramu.eesti.ee
since 2019. Under the rules adopted in 2021, all OSS solutions developed for the
government are made public and are freely available.
10.6 Success stories
X-Road is arguably the most widely used open source project initiated by the public
sector. X-Road, the data exchange layer for information systems used by Estonia and
Finland, is a technological and organisational environment enabling a secure Internet-
based data exchange between information systems. The X-Road technology is used
nationwide in the Estonian public administration.
The entire X-Road source code is publicly available for anyone to use, and it has been
implemented in over 20 countries to date (including countries in this report: Colombia,
Finland, Iceland and Japan).
26
As of 2022, X-road connected more than 900 public and
private organisations, providing more than 3000 services (Observer Research
Foundation, 2022). According to the NIIS website, the X-Road community counts 3445
contributors and 373 million users worldwide. The Estonian government has
recognized that OSS has contributed to the country being seen as an international
leader when it comes to digital transformation.
10.7 References
Joinup. (2021). New Estonian law requires administration to make state-owned
software publicly available. Retrieved on 12 December from:
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/open-source-observatory-osor/news/estonia-
makes-public-software-public
Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications. (2011). Interoperability of the State
Information System: Framework Version 3.0. Retrieved on 12 December from:
https://www.stat.ee/sites/default/files/2022-
11/Estonian%20IT%20Interoperability%20Framework%20-
%20Abridgement%20of%20Version%203.0.pdf
Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications. (2012) Tarkvara raamistik
Versioon 2. Retrieved on 12 December 2023 from:
https://enos.itcollege.ee/~edmund/materials/koosvoime-
raamistik/tarkvara_raamistik.pdf
Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications. (2021) Estonia’s
Digital Agenda.
Retrieved on 12 December 2023 from: https://www.mkm.ee/media/6970/download
Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions website. Accessed on 15 December 2023
at:
https://x-road.global/
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3051604_0049.png
Observer Research Foundation (2022). Estonian Case
–
The development and
promotion of Digital Public Infrastructures. Retrieved on 15 December from:
https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/development-and-promotion-of-digital-
public-infrastructures
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11
Finland
11.1 Abstract
Policy and stakeholders:
The first policy document to encourage the use of OSS was
published in 2003 by the Ministry of Finance. More recently, the programme of the
2019-2023 government included the aim to increase public sector uptake of OSS and
the intention to introduce rules prescribing OSS in procurement unless there were
serious grounds for acting otherwise. Individual PSOs have adopted more explicit
policies on OSS.
Policy goals:
OSS policies relating both to procurement and publication of code are
motivated by the obligation to maximize the public benefit and to ensure responsible
use of taxpayer funds. Recent policy statements also highlight the role of OSS in
delivering the benefits of open innovation.
Implementation and support:
Guidelines relating to public sector procurement of
OSS were published by the central government in 2009, including advice relating to
licenses.
Promotion for reuse:
A catalog of public sector OSS projects is hosted by the the
Finnish Centre for Open Systems and Solutions (COSS) a non-profit association, and
made available at avoinkoodi.fi (a simpler list is available in English at Opencode.fi)
Success stories:
Oskari, a web mapping framework initially developed as Finland's
national geoportal and now widely used, was submitted by the Finnish Land Registry as
a contender for the European Commission’s
OSOR awards in 2023.
The Finnish Covid
Tracker was released as open source by the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare
with the aim of ensuring its quality and security.
11.2 Policy and stakeholders
In Finland, the first policy document to encourage the use of OSS was published in
2003 by the Ministry of Finance. In a working paper entitled
“The
Openness of the
Code and Interfaces of State Information Systems” government agencies were advised
to consider OSS alternatives to proprietary software (Source: Joinup, 2020).
More recently, the programme of the 2019-2023 Government entitled,
“Inclusive
and
competent Finland
– a socially, economically and ecologically sustainable society”
(Finnish Government, 2019), contains an explicit intention to
“enhance
the use of OSS
solutions in public information systems and procurement”. Openness of public
information will become the overarching principle of information policy and the
Government will advance the primacy of open source software in public information
systems and in the related procurement. In pursuit of this aim, provisions will be
introduced mandating the acquisition of OSS for public information systems, unless
substantial reasons exist for acting otherwise.
Several individual PSOs have adopted more explicit OSS policies, including the Finnish
Meteorological Institute (FMS), the National Land Survey (NLS), and the Finnish
Transport Agency. The policy of the FMS is based on the principle of OSS as part of
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open science. Accordingly, all code that is produced through publicly funded research
should be released as OSS (The Finnish Meteorological Institute).
The NLS’s principle
is to prefer the use of open source in the procurement of IT services and in the
publication of IT services developed by the NLS. The goal is to maximise the benefits
provided for society. As a rule, the results of publicly funded activities must be openly
available, and there must be specific grounds for any non-publication. For example,
copyrights and information security determine whether applications can be published
as open source in full or in part (National Land Survey, 2023).
11.3 Policy goals
OSS policies relating both to procurement and publication of code are motivated by the
obligation to maximize the public benefit and to ensure responsible use of taxpayer
funds.
When releasing the Covid Tracker code as open source, the Finnish Institute for Health
and Welfare cited increased security and quality as reasons for making it public.
11.4 Implementation and support
Between 1992 and 2019, the Public Administration Information Management Advisory
Board (JUHTA) acted as a supporting body for the Ministry of Finance and as a co-
operation body for public administration authorities. JUHTA was in charge of giving
recommendations on public administration information management, including the
use of OSS in public administrations
In 2008, JUHTA published an Open Source Procurement Guide for public
administrations as an appendix to its National recommendation of terms and
conditions of public IT procurement, JHS 166 (JUHTA, 2008). The guideline describes
the specific conditions that apply to the acquisition process of OSS in procurement. It
also contains information on how public sector actors can handle legal issues
pertaining to open source licences, risks, and their management. The guidelines were
updated in 2015 taking into account agile development and open source software in the
main part of the document.
In February 2009, a recommendation specifically drafted for the use of OSS was
adopted (JUHTA, 20019). The Public Administration Recommendation for the use of
Open Source Software (JHS 169) aimed to:
−
−
−
−
Lower IT-buyers’
threshold to take advantage of OSS in public sector
acquirements.
Increase the public sector’s IT-buyers’ knowledge about OSS.
Provide advice on how to solve legal and commercial problems on acquiring the
software.
Spread good practices in OSS procurement.
The JHS recommendations as they were on 1 January 2020 are still available for
reference and may still be used while bearing in mind that some parts of them are no
longer up to date and that support for using the recommendations is no longer
available.
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11.5 Promotion for reuse
A catalog of Finnish public sector IT projects, which have published their source code
on GitHub is maintained by the Finnish Centre for Open Systems and Solutions (COSS)
a non-profit association, and made available at avoinkoodi.fi (a simpler list is available
in English at Opencode.fi). The projects of more than 20 government ministries and
agencies, as well as several municipalities, are listed.
11.6 Success stories
Oskari is a web mapping framework initially developed as Finland's national geoportal.
Based on its success the NLS has presented Oskari for consideration by the European
Commission’s
OSOR awards.
The development of Oskari began in 2009 when the NLS
started to build a national geoportal to support the implementation of the INSPIRE
directive. Because a traditional geoportal couldn't completely fulfill user needs, NLS FI
decided to create an open source service platform in order to support and encourage a
wide use of the national spatial data infrastructure (SDI) as a part of e-Government
services. Oskari has since evolved to serve a broad user base, including government
agencies, private sector organizations, municipalities, and non-profits, offering tailored
mapping applications. The platform's continuous development and active community
support have transformed it into a stable and robust ecosystem, accommodating
diverse applications and meeting evolving needs over time.
Finland has also leveraged OSS in its response to Covid. The Finnish Institute for
Health and Welfare published the source code of the Koronavilkku app openly to
ensure its security and quality. In addition, the Koronavilkku.fi, website was built on
open source (Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, 2020).
11.7 References
Finnish Government. (2019). Government Action Plan: Inclusive and competent
Finland
–
a socially, economically and ecologically sustainable society. Retrieved on 6
December 2023 from:
https://julkaisut.valtioneuvosto.fi/handle/10024/161845
Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL). (2020). THL and Solita publish
Koronavilkku source code - open source to facilitate independent evaluation of the
application. Retrieved on 6 December 2023 from:
https://thl.fi/en/-/thl-and-solita-
publish-koronavilkku-source-code-open-source-to-facilitate-independent-evaluation-
of-the-application
Finnish Metereological Institute. Open Source Software Policy. Retrieved on 6
December 2023 from:
https://en.ilmatieteenlaitos.fi/open-source-software-policy
Joinup. (2020). Open Source Software Country Intelligence Report: Finland
JUHTA Advisory Committee on Information Management in Public Administration.
(2008; 2015). JHS 169: Use of Open Source software in Public Administration
https://www.suomidigi.fi/en/ohjeet-ja-tuki/jhs-recommendations-abolished
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3051604_0053.png
JUHTA Advisory Committee on Information Management in Public Administration
(2015). JHS 166: Julkisen hallinnon IT-hankintojen yleiset sopimusehdot Terms and
conditions
of
public
IT
procurement]
Retrieved
on
from
https://www.suomidigi.fi/en/ohjeet-ja-tuki/jhs-recommendations-abolished
National Land Survey. (2023). Acts of sustainability: Drones and open source to serve
society.
Retrieved
on
6
December
2023
from:
https://www.maanmittauslaitos.fi/en/topical_issues/acts-sustainability-drones-and-
open-source-serve-society
National Land Survey. (2023). Open source is everywhere
–
we should try to
understand
it.
Retrieved
on
6
December
2023
from:
https://www.maanmittauslaitos.fi/en/topical_issues/open-source-everywhere-we-
should-try-understand-it
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12
Country report: France
12.1 Abstract
Policy and stakeholders:
A government instruction (Circulaire 5608/SG) provides
an advisory policy encouraging the consideration of OSS in acquisition and
procurement, or refactoring of existing systems. The release of public sector software is
required through the Digital Republic law which considers source code as a type of
open data and administrative document. The law is further supported by another
government instruction (Circular n°6264/SG) requiring an increased inter-
governmental collaboration.
Policy goals:
Cost-efficiencies is considered an important goal enabled through the
reuse, lower licensing-costs, and increased competitiveness. Transparency and
increased sovereignty are highlighted in the context of the Digital Republic law. The
ability of attracting skilled IT professionals is also highlighted by the Interdepartmental
Administration for Digital (DINUM).
Implementation and support:
Guidelines for the use and release of OSS is
provided by DINUM, and its Free Software unit, the national government Open Source
Program Office of France. The unit supports PSOs in the general implementation of the
OSS policies, and facilitates a national cross-sectoral community for knowledge sharing
and collaboration. ADULLACT, a municipal association-based OSPO, enables
knowledge sharing and collaboration on projects between its members.
Promotion for reuse:
The national software catalogue hosted on the code.gouve.fr
platform, maintained by the national government OSPO, index large parts of the OSS
used and developed by PSOs in France. ADULLACT, further maintains an overview of
the projects facilitated and maintained by the association. An additional catalogue
focused OSS developed by students and teachers is actively used and maintained by the
Association of Computer Science Teachers in France.
Success stories:
Many successful stories can be found as the maturity of OSS is high
in France. One example concerns Geotrek, a webmapping software suite used to map
and display hike routes in the French national parks. The parks and other PSOs
collaborate through a decentralized and informal structure, procuring development
both individually and collaboratively.
12.2 Policy and stakeholders
PSOs on the national level of government in France are explicitly encouraged to
consider OSS in any acquisition and procurement process and any more considerable
redesign and refactoring of existing systems, according to the instructions in Circulaire
5608/SG issued by the Prime Ministerial office in 2012 (Secretariat General du
Gouvernement Direction des Systèmes d'Information et de Communication, 2012). The
instructions further encourage a systematic mapping to identify any OSS alternatives
available.
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While Circulaire 5608/SG has an inbound consumption-oriented focus, the Digital
Republic law introduced in 2016 has an outbound contribution-oriented focus (Loi n°
2016-1321 du 7 octobre 2016 pour une République numérique (1), 2016). The law,
which is mainly focused on open data, effectively considers source code as an
administrative document and type data to be made available to the public and, by
extension, requires software developed through public funds by PSOs on all levels of
government to be made available as OSS. The law considers OSS to be released in terms
of four categories:
•
•
•
•
Level A
–
Contributory: Source code is published, external contributions are
actively sought and processed.
Level B
–
Open: source code is published, external contributions are processed
but not actively sought.
Level C
–
Published: Source code is published, but outside contributions are not
processed.
Level D
–
Unreleasable: Source code is not released to the public.
The law’s
orientation was further emphasized through instructions in Circular
n°6264/SG (Circulaire n°6264/SG du 27 avril 2021 relative à la politique publique de la
donnée, des algorithmes et des codes sources, 2021). The instructions further
warranted the need for inter-governmental collaboration on OSS through DINUM
(Interdepartmental Administration for Digital - Direction interministérielle du
numérique), which led to the creation of the common software catalogue on
code.gouv.fr building on top of preexisting catalogues (Direction Interministérielle du
Numérique, n.d-a), and the expansion of responsibilities of department administrators
per each ministry responsible for the implementation of the instructions in their
ministry.
12.3 Policy goals
An important and highlighted policy goal relates to cost-efficiencies through the reuse
and lower licensing costs. The intended impact has been verified through studies
showing how the French policies have led to a substantial increase in contributions to
OSS projects on the general level from France, which has helped to generate "a social
value of $20 million per year", as well as a noticeable increase of growth in new
technology-oriented startups and IT employees (Nagle, 2019). Beyond the economic
aspects, other highlighted policy goals include transparency (especially in the context of
the Digital Republic law), and increasing the attractivity of the public sector towards
technically skilled workforce needed within the public sector.
Digital sovereignty is implicitly highlighted as a policy goal through the Digital
Republic law, which states that administrations shall ensure that their information
systems remain under control, sustainable and independent (Loi n° 2016-1321 du 7
octobre 2016 pour une République numérique (1), 2016). Yet, the topic is not on the
level of debate in terms of OSS as in, e.g., Germany and Sweden, and mainly discussed
from a cloud and AI-perspective.
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12.4 Implementation and support
Several guidelines and resources are in place to support the implementation and
execution of the several policies that apply. One important resource is the contribution
policy, which defines rules, principles, and best practices for PSOs to consider when
releasing software as OSS (Direction Interministérielle du Numérique, 2019). The
policy has been iteratively developed and validated through different actors inside and
outside the government. In 2024, the contribution strategy will be replaced by a more
comprehensive set of documentation providing guidance on the use, development and
release of OSS (Direction Interministérielle du Numérique, 2023).
Licenses to be considered (by PSOs on all levels of government) is declared in Décret n°
2021-1559 (Décret n° 2021-1559 du 1er décembre 2021 complétant la liste des licences
de réutilisation à titre gratuit autorisées pour les administrations, 2021), including both
a set of permissive licenses and those with obligation of reciprocity. Further
clarification and description are provided through the external Open platform of
French public data (Direction Interministérielle du Numérique, n.d.). Default is that no
restrictions should apply and that any restrictions need to be clearly justified with
regard to the public interest, hence, pointing towards a preference of permissive
licenses over copyleft alternatives.
The guidelines are further supported and maintained by the Free Software Unit inside
DINUM, a National-government Open Source Program Office (OSPO), providing a
general support function and centre of competency for OSS matters inside the French
public sector. The OSPO was initiated after recommendations several sources,
including Circular n°6264/SG (Circulaire n°6264/SG du 27 avril 2021 relative à la
politique publique de la donnée, des algorithmes et des codes sources, 2021), the OSS
and Digital Commons Action Plan (Ministère de la Transformation et de la Fonction
publiques, 2021), and a precursive parliamentary report by Bothorel et al. (2020). In
line with the several source, the OSPO provides support and training for PSOs to enable
the use, development, and release of OSS.
As part of this mission, the OSPO is also tasked with facilitating BlueHats, a cross-
sector community of individuals and organisations focused on the adoption and
development of OSS in the public sector (Direction Interministérielle du Numérique,
2021). Related to BlueHats, the OSPO also facilitates a Free Software council, with
experts and actors from across the public sector and larger OSS ecosystem. The board's
role is to provide advice on topics of concern within the intersection of OSS and digital
transformation of the public sector (Direction Interministérielle du Numérique, n.d.-c).
Beyond the national government OSPO constituted by the Free Software Unit at
DINUM, there is also what may be compared to as an association-based OSPO
(Linåker, 2023) in the case of ADULLACT (n.d.), founded in 2002. The association
aims to enable its members of regions and municipalities to share knowledge and
develop best practice. A secondary objective is to collaborate on common OSS projects
and related initiatives, both in terms of development and hosting, functions financed
through the organisation’s membership fees.
The sustainability of OSS is of national concern, for example, indicated through
Circulaire 5608, which recommends that 5-10 percent of any funds saved through an
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OSS-related acquisition is dedicated to contributing back to the concerned OSS projects
and their dependencies. Guidelines and support from the National government OSPO
is also focused on encouraging contributions back to OSS projects that are used and
developed further. The level of sustainability of a project is also a factor in the
consideration before adopting an OSS. General guidelines for such considerations are,
however, not available for the moment.
On the single PSO-level, there are examples that do consider sustainability a top
priority. The French National Agency for the Security of Information Systems (Agence
nationale de la sécurité des systèmes d'information
–
ANSSI), serving under the Prime
Minister's office as the national authority on cybersecurity, sees OSS as a critical aspect
in its mission to understand, prevent and respond to cyber risk. They have an OSS
strategy in place developed with the support from the National government OSPO. In
their work, ANSSI supports and contributes to critical projects, including RUST, the
Linux kernel, and the Debian project (Agence nationale de la sécurité des systèmes
d'information, 2023). They contribute both in terms of funding and sponsorship,
technical writing, and code, and participate in key security related foundations and
projects such Suricata, a high-performance engine for detection and prevention of
intrusion into computer networks, hosted under the Open Information Security
Foundation.
12.5 Promotion for reuse
The national software catalogue hosted on the code.gouve.fr platform, maintained by
the national government OSPO, index large parts of the OSS used and developed by
PSOs in France (Direction Interministérielle du Numérique, n.d-a). Projects considered
to have higher potential for reuse are listed explicitly on a short-list (Direction
Interministérielle du Numérique, n.d.-d). The association-based OSPO, ADULLACT,
further maintains an overview of the projects facilitated and maintained by the
association (ADULLACT, n.d.-b). An additional catalogue focused OSS developed by
students and teachers is actively used and maintained by the Association of Computer
Science Teachers in France (Association des enseignantes et enseignants
d'informatique de France, n.d.). In terms of GitHub (n.d.), 45 PSOs have registered
their organisations as hosting OSS projects on the platform.
12.6 Success stories
The number of OSS projects developed and maintained by the French public sector is,
accordingly, extensive. Two success stories worth highlighting regards the projects
Demarches-simplifies.fr (n.d.), and Geotrek (n.d.), both finalists in the Open Source
Observatory OSS awards (Open Source Observatory, 2023). Demarches-simplifies is a
platform designed to meet the urgent need of the state to apply the directive of 100%
dematerialization for administrative procedures.
Geotrek is a webmapping software suite used to map and display hike routes in the
French national parks. The project in developed by a set of national parks in France in
close collaboration with a vendor, although others are also involved. The governance
and development process is decentralized and informal, where each PSO procures
development needed enabled due to a modular architecture. For common needs, the
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PSOs pool funding and create a more comprehensive procurement including multiple
vendors to avoid lock-in, and grow new suppliers that can support the PSOs in
implementing the OSS.
12.7 References
Association des enseignantes et enseignants d'informatique de France. (n.d.). Explorer
les projets. Retrieved on November 24, 2023, from https://forge.aeif.fr/explore.
ADULLACT. (n.d.-a). Bienvenue chez ADULLACT. Retrieved on November 24, 2023,
from https://adullact.org/.
ADULLACT. (n.d.-b). Groupe de Travail. Retrieved on November 24, 2023, from
https://adullact.org/projets/gtc.
Agence nationale de la sécurité des systèmes d'information. (2023). Open-source à
l'ANSSI. Retrieved on November 24, 2023, from https://cyber.gouv.fr/open-source-
lanssi.
Bothorel, E., Combes, S., & Vedel, R. (2020). Mission Bothorel
–
Pour une politique
publique de la donnée, des algorithmes et des codes sources. Retrieved on November
24, 2023, from https://www.ouvrirlascience.fr/mission-bothorel-pour-une-politique-
publique-de-la-donnee-des-algorithmes-et-des-codes-sources/.
Circulaire n°6264/SG du 27 avril 2021 relative à la politique publique de la donnée, des
algorithmes et des codes sources. (2021). Retrieved on November 24, 2023, from
https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/circulaire/id/45162.
Décret n° 2021-1559 du 1er décembre 2021 complétant la liste des licences de
réutilisation à titre gratuit autorisées pour les administrations. (2021). Retrieved on
November
24,
2023,
from
https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/id/LEGIARTI000044403448/2021-12-04.
Demarches-simplifiees.fr. (n.d.). Effectuer une démarche administrative en ligne.
Retrieved on November 24, 2023, from https://www.demarches-simplifiees.fr/.
Direction Interministérielle du Numérique. (2019). Politique de contribution aux
logiciels libres de l’État. Retrieved on November 24, 2023, from
https://www.numerique.gouv.fr/publications/politique-logiciel-libre/.
Direction Interministérielle du Numérique. (2021). BlueHats, c'est qui?. Retrieved on
November 24, 2023, from https://code.gouv.fr/fr/bluehats/.
Direction Interministérielle du Numérique. (2023). Documentation. Retrieved on
November 28, 2023, from https://code.gouv.fr/documentation/.
Direction Interministérielle du Numérique. (n.d-a). Mission logiciels libres et communs
numériques. Retrieved on November 24, 2023, from https://code.gouv.fr/fr/.
Direction Interministérielle du Numérique. (n.d.-b). Plateforme ouverte des données
publiques
françaises.
Retrieved
on
November
24,
2023,
from
https://www.data.gouv.fr/fr/.
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Direction Interministérielle du Numérique. (n.d.-c). Le conseil logiciels libres.
Retrieved on November 24, 2023, from
https://code.gouv.fr/fr/mission/conseil-
logiciels-libres/.
Direction Interministérielle du Numérique. (n.d.-d). Awesome CodeGouvFr. Retrieved
on December 11, 2023, from https://code.gouv.fr/fr/awesome/.
Geotrek. (n.d.). Geotrek
–
Manage and enhance your trails and tourist activities.
Retrieved on November 24, 2023, from https://geotrek.fr/.
GitHub. (n.d.). GitHub and Government. Who's Using GitHub?. Retrieved on
November 24, 2023, from https://government.github.com/community/.
Linåker, J. (2023). Supporting Open Source Software in the European Public Sector -
The Role of Open Source Programme Offices (OSPOs). European Commission.
Loi n° 2016-1321 du 7 octobre 2016 pour une République numérique (1). (2016).
Retrieved
on
November
24,
2023,
from
https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000033202746/.
Ministère de la Transformation et de la Fonction publiques. (2021). Plan d’action
logiciels libres et communs numériques. Retrieved on November 24, 2023, from
https://www.numerique.gouv.fr/publications/plan-action-logiciels-libres-communs-
numeriques/.
Nagle, F. (2019). Government Technology Policy, Social Value, and National
Competitiveness. Harvard Business School Strategy Unit Working Paper No. 19-103.
Open Source Observatory. (2023). OSOR turns 15. Retrieved on November 24, 2023,
from https://osorturns15.eu/.
Secretariat General du Gouvernement Direction des Systèmes d'Information et de
Communication. (2012). Orientations pour l'usage des logiciels libres dans
l'administration. Usage du logiciel libre dans l’administration, septembre. Retrieved on
November 22, 2023, from https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/circulaire/id/35837.
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13
Country report: Iceland
13.1 Abstract
Policy and stakeholders:
There is an advisory policy from Digital Iceland, a unit
within the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, that encourages the release of
public sector software as OSS. A more formal policy is in place from the Prime
minister’s office advising on the consideration of OSS in any acquisition or
procurement process.
Policy goals:
Increased transparency, reusability, standardization of services, and
vendor-independence are the main policy goals highlighted in the digital strategy and
the dedicated OSS policy. Increased innovation and cost-efficiencies are also
highlighted.
Implementation and support:
Technical guidance on how to develop and release
OSS is provided by Digital Iceland, who also provide reoccurring related training
sessions for PSOs. They develop general digital infrastructure using an open-by-default
approach, and actively help other PSOs to integrate to the infrastructure, which
involves both training and awareness building in line with the Digital policy.
Promotion for reuse:
Digital Iceland enables reuse of common components in the
integration of PSO’s backend systems into the Island.is platform. Components of the
platform is also actively reused PSOs and service suppliers developing integrations
towards the platform.
Success stories:
The Island.is platform provides a common front-end to government
services and integrates common services such as single-sign-on, and personal inboxes.
Each PSO can then integrate into the platform with their own systems based on their
own needs. The integration on the X-road OSS project further simplifies data sharing.
The development is carried out iteratively through teams of developers procured from
several service suppliers to allow for an agile requirement process and avoid lock-in to
any specific vendor.
13.2 Policy and stakeholders
Iceland’s current policy on OSS is defined and shaped by Iceland’s digital policy, which
encourages publicly funded and developed OSS to be released as OSS. Actions listed in
the policy include the cooperation “on digital services across borders, e.g., a pilot
project on activating electronic IDs between the Nordic countries and the Baltic states”
and “with diverse companies through open software continued by Ísland.is”
(Digital
Iceland, 2021).
The policy is owned by Digital Iceland, which is a unit within the Ministry of Finance
and Economic Affairs. The unit, however, works horizontally across government,
closely with ministries, institutions, and municipalities on digital reforms. The unit
considers OSS part of its Digital Standard (Digital Iceland, n.d.-a.), encouraging reuse
and collaborative development. While the digital policy applies to all PSOs, Digital
Iceland has internal policy further detailing the consideration and use of OSS in the
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internal development of the agency (Digital Iceland, 2023). As Digital Iceland supports
other PSOs in using and integrating to the common infrastructure, the policy also has
implicit implications for these PSOs as well.
In terms of the use and adoption of OSS, in the context of acquisition and procurement,
there is an explicit polity from 2008, which emphasizes that OSS and proprietary
options should be considered equally in any acquisition and procurement process
(Prime Minister’s Office, 2007). The policy further states that any acquisition or
procurement should use OSS and open standards as far as possible to enable
compatibility and data transferability and avoid becoming locked into any specific
vendor or technology. While the policy is still valid, the implementation of it is limited
and has been replaced to large extents by the digital policy which calls for the use of
standardized solutions that enables reuse among PSOs, where OSS is considered one of
the mechanisms available.
13.3 Policy goals
The digital policy of
explicates that OSS is a means of “developing digital services and
innovative solutions […] in cooperation with a diverse group of companies and experts”
(Digital Iceland, 2021). Increased standardization, and reusability of services along
with innovation and transparency and a closer gap between the public and private
sectors are highlighted drivers. Cost-efficiency through reuse is also an important
driver, as is that of avoiding lock-in to single vendors. Digital sovereignty is discussed
generally in terms of data management and use of cloud services in general and less in
relation to how OSS may be considered an instrument in the context. Potential for cost-
efficiencies and increased transparency are further emphasized in the Digital Standard
of Digital Iceland (Digital Iceland, n.d.-a.).
The digital policy is also
in line with the Ministry of Finance and Economy’s general
plan for government operations for 2021-2022, which highlights the need to make use
of and promote as a means for sharing software, reducing development costs, and
increased innovation (Ministry of Finance and Economy, 2022a; 2022b). The OSS
policy from 2008 highlights reusability as an explicit goal for any software financed
with public money, and as a means of achieving vendor-independence.
13.4 Implementation and support
Following the establishment of the policy in 2008, a working group was initiated with
the goal of providing an action plan on how OSS could be introduced into PSOs
(Hillenius, 2012). The action plan noted that the country is too small to warrant a
competence centre for providing support to PSOs in adopting OSS-based solutions.
Instead, a project manager, together with a group of experts, was proposed to support a
transition towards OSS among the larger public institutions, including all the
ministries, the city of Reykjavik, and the National Hospital. These were to provide
models for others to follow and create a foundation on which migration plans could be
based (Hillenius, 2012).
The action plan also proposed the creation of a platform with information, educational
material, and communication tools to facilitate knowledge sharing and networking.
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Dedicated conferences and meetings would help to strengthen knowledge sharing.
Other actions proposed included the increased use of OSS in universities, the
introduction of OSS on school curriculums, a website with OSS used and released by
PSOs, and a general procurement framework for software services. Specific
recommendations included the priority of OSS in grant allocations and that software
developed with public funds should be released as OSS.
Much of the support defined in the action plan is today carried out by Digital Iceland,
who works horizontally across the Icelandic public sector. Technical guidelines and best
practices are provided through online resources. Reoccurring trainings are also
facilitated on best practices in terms of agile development and use of OSS.
Digital Iceland is, however, very developer-centric as they develop much of the public
services through the joint platform Island.is. They strive to develop and release as
much as possible as OSS to avoid lock-in effects and enable the reuse of components,
not just inside the government but also in industry, which actively contributes to and
reuses the publicly funded and released OSS components. The platform and its
components are permissively licensed under the MIT license to enable broad adoption
of the OSS.
To further avoid any lock-in while also improving innovation outputs, Digital Iceland
has adopted an agile approach in its development where expertise and development
resources are procured in teams from multiple consultancies and assigned to tasks
based on current needs. External collaboration is also highlighted as a core enabler,
exemplified through a centre of excellence with 14 technology partnerships in place.
Standardised tools, platforms, and components, of which a large part is OSS, are used
and reused to increase the development pace and rigor.
13.5 Promotion for reuse
Digital Iceland enables reuse of common components in the integration of PSO’s
backend systems into the Island.is platform. Components of the platform is also
actively reused PSOs and service suppliers developing integrations towards the
platform.
13.6 Success stories
The X-road OSS project is used, through the Stream service, to connect public sector
organisations with each other and ensure safe and traceable communication of data.
Iceland is members of the international collaboration NIIS (Nordic Institute for
Interoperability Solutions) which is working on the development of the X-road OSS
project (Digital Iceland, nd-c).
The Island.is platform hosted by Digital Iceland, is openly and actively developed as
OSS on GitHub, counting 133 contributors to date, and has a mature development
infrastructure and documentation. The platform provides a centralised home for
integrating, hosting and developing digital services across government such as the
Digital Mailbox, and the aforementioned Stream service (Digital Iceland, nd-b.).
Citizens can access the services and manage different life events via a common interface
(Open Access Government, 2023). An increasing number of services are being
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developed and integrated to the platform, as are the number of public institutional
websites being transferred to the platform, both explicit goals in the Digital Policy
(Digital Iceland, 2021).
While the platform provides a unified interface for government services, the data and
much of the underpinning services are still managed in a distributed manner by the
different PSOs responsible for the specific use case, e.g., taxes or social welfare. This is
an intentional policy within the national government to enable each agency to make
and execute their own decisions while still improving accessibility and quality of service
to the citizens. The platform is modelled with input from GOV.UK, and developed with
experiences from other countries such as Estonia and Finland.
13.7 References
Digital Iceland. (2021). Digital policy. Retrieved on November 16, 2023, from
https://island.is/en/o/digital-iceland/digital-strategy.
Digital Iceland. (nd-a). About Digital Iceland - Digital Standards. Retrieved on
November 17, 2023, from https://island.is/en/life-events/about-digital-iceland.
Digital Iceland. (nd-b), Iceland's Leap into the Digital Era. Retrieved on November 17,
2023, from https://island.is/en/life-events/icelands-leap-into-the-digital-era.
Digital Iceland. (nd-c). Stream (X-Road). Retrieved on November 17, 2023, from
https://island.is/s/stafraent-island/thjonustur/straumurinn.
Digital Iceland. (2023). Technical Direction. Retrieved on December 20, 2023, from
https://docs.devland.is/technical-overview/technical-direction.
Hillenius, G. (2012). All of Iceland's public administrations moving towards open
source.
Retrieved
on
November
17,
2023,
from
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/open-government/news/all-icelands-public-
admin.
Ministry of Finance and Economy. (2022a). Emphasis for Government Operations
2022. Retrieved on November 17, 2023, from https://www.stjornarradid.is/library/03-
Verkefni/Efnahagsmal-og-opinber-
fjarmal/%c3%81herslur%20%c3%ad%20r%c3%adkisrekstri%20fyrir%20%c3%a1ri%c3
%b0%202021.pdf.
Ministry of Finance and Economy. (2022b). Emphasis for Government Operations
2022. Retrieved on November 17, 2023, from https://www.stjornarradid.is/library/02-
Rit--skyrslur-og-
skrar/%c3%81herslur%20%c3%ad%20r%c3%adkisrekstri%20fyrir%202022.pdf.
Open Access Government. (2023).
How Iceland’s government is placing people at the
heart of digital public services. Retrieved on November 17, 2023, from
https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/how-icelands-government-is-placing-people-
at-the-heart-of-digital-public-services/166387/.
Prime Minister’s Office.
(2007). Policy on Free and Open-source Software Government
Policy
of
Iceland.
Retrieved
on
November
17,
2023,
from
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https://www.government.is/media/forsaetisraduneyti-
media/media/English/Free_and_Open_Source_Software_-
_Government_Policy_of_Iceland.pdf.
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14
Japan
14.1 Abstract
Policy and stakeholders:
While there is no national level OSS policy focused on
public sector use, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has been
promoting OSS uptake by Japanese tech companies since the early 2000s as part of an
externally focused industrial strategy.
Policy goals:
The Japanese government has acknowledged the potential benefits of
OSS for the country's economy, focusing on technological independence, economic
development, and security.
Implementation and support:
In 2019, METI established a Task Force for
Evaluating Software Management Methods, etc. toward Ensuring Cyber/Physical
Security. The taskforce has published a report on management methods for ensuring
the security of OSS as well as a guidance document on the introduction of Software Bill
of Materials (SBOM) for software management.
Promotion for reuse:
There is no official government catalogue of public sector OSS
solutions but the Japan OSS Promotion Forum (JOPF), a business association, has
published an annual overview of OSS solutions used in Japan since 2014.
Success stories:
A Japanese version of Decidim, an open source platform for citizen
participation has been used in several local democracy initiatives. After being released
as open source, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Stopcovid19 website received
more than 2,000 improvement requests. The source code has since been reused by
local authorities in 54 regions.
14.2 Policy and stakeholders
The Japanese government, through the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
(METI) has been using and promoting OSS since the early 2000s. In 2003, Japan,
along with China and South Korea, signed a cooperation agreement for the joint
development of non-Microsoft software products, with a specific emphasis on OSS,
seeking cost reductions and technological independence.
In 2004, METI published a guideline endorsing the usage of open software. Since then,
the majority of government activities related to OSS has been focused on industrial
support. There is currently no explicit encouragement or preference for OSS with
regards to the public sector’s own development or acquisition of software at the
national level.
14.3 Policy goals
The Japanese government’s interest in OSS relates to the potential benefits for the
country's economy, focusing on technological independence, economic development,
and security.
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14.4 Implementation and support
One of the outcomes of the first Northeast Asia OSS Promotion Forum was the
establishment in 2004 of the Japan OSS Promotion Forum (JOPF). Its membership
consists of more than a hundred organisations from both the public and the private
sector with METI participating as an observer. Its activities involved support of OSS
adoption in various sectors through committees and working groups. JOPF also
maintains the Open Source License Laboratory (OLL) which contributes to OSS
licensing research and promotes healthy OSS use.
On September 5, 2019, METI established a Task Force for Evaluating Software
Management Methods which focuses on examining appropriate software management
methods, responses to vulnerability and license issues. In 2021 the Task Force
published a "Collection of Use Case Examples Regarding Management Methods for
Utilizing OSS and Ensuring Its Security". The document summarizes the points to note
when utilizing OSS, and for each point, provides use case examples. The compilation
was extended in 2022 with five new case studies.
In July 2023, the Task Force published a second document entitled
“Guidance
on
Introduction of Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) for Software Management.” The
guidance is aimed at software suppliers as a compilation of the advantages of
introducing SBOM in companies and the key points that companies should recognize
and undertake in actually introducing SBOM.
The guide provides basic information on SBOM, including advantages of introducing
SBOM to companies, addressing misconceptions, and presenting key facts. It outlines
key phase-by-phase points for companies to recognize and implement wheb
introducing SBOM, namely [i] Environment and system development phase, [ii] SBOM
production and sharing phase, and [iii] SBOM use and management Phase.
14.5 Promotion for reuse
There is no official government catalogue of public sector OSS solutions but the Japan
OSS Promotion Forum (JOPF), a business association, has published an annual
overview of OSS solutions used in Japan since 2014.
14.6 Success stories
In 2020, the initial Japanese version of the Decidim platform, developed by Professor
Yoshimura of the University of Tokyo’s Research Centre for Advanced Science and
Technology and Hal Seki, Representative Director of Code for Japan, was shared on
Code for Japan’s Github. Its adoption by Kakogawa City Hall in Hyogo Prefecture
marked the beginning of a series of successful initiatives, including the Yokohama City
Engagement Platform, the Cabinet Office's Smart City Guidebook Subcommittee, the
Hyogo Prefecture version of Decidim, and the Liberal Democratic Party of Yokohama
City Councilors’ Mirai Creative Platform.
Another noteworthy example is the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Stopcovid19
website, which, upon release as open source, garnered over 2,000 improvement
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requests. The source code has been widely reused across Japan, resulting in the
creation of 63 sites in 54 regions as of April 20, 2021. Furthermore, 13 prefectures and
cities have employed the source code as official websites, fostering collaboration among
local governments to address issues facing Japan collectively.
14.7 References
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15
Luxembourg
15.1 Abstract
Policy and stakeholders:
While there is no government policy focusing solely on
OSS, the programme of the 2018-2023 government programme includes a specific
mention to promote its use within the public administration. The National
Interoperability Framework of Luxembourg recommends but does not prescribe OSS.
Policy goals:
OSS policy statements appear to be motivated by two sets of influences.
On the one hand, OSS is seen as part of the government’s
commitment to open
innovation and collaboration with the private sector. Specific initiatives have also been
motivated with reference to enhanced cybersecurity and digital sovereignty.
Implementation and support:
There are no specific structured proposals or
policies for providing direction or guidance for OSS on the national level but the
Luxembourg House of Cybersecurity is in the process of establishing an OSPO which
may serve as a blueprint for other PSOs.
Promotion for reuse:
There is no central catalogue of public sector OSS projects but
the Luxembourg House of Cybersecurity is on GitHub and the Catalogue
Success stories:
Launched by the Ministry for Digitalisation in 2023, LuxChat is an
open source platform for real-time communication using Matrix open standard and
protocol. Motivated by data security and digital sovereignty concerns, the Luxchat
services provide end-to-end encryption and retain all messages in decentralised servers
located in Luxembourg.
15.2 Policy and stakeholders
While Luxembourg lacks an explicit policy focused solely on Open Source, its
government places a strong emphasis on
“open innovation”
and the programme of the
2018-2023 coalition (Luxembourg Government, 2018) includes a specific mention of
the intention to promote the use of OSS, open standards and open data within the
public administration.
27
In addition, the Ministry for Digitalisation which was created
in 2018 lists
”open by default” as one of its strategic axes
(Ministry for Digitalisation,
2018).
OSS is further mentioned in the National Interoperability Framework (NIF) which was
adopted by the Government Council in 2019 and which applies across the public sector
of Luxembourg (Ministry for Digitalisation (2019). The first of 11 principles of the NIF
relates to
“Openness”
and includes the following specific recommendations:
−
Ensure fair conditions for 'open source' software and actively and fairly consider
the use of such software, taking into account the total cost of ownership of the
solution.
https://gouvernement.lu/dam-assets/documents/actualites/2018/12-decembre/Accord-de-
coalition-2018-2023.pdf
27
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−
−
Apply by default, for new services, the principle of openness when defining the
architecture of information systems.
Prefer open specifications, duly considering functional needs, maturity, market
adoption, and market innovations.
However, according to the document, public sector entities may use
“less
open” or
“not
open” specifications or software when open alternatives do not exist, when such
alternatives do not cover functional needs, have not reached a sufficient level of
maturity or quality, or when they do not have sufficient market adoption.
15.3 Policy goals
The above policy initiatives should be seen against the background of a significant
effort by the Luxembourgish government to achieve digital government. To support
Luxembourg in this transition, the Ministry for Digitalisation has commissioned a
study from the OECD
to evaluate how the country lines up with the principles in the
Recommendation of the Council on Digital Government Strategies,
including
“Openness and
Engagement”
which encourage governments to be open, transparent and inclusive in their
processes and operations, and to engage with stakeholders from the public sector, private
sector and civil society. The review process revealed that further efforts can be done to
advance towards a Government as a Platform approach with the implementation of a toolbox
of common enablers and components that ministries and administrations can easily
reuse
(OECD, 2020[6]).
The promotion of open technologies is thus framed in the general context of open
government and open innovation.
Additional drivers include
cybersecurity and digital
sovereignty concerns which motivated the decision to develop LuxChat, a national
secure instant OSS messaging solution. The cost-saving argument is less prevalent in
Luxembourg although the NIF mentions that OSS can contribute to lower development
costs and reduce lock-in effects.
15.4 Implementation and support
There are no specific structured proposals or policies for providing direction or
guidance for OSS on the national level (Thill, 2023). The Luxembourg House of
Cybersecurity (LHS),
under the Ministry of the Economy (Ministère de l’Économie)
is
in the process of establishing its OSPO supported by a core team of experts within the
Ministry. The intention is that the OSPO at The House of Cybersecurity will serve as a
blueprint for PSOs in Luxembourg.
The LHS is the backbone of leading-edge cyber resilience in Luxembourg and aims at
capitalising on and further developing innovation, competencies, collaboration and
capacity building. It has published a report on the value of open source in the open data
community. The report highlights the role of OSS in advancing European digital
autonomy, promoting application sharing and reuse, and fortifying our economy's
digitization. The specific recommendations include establishing a national catalog of
open-source applications for both public and private sectors, increasing awareness and
utilization of open-source code, bridging the gap between management and developers,
emphasizing end-user feedback in open-source projects, facilitating public funding for
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small entities, and fostering policy innovation through the creation of an Open Source
Programme Office.
While not explicitly focused on OSS, the National Committee for Interoperability (CNI)
was established in 2019 to advance interoperability generally at the national and
sectoral level. The Ministry for Digitalisation has also set up a Competence Center for
Interoperability (CCIO) which is meant to act as a coordinator of NIF-related activities
and initiatives.
15.5 Promotion for reuse
There is no central catalogue of public sector OSS projects but the Luxembourg House
of Cybersecurity is on GitHub,
28
some of the products listed in the catalogue of the
National Interoperability Committee is OSS.
29
In addition, the Open Data platform in
Luxembourg lists some of the Open Source software developed by local organisations
30
15.6 Success stories
There are many prominent initiatives in Luxembourg relating to the use of OSS
solutions. LHS has long established practice of developing OSS tooling for their own
use cases. One notable example concerns MISP, an OSS cyber threat management and
sharing platform with an active community with contributions from governments,
banks, and private companies worldwide. The experience is behind the ambition to
make Luxembourg a pioneer in the open cybersecurity data economy through OSS.
Launched by the Ministry for Digitalisation in 2023, LuxChat is an open source
platform for real-time communication using Matrix open standard and protocol.
Motivated by data security and digital sovereignty concerns, the Luxchat services
provide end-to-end encryption and retain all messages in decentralised servers located
in Luxembourg.
15.7 References
Luxembourg House of Cybersecurity. (2023). The value of open source in the open data
community. Available:
LHC FORUM_1_OSS_page.pdf (cybersecurity.lu).
Accessed on
2023-11-10.
Luxembourg
Government
(gouvernement.lu)
(2021-2025)
(2021).
National-Cybersecurity-Strategy-IV.pdf
Luxembourg
Government
(2018
https://gouvernement.lu/dam-
assets/documents/actualites/2018/12-decembre/Accord-de-coalition-2018-2023.pdf
Ministry for Digitalisation. (2018).
Strategic axes - Ministry for Digitalisation // The
Luxembourg Government (gouvernement.lu).
Ministry for Digitalisation. (2019)
Cadre d'interopérabilité national 2019 - Ministry for
Digitalisation // The Luxembourg Government (gouvernement.lu)
https://github.com/CybersecurityLuxembourg
https://digital.gouvernement.lu/dam-assets/dossiers/nif/iop-product-catalogue-of-the-
national-interoperability-committee-01-00.pdf
30
https://data.public.lu/fr/datasets/?q=open%20source
28
29
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OECD the "Digital Government Review of Luxembourg", from the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Thill (2003)
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16
Ireland
16.1 Abstract
Policy and stakeholders:
While OSS solutions are used quite widely throughout the
Irish public sector, there is no specific policy that explicitly encourage such uptake.
Policy goals:
Recent statements by the Irish government CIO has emphasized the
potential of OSS to enable pan-societal and pan-European activities as well as enhance
collaboration, security, and transparency.
Implementation and support:
There are no specific national-level initiatives.
Promotion for reuse:
There are no national-level initiatives to promote public sector
OSS solutions.
Success stories:
The Irish government has recognized the value of using open source
in its response to the COVID pandemic. The source code for Ireland’s Covid tracker was
published as open source on GitHub.
16.2 Policy and stakeholders
While OSS solutions are used quite widely throughout the Irish public sector (Joinup,
2020), there is no specific policy that encourage such uptake. (SCL, 2008) In 2004, the
Minster for Finance acknowledged the potential of OSS with regards to accelerating
internal processes and improving eGovernment without endorsing its use. The
procurement policy of the Irish public administration is described as having emphasis
on value for money, open competition, and the best technological fit. Without explicitly
mentioning OSS, products are to be evaluated on their merits, including openness in
terms of future procurement and, where possible, avoidance of lock-in to a particular
supplier. With respect to the costs of software, consideration is given to the total cost of
ownership which, in addition to the licensing element, also includes the issues and
costs associated with development, maintenance, customisation, adherence to open
standards, etc.
31
16.3 Policy goals
As noted above, there are no official strategies or policy programmes explicitly
encouraging OSS use, but in recent statements the Irish Government CIO (Department
of Public Expenditure and Reform) has acknowledged the potential for open source to
support better collaboration, stronger security and greater transparency (Skillnet
Ireland, 2022). With regards to its experience developing an open source Covid
Tracker, the Irish Health Executive has emphasized open innovation aspects,
31
https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/2004-11-
24/49/?highlight%5B0%5D=open&highlight%5B1%5D=source&highlight%5B2%5D=software&
highlight%5B3%5D=source&highlight%5B4%5D=open&highlight%5B5%5D=source&highlight
%5B6%5D=software&highlight%5B7%5D=software&highlight%5B8%5D=open#s124
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describing it as
“a
great demonstration of innovation within the Irish health sector
combined with the IT capabilities of the Irish software industry”. Both the possibility of
assisting others by allowing countries to build their own app based on Ireland’s
code,
as
well as the possibility that
Ireland’s development team
can benefit from work
undertaken by other countries to improve the code and effectiveness of the app has
been recognized. (Digital Health, 2020)
16.4 Implementation and support
There are no national-level initiatives to mention.
16.5 Promotion for reuse
There are no national-level initiatives to mention.
16.6 Success stories
The Irish government has recognized the value of using OSS in its response to the
COVID pandemic, notably through the development of the COVID Contact Tracing App
and the Digital COVID Certificate at the European level. Collaborating with software
company NearForm, the government successfully launched the tracing app in 3months
(Nearform website). Within 48 hours of its release on July 7, 2020 it reached one
million download
–
an accomplishment lauded by Ireland's Minister for Health,
Stephen Donnelly. (Digital Health, 2020)
The app’s code
was open sourced under an MIT licence and made available on GitHub,
along with a series of app design and development reports and documentation. The
code has since been used to develop apps in Gibraltar and Northern Ireland, as well as
other countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and states in the US, providing
digital contact tracing for 55 million people (O’Callaghan
et al.,
2022)
16.7 References
Digital Health (2020).
Code for Ireland’s Covid Tracker app given to global public
health
project.
Retrieved
on
28
November
2023
from:
https://www.digitalhealth.net/2020/07/code-for-irelands-covid-tracker-app-given-to-
global-public-health-project/
Joinup (2020) Open Source Software Country Intelligence Report
–
Ireland. Retrieved
on 28 November 2023 from:
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/inline-
files/OSS Country Intelligence Report_IE_0.pdf
Nearform
website.
Acccessed
on
28
November
https://www.nearform.com/work/covid-app-development/
2023
at:
O'Callaghan, M. E., Abbas, M., Buckley, J., Fitzgerald, B., Johnson, K., Laffey, J.,
McNicholas, B., Nuseibeh, B., O'Keeffe, D., Beecham, S., Razzaq, A., Rekanar, K.,
Richardson, I., Simpkin, A., O'Connell, J., Storni, C., Tsvyatkova, D., Walsh, J., Welsh,
T., & Glynn, L. G. (2022). Public opinion of the Irish "COVID Tracker" digital contact
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tracing App: A national survey. Digital
https://doi.org/10.1177/20552076221085065
health,
8,
20552076221085065.
SCL. (2008). Open Source Software in the Public Sector in Ireland. Retrieved on 11
December 2023 from
https://www.scl.org/articles/1018-open-source-software-in-the-
public-sector-in-ireland
Skillnet Ireland (2022) Open Source and Inner Source Skills in Ireland: A Call for
Action. Retrieved on 11 December 2023 from
https://www.Open-Source-and-
InnerSource-Skills-in-Ireland-A-Call-for-Action.pdf
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17
Country report: Malta
17.1 Abstract
Policy and stakeholders:
A national policy on OSS is provided by the Malta
Information Technology Agency (MITA) provides, advising on both the release of
public sector software as OSS, and for the consideration of OSS in an acquisition
process.
Policy goals:
Cost-efficiencies and interoperability between services are key policy
goals highlighted in the OSS policy and overarching digital strategy of the Malta
Information Technology Agency.
Implementation and support:
MITA is seen as the main source of support on the
use and development of OSS. The support was more formalized when the country’s OSS
policy was first introduced.
Promotion for reuse:
A public sector-internal marketplace is available promoting
reuse of software developed by PSOs, not necessarily available as OSS.
Success stories:
The reuse and customization of a risk assessment tool, and
proximity tracing protocol for tracing apps was performed by MITA during the Covid
crisis, illustrating a broader collaboration both between the international community
and Maltese PSOs, including the Ministry of Health, MITA, and the University of Malta.
17.2 Policy and stakeholders
The latest OSS policy was adopted in 2019 through the Malta Information Technology
Agency (MITA) (2019), addressing all PSOs. This is the third version of the strategy,
whereas the first one was defined in 2010 because of the Smart Island strategy
launched in 2008 (Malta Information Technology Agency, 2008). The policy addresses
the acquisition of OSS in terms of adoption, procurement, reuse, distribution, and
licensing of OSS.
PSOs shall actively consider and pursue the adoption of OSS when deemed cost-
effective and superior to its alternatives. OSS-based solutions should be evaluated on
the same merits as any software solution and in alignment with the general Maltese
procurement guidelines and regulations. The policy highlights the importance of the
OSS to fulfil all business requirements that preside and that there is no disruption or
negative impact on related and interconnecting IT infrastructure. The need for support
arrangements on any OSS is explicitly stated.
In terms of reuse, the policy recommends that established OSS projects should be
investigated, both on a national and European level. Regarding distribution,
organisations are to consider the option of open sourcing software where they have IP
ownership to its source code. This should be done on a case-by-case basis, considering
appropriate OSS business models, and done under the EUPL license.
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17.3 Policy goals
The purpose of the OSS policy is to encourage the adoption of cost-effective OSS
throughout the public sector and maximize the distribution and reuse of solutions as
OSS. This is in line with
MITA’s overarching strategy,
which further stresses the need to
design solutions that are interoperable, scalable, and, within legal parameters, share
and reuse software, services, and data
–
all well in line with the opportunities and
rationale for considering OSS.
17.4 Implementation and support
The previous version of the policy was released in 2010, along with a white paper by the
MITA (2010). Several suggestions were proposed to support the implementation and
enablement of the policy, e.g., the establishment of a general OSS policy along with
appropriate processes and guidelines to support the acquisition of OSS. The guidelines
highlight the need to perform an analysis of the total cost of ownership for the OSS to
enable a comparative evaluation between different alternatives. Templates have also
been developed to enable the consideration of OSS in a simpler and more harmonized
approach. Early on, MITA provided support on training and application of the
guidelines. This knowledge is now considered to be spread out across PSOs.
An internal discoverability platform for OSS was also suggested, along with an End-
User group of experts, including civil administrators from the Malta Information
Technology Agency, IT service providers, academics, and representatives from the
Malta OSS community (Hillenius, 2010). The End-user group provided a means to
educate and raise awareness among decision-makers within different PSOs, including
the Malta Information Technology Agency, on how to use and consider OSS in
operations and acquisition processes.
The white paper also triggered an intensified collaboration with local vendors, as well
as European networks. Showcasing of solutions, knowledge-sharing on their
implementation, and promotion of reuse within and across borders were the main
drivers. The white paper further suggests collaboration and guiding universities and
education providers on developing and providing training on OSS, both for teachers
and students, something that is considered to be implemented.
17.5 Promotion for reuse
The discoverability platform suggested by the aforementioned white paper may be
compared to a marketplace consisting of software developed and used by Maltese PSOs.
These do not necessarily have to be released as OSS. The main driver is to enable and
motivate reuse between PSOs. The marketplace is still active today but closed and only
available for public servants.
17.6 Success stories
During Covid, MITA leveraged OSS as a mechanism to develop tools and infrastructure
to enable tracking of incidents. One example includes the Risk Assessment Tool,
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originally developed during the Hack the Crisis hackathon organized by Garage48 and
Accelerate Estonia. The project was reused and further developed by the Maltese
COVID-19 Response Team and the University of Malta. The former included
representatives both from MITA and the Ministry of Health. A related project, also
reused and customized to the Maltese context by MITA was the Decentralised Privacy-
Preserving Proximity Tracing (DP3T) project, an open protocol for COVID-19 proximity
tracing using Bluetooth Low Energy functionality on mobile devices, which ensures that
personal data and computation stay entirely on an individual's phone (GitHub, 2021).
The protocol was developed by a core team of over 25 scientists and academic
researchers from across Europe.
17.7 References
GitHub. (2020). COVID19 Check
–
Malta. Retrieved on December 20, 2023, from
https://github.com/COVID19-Malta/covid19check.
GitHub. (2021). DP3T-Backend-SDK. Retrieved on December 20, 2023, from
https://github.com/GOVMT-MITA/dp3t-sdk-backend?tab=readme-ov-file.
Hillenius, G. (2010). MT: Government starts open source user group. Retrieved on
November 17, 2023, from https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/open-source-
observatory-osor/news/mt-government-starts-open-so.
Malta Information Technology Agency. (2010). Open Source Vision
–
Nurturing the
proliferation of Open Source Software. White paper. Retrieved on November 17, 2023,
from
https://cdn-others.timesofmalta.com/00e91cc8eeb5dca9e5852c09e54698ea-
1892628140.pdf.
Malta Information Technology Agency. (2008). The Smart Island. The National ICT
Strategy for Malta 2008-2010. Retrieved on November 28, 2023, from
http://www.rcc.gov.pt/SiteCollectionDocuments/e-Gov-Malta.pdf.
Malta Information Technology Agency. (2019). GMICT Policy 0097 - Open Source
Software Policy v3.0. Retrieved on November 17, 2023, from https://mita.gov.mt/wp-
content/uploads/2020/07/GMICT_P_0097_Open_Source_Software.pdf.
Malta Information Technology Agency. (2021). MITA Strategy 2020-2023. Retrieved
on
November
17,
2023,
from
https://mita.gov.mt/wp-
content/uploads/2021/02/MITA-Strategy.pdf.
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18
Country report: The Netherlands
18.1 Abstract
Policy and stakeholders:
Consideration of OSS in the acquisition and procurement
process as been encouraged in advisory government policies since 2007 originating
from the Ministry of Economy. In terms of release, an “Open, unless” policy has
emerged through several government reports, mainly originating from the Ministry of
the Interior and Kingdom Relations. The policy gives preference to the release of public
software as OSS unless special circumstances apply. This has further been strengthened
in the Open Government Act where source code can be requested to be published as
OSS through a public request.
Policy goals:
Transparency into algorithms and public services, along with increased
control and sovereignty over technical sourcing and design decisions are specifically
highlighted, along with the potential for a more efficient, streamlined, and collaborative
government.
Implementation and support:
Several reports provide understanding on the
benefits and risks of OSS, and in terms of how to assess whether a public sector
software can be released in alignment with the “Open, unless” policy. The OSPO within
the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations focus on supporting its related
agencies in implementing the policy, but also provides a source of knowledge for the
general public sector. The Dutch Association of Municipalities (VNG) further acts as an
association-based OSPO where municipalities can pool resources and collaborate on
the development of common OSS projects. The Dutch OSPO-network further helps to
foster cross-governmental and sectoral collaboration and knowledge sharing.
Promotion for reuse:
The Developer Overheid platform provides a library of both
API:s and OSS repositories from the various PSOs across the Dutch public sector. There
is a long-term goal to evolve the platform to a common source code storage and
collaboration platform, e.g., based on the OSS social coding platform GitLab, an
approach adopted e.g., by the German government.
Success stories:
Signalen, an incident report system for public spaces is a OSS
project which emerged organically and is developed and maintained by a team of
developers within the City of Amsterdam. Currently, the intention is to move the
ownership of the project to VNG and for the association to serve as a neutral hosting
ground, enabling further communities to join and collaborate on the project.
18.2 Policy and stakeholders
Consideration of OSS in the acquisition and procurement process was encouraged in
2002 through a parliamentary vote requiring that OSS be considered on equal grounds
as with proprietary options (Bressers, 2005; Procee et al., 2022). This was later
formalized in a government action plans on the use of OSS and open standards
(Ministry of Economic Affairs, 2007), and later reemphasized in a subsequent
government action plan (OSOR, 2012).
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In terms of the release of software developed through public funds as OSS, political
consensus was formed later in 2016 through the discussion and adoption of
parliamentary motions (Oosenbrug, 2016; Oosenbrug et al., 2016) and questions
(Thaens and van IJzerloo, 2017) on the topic. A series of reports were triggered as a
consequence of investigating the benefits, needs, and conditions for OSS adoption in
the Dutch public sector (Gartner, 2017; Thaens and van IJzerloo, 2017).
Continuing from the earlier reports, the Digital Government Agenda in 2018 iterates on
the need to remove legal barriers and develop knowledge on the publication and
adoption of OSS (Digital Government, 2018). The subsequent Government Data
Agenda highlights OSS as an instrument for increasing transparency in terms of
algorithms and the use of data by PSOs (Digital Government, 2019).
A formal policy letter on the open sourcing of government software, aligning with
earlier motions from 2016 (Oosenbrug, 2016; Oosenbrug et al., 2016), was sent to the
parliament in 2020 (Knops, 2020a). The letter introduced the principle of “Open,
unless”, implying that government software should be open sourced by default except
for on a case-by-case basis if special conditions apply, e.g., related to security, integrity,
or if the cost of open sourcing greatly exceeds the expected return. The policy is today
considered a guideline addressing all of the government, encouraging the release of
OSS.
The letter further highlights the need for the Market and Government Act to be revised
as it was considered to require the costs of creating and publishing the source code to
be charged, thereby inhibiting the contribution and release of OSS by PSOs (Knops,
2020a), something that has been suggested in earlier work as well (Gartner, 2017). A
more recent report, however, indicates that the law does not have to be an obstacle to
publication, and the Cabinet has also submitted an amendment to the law to further
clarify this aspect (Procee et al., 2022).
The adoption of the Open Government Act (Wet open overheid), considering
government-owned source code as general government information, further requires
PSOs to make source code public on request, provided this is possible without
disproportionate effort (Procee et al., 2022). Such a process is initiated through a
freedom of information request of source code related to a specific software. This has
only been trialed a few times, most notably of the Digital Identification software DigiD
developed by Logius (2023). The case is looked to as setting a precedence for how
freedom of information requests can be made for software. The Reuse of Government
Information Act further requires PSOs to facilitate the reuse of that code as much as
possible, e.g., by choosing a licence that clearly explains the rights under which the
software may be reused.
18.3 Policy goals
In their action plan from 2007, the Ministry of Economic Affairs explicates the need for
“promotion
of a level playing field in the software market and promotion of
innovation and the economy by forceful stimulation of the use of open source software
and by giving preference in contracts to open source software if equally suitable.”
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Rationale and benefits underpinning the
“Open, unless”
policy are many, as identified
through the great set of reports. Transparency provides major driver, e.g., into
algorithms and software behind government decisions or calculation models (Digital
Government, 2019). This has been highlighted by recent examples of how such
algorithms can be used unethically (DutchNews, 2021). The Open Government Act and
the possibility to make freedom for information requests provides an important lever
for such transparency (Logius, 2023).
Digital sovereignty and supplier independence is another driving force that has
increased in importance in recent years (Thaens and van IJzerloo, 2017). The Digital
Commons framework is highlighted as means of creating and supporting a technically
sovereign digital infrastructure, both on the national and European levels (van
Huffelen, 2023). A third policy and value driver highlighted regards the general reuse
of software and how this can render in a more efficient, streamlined, and collaborative
government (Gartner, 2017).
18.4 Implementation and support
Support initiatives have been implemented and suggested iteratively since 2003 with
the initiation of the Open Standards and Open Source Software (OS&OSS) program,
which, among other things, included the creation of the first national government
OSPO focused on educating and creating guidelines for procurement and acquisition.
The OS&OSS program was later disbanded in 2005.
A later report investigated the need for a new National-government OSPO and specific
knowledge in terms of how to consider OSS in an acquisition and procurement process
(Thaens and van IJzerloo, 2017). While there was limited interest in funding an OSPO,
there was consensus on the need to grow and share knowledge on the benefits of OSS
and how to enable consideration of it in tender processes. The report recommends that
a referral system of OSS experts be established and that a software catalogue be created
like the US code.gov platform, which facilitates discoverability and reuse of OSS used
and developed by the government (much of what is already done for open data sets),
and that procurement expertise on OSS is developed. The latter should help raise
knowledge both inside the government and among vendors to increase competition.
An annex to the letter to parliament by Knops (2020b) lays out a series of actions, e.g.,
the growth of a community inside government and the development of best practices to
enable the release of OSS and the creation of sustainable communities. OSS is also to be
considered a selection criterion for the allocation of funds from the Digital Government
innovation budget. A report analysing the costs and benefits of releasing software as
OSS was also produced as a consequence (Ecorys, 2021), again reemphasizing earlier
findings (Gartner, 2017; Thaens and van IJzerloo, 2017), but also the need for
investment to enable the value potential.
The principle of “Open, unless” (Knops, 2020a) was reiterated in the Value-Driven
Digitalisation Work Agenda (Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en
Koninkrijksrelaties, 2022), announcing a modernization of the “Government-wide
Digital Infrastructure (RDI) using appropriate agreements, standards and facilities,
guided by government-wide
principles: standardisation, reuse and open source”.
The
follow-up report by Procee et al. (2022) takes further steps in analysing how the policy
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can be implemented and supported in practice by proposing a series of activities similar
to earlier reports, including the use of an assessment framework for analysing whether
software should be released as OSS or be exempt from the “Open, unless” policy. The
report also suggests the creation of a national government OSPO within the Ministry of
the Interior and Kingdom Relations (in contrast to earlier reports (Thaens and van
IJzerloo, 2017)).
The new OPSO was created in 2023 and is tasked with supporting its overarching
ministry, as well as the PSOs under it
in applying the “Open, unless” policy, and
releasing and collaborating on OSS using best practice. Initially, partnerships will be
established to conduct pilots in releasing government software as OSS. The OSPO will
further work on developing and executing on a national OSS strategy in line with the
“Open, unless” policy.
They also provide training, education, and advocacy on different
aspects of OSS, e.g., related to procurement and security, highlighting both best
practice and common misunderstandings.
The OSPO is currently in a build-up phase with a two-year horizon, working to identify
needs, roles, and functions of the OSPO using a bottoms-up approach through close
dialogues with the ministry and its several agencies. There is a plan for a future
national government OSPO located at the CIO office of the government offices which
would support the “Open, unless” policy across government.
On the municipal level, there is an association-based OSPO represented by the Dutch
Association of Municipalities (Vereniging van Nederlandse Gemeenten - VNG). They
are currently establishing an incubator based on Signalen, a pilot OSS project, where
the goal is to learn and establish processes for municipalities to initiate and collaborate
on OSS-based solutions addressing common needs. Larger municipalities such as
Amsterdam, which have established local government OSPOs, are leading the
development. The different OSPOs are interconnected through the Dutch OSPO
network, which convenes on a regular basis to share and generate knowledge and best
practices, with the goal of growing common institutional capabilities to jointly profit
from OSS as an instrument for digital transformation. Other members of the network
include the Tax and Customs Administration, Kadaster, Alliander, and the Province of
South Holland.
18.5 Promotion for reuse
The earlier report by Thaens and van IJzerloo (2017) explicitly suggested the creation
of a software catalogue similar to the US code.gov platform, which facilitates the
discoverability and reuse of OSS used and developed by the US government. In
response, the Developer Overheid platform has been designed containing both API:s
and OSS repositories from the various PSOs across the Dutch public sector.
The platform is maintained by the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations and
the Dutch Association of Municipalities (Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en
Koninkrijksrelaties, n.d.). The source code repositories listed on the platform originates
from a volunteer initiative where a researcher compiled repositories that could be
traced to a Dutch PSO. The long-term goal, as expressed by the OSPO is to evolve the
platform to a common source code storage and collaboration platform, e.g., based on
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the OSS social coding platform GitLab, an approach adopted e.g., by the German
government (Zentrum Digitale Souveränität, n.d.).
18.6 Success stories
A success case worth highlighting include the Signalen project, a report and
management system for incidents and complaints from citizens to the responsible
PSOs. The project has emerged organically and is developed and maintained by a team
of developers within the City of Amsterdam. Currently, the intention is to move the
ownership of the project to the VNG and for the association to serve as a neutral
hosting ground, enabling further communities to join and collaborate on the project.
There are currently about 15 municipalities that are contributing to the joint funding,
although this only accounts for one-third of the development costs (of which the City of
Amsterdam sponsors the rest). To reach a sustainable level, the VNG sees a need for at
least 30 to 40 municipalities to share the costs. VNG is working actively to grow the
community of Signalen both nationally and internationally, e.g., in Denmark through
their sister association OS2.
18.7 References
Blok, S.A. (2021). Wijziging van de Mededingingswet in verband met aanpassing van de
bepalingen over markt en overheid. Retrieved on November 30, 2023, from
https://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/wetsvoorstellen/detail?qry=wetsvoorstel
%3A35985&cfg=wetsvoorsteldetails#wetgevingsproces.
Bressers, M. (2005). Dutch programme on Open Standards and Open Source Software
for governments. Retrieved on November 30, 2023, from http://oss-
watch.ac.uk/events/2005-01-20/presentatie_ososs_osswatch_20012005.pdf.
Digital Government. (2018). Digital Government Agenda. Retrieved on November 30,
2023, from https://www.nldigitalgovernment.nl/digital-government-agenda/.
Digital Government. (2019). Data Agenda Government. Retrieved on November 30,
2023, from https://www.nldigitalgovernment.nl/document/data-agenda-government/.
DutchNews. (2021). Tax office algorithm led to racial profiling: Amnesty International.
https://www.dutchnews.nl/2021/10/tax-office-algorithm-led-to-racial-profiling-
amnesty-international/.
Ecorys. (2021). Verkenning kosten en baten vrijgave Open Source Software. Retrieved
on November 30, 2023, from https://open.overheid.nl/documenten/ronl-b6ca5330-
708c-4019-a485-0632f3f93cd6/pdf.
Gartner. (2017). Onderzoek publiceren Open Source Software. Ministerie van
Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties. Retrieved on November 30, 2023, from
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/news/2017-10/Onderzoek%2BOSS.pdf.
Heemskerk, F., & Bijleveld-Schouten, A. (2008). Action Plan Open Standards and Open
Source Software.
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Knops, R.W. (2020a). Kamerbrief over vrijgeven broncode overheidssoftware.
Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties. Retrieved on November 30,
2023,
from
https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/kamerstukken/2020/04/17/kamerbrief-
inzake-vrijgeven-broncode-overheidssoftware.
Knops, R.W. (2020b). Overwegingen bij Open tenzij en Aanpak open source. Ministerie
van Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties. Retrieved on November 30, 2023,
from
https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/publicaties/2020/04/17/overwegingen-bij-
open-tenzij-en-aanpak-open-source.
Logius. (2023). Broncode DigiD app openbaar gemaakt. Retrieved on December 5,
2023, from https://www.logius.nl/actueel/broncode-digid-app-openbaar-gemaakt.
Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties. (n.d.). Developer Overheid.
Retrieved on December 6, 2023, from https://developer.overheid.nl/.
Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties. (2022). Value-Driven
Digitalisation Work Agenda. Retrieved on November 30, 2023, from
https://www.government.nl/documents/reports/2022/11/30/value-driven-
digitalisation-work-agenda.
Ministry of Economic Affairs. (2007). The Netherlands in Open Connection An action
plan for the use of Open Standards and Open Source Software in the public and semi-
public
sector.
Retrieved
on
December
19,
2023,
from
https://slated.org/files/07ET15.pdf.
Procee, R., Al-Saqaf, M., Spanninga, H., Vos, F., and van der Meer, H. (2022).
Opensourcewerken De vrijblijvendheid voorbij. Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en
Koninkrijksrelaties.
Retrieved
on
November
30,
2023,
from
https://open.overheid.nl/documenten/ronl-
11418083f5e2244a462069137d519ef852237b3f/pdf.
Oosenbrug, R.F.A. (2016). Gewijzigde motie van het lid Oosenbrug over het bij wet
verplichten van het gebruik van opensourcesoftware (t.v.v. 32802, nr. 31). Retrieved on
November
30,
2023,
from
https://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/detail?id=2016Z18418&did=2016D37878
.
Oosenbrug, R.F.A., van Raak, A.A.G.M., and Voortman, L.G.J. (2016). Motie van het lid
Oosenbrug c.s. over het beschikbaar stellen van de broncode van in eigen opdracht
ontwikkelde
software.
Retrieved
on
November
30,
2023,
from
https://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/moties/detail?id=2016Z22735&did=201
6D46546.
Open Source Observatory. (2012). Public Open Source Software Procurement Models:
The
Next
Generation.
Retrieved
on
December
19,
2023,
from
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/open-source-observatory-
osor/document/public-open-source-software-procurement-models-next-generation.
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Thaens, M., and van IJzerloo, F. (2017). Rapport Kenniscentrum Open Source
Software. Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties. Retrieved on
November
30,
2023,
from
https://www.kennisopenbaarbestuur.nl/documenten/rapporten/2017/02/02/rapport-
kenniscentrum-open-source-software.
van Huffelen, A.C. (2023). Kamerbrief over digitale gemeenschapsgoederen. Retrieved
on
December
05,
2023,
from
https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/kamerstukken/2023/07/07/kamerbrief-
over-digitale-gemeenschapsgoederen.
Wet open overheid. (2023). Retrieved on December
https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0045754/2023-04-01.
22,
2023,
from
Zentrum Digitale Souveränität. (n.d.). OpenCode. Retrieved on December 6, 2023,
from https://opencode.de/en.
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19
Country report: New Zealand
19.1 Abstract
Policy and stakeholders:
A software extension of New Zealand Government's open
access and licensing framework (NZGOAL-SE) advice and encourages the release of
public software is no special circumstances apply. The policy is owned by the
“Government
Chief Digital Officer" role within our Department of Internal Affairs.
There is no policy addressing the consideration in relation to proprietary options in an
acquisition and procurement process.
Policy goals:
Cost efficiencies and transparency aspects are highlighted in the Digital
Service Design Standard, while the NZGOAL-SE framework also emphasises open
innovation, economic growth, creation of trusted communities between public and
private actors, and interoperability as important goals.
Implementation and support:
Both the Digital Service Design Standard and the
NZGOAL-SE framework provides comprehensive information and support for releasing
software OSS. Information on how to consider OSS in relation to an acquisition and
procurement process, however, is limited, as is the active support and promotion of
software reuse.
Promotion for reuse:
Beyond GitHub, there is limited discoverability of OSS used
and developed by the New Zealand public sector. A Marketplace is available that
provides public entities with a common place to find digital services that can be
consumed and the related suppliers.
Success stories:
The Common Web Platform project, based on the vendor-sponsored
OSS-based Content Management System (CMS) - SilverStripe CMS, launched in 2013,
served as a platform for government agencies to build their own websites and web-
based platforms. The project was later replaced by an internally developed system.
19.2 Policy and stakeholders
The New Zealand Government's open access and licensing framework
—
known as
NZGOAL
—
provides guidance about releasing copyright and non-copyright material in
terms of information, data, and content for reuse by others considering the Creative
Commons licensing regime (New Zealand Government, 2014). These guidelines were
created in 2010 and have had a positive effect on the dissemination, reuse, and
collaboration of open government data (Open Source Open Society, 2016).
An effort to also consider the reuse and open licensing of software was triggered in
2015 following an analysis of New Zealand's effort on the Open Government
Partnership (OGP) plan. A software extension (New Zealand Government, 2016) of the
NZGOAL framework (NZGOAL-SE) was drafted through a public consultation process
(Land Information New Zealand, 2016), using an open consensus tool (Loomio) for
discussing its content and a social coding platform (GitHub) to manage its editing
(Government Information Services, 2016).
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The open process allowed for an inclusive process, helping to build awareness and
commitment of the policy among, e.g., public sector organizations and vendors (Open
Source Open Society, 2016). An open-by-default policy was considered to risk adding
friction rather than a broader commitment to the policy. The writing process was also
appreciated as being in line with the culture and means of collaborating implied by
open government.
The policy was drafted on the initiative of the Land Information New Zealand (LINZ)
with the help of an external expert and OSS expert from an OSS vendor with experience
in collaborating closely with the government (Upston, 2016). The policy addresses
government agencies and is now owned by the "Government Chief Digital Officer" role
within our Department of Internal Affairs.
General guidelines prescribe that government agencies generally avoid owning and
exploiting IP, and leave ownership to procured vendors (State Services Commission,
2008). Special circumstances do, however, allow for government agencies to require
ownership when the intention is to release the developed software as OSS (New
Zealand Government, 2016). Such intention is recommended to be specified explicitly
at the outset of a public procurement process.
The policy is advisory and encourages the release of developed software as OSS when
possible, with exceptions for cases when an open sourcing would imply, e.g., a breach in
contract or privacy, disclosure of trade secrets and other sensitive information, or
create an unacceptable security or privacy-related risk. The standard is briefly referred
to in the public procurement guidelines in relation to how public sector organizations
can distribute or share ownership of developed and procured IP (Ministry of Business,
Innovation & Employment, 2019).
19.3 Policy goals
The policy is seen to enable public sector organizations to legally reuse and build on
each other's work. Cost efficiency, open innovation, economic growth, creation of
trusted communities between public and private actors, transparency, and
interoperability are the prime drivers highlighted (New Zealand Government, 2016). A
case study explores how the Social Investment Agency released its Social Investment
Analytical Layer as OSS, triggering both reuse and contributions from both researchers
and government agencies (Government Information Services, 2017). The study
estimates that nearly 1 million NZD was saved in related efficiency gains.
The rationale that publicly funded software should be publicly available is also referred
to as a general argument (New Zealand Government, 2019; 2022b). Reuse is further
thought to reduce inconsistency of experience across government services, to enable
services with a consistent look and feel, regardless of which agency or provider is
offering them, and by extension, to improve accessibility and trust towards the services.
19.4 Implementation and support
Suitable OSS licenses are suggested, including both permissive and copyleft options,
along with a rationale for choosing between different options. Explanations are
provided on policy and legal context, including areas of public procurement and
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copyright. Security is also addressed as a general topic to bring clarity to uncertainties
of perceived risks that OSS may imply and how such risks may be properly analysed.
Principles and processes for how to decide what to share as OSS, and for reviewing and
releasing the software is also provided.
Additional guidance is also provided through the Digital Service Design Standard
maintained by the Digital Public Service Branch in the Department of Internal Affairs
(New Zealand Government, 2022a), which provides principles and guidance on design
thinking for anyone who designs or provides government services. One of the 12
principles highlights the need to work in the open (New Zealand Government, 2019),
prescribing that the use of open standards, common government platforms, and OSS
should be prioritized and that source code should be released openly in proportion to
any perceived risks.
Design principles further prescribe the need to collaborate widely and reuse and enable
reuse by others (New Zealand Government, 2022b). Actors should develop and
collaborate in the open and leverage the use of widely accepted practices, techniques,
frameworks, tools, and components, with a preference for OSS alternatives and open
standards as far as possible. The design principles are further echoed in a set of
behaviours defined in the Strategy for a Digital Public Service, detailing the need for
collaboration and co-creation, and striving towards an open and accountable public
service (New Zealand Government, n.d.).
There are currently no established OSPOs, i.e., centers of competency or support
functions for the consumption, development, and collaboration of OSS beyond the
established policy (NZGOAL-SE) and the Digital Service Design Standard. It is
noteworthy, however, that Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) has played a pivotal
part in the establishment of the policy and is among the most active public sector
organisations in GitHub in terms of releasing and developing OSS projects. Hence, they
seem to have played the role of a champion in the NZ public sector in promoting and
enabling OSS adoption and collaboration.
19.5 Promotion for reuse
Beyond GitHub, there is limited discoverability of OSS used and developed by the New
Zealand public sector. A Marketplace is available that provides public entities with a
common place to find digital services that can be consumed and the related suppliers.
19.6 Success stories
Currently, there are 12 different government entities registered on the GitHub platform
with varying degrees of activities. The NZ Open Data Portal has a series of active
subprojects relating to the CKAN-based OSS platform used for the portal. DigitalNZ, a
service run by the National Library of New Zealand, is another actively developed set of
projects. The Electricity Authority is also active, most prominently with the vSPD
project
–
vectorised Scheduling, Pricing and Dispatch
–
which is an audited,
mathematical replica of SPD, the pricing and dispatch engine used in the New Zealand
electricity market. The Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) is the most active public
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sector organisation with several actively developed OSS projects relating to map, grid,
and imagery data.
A previously highlighted project is the Common Web Platform project, based on the
vendor-sponsored OSS-based Content Management System (CMS) - SilverStripe CMS
(Findlay, 2015). The project, launched in 2013, served as a platform for government
agencies to build their own websites and web-based platforms. SilverStripe, the backing
vendor, reported in 2015 on how the project received a growing adoption but limited
sharing and contributions from government agencies. Accordingly, the vendor
proposed a series of recommendations for how the community collaboration of the OSS
project could improve (from the same author as of the NZGOAL-SE policy). As of 2021,
the OSS project is dormant and not actively developed.
19.7 References
Findlay, C. (2015). Open innovation and strategic code sharing on the New Zealand
Government Common Web Platform. Retrieved on November 16, 2023, from
https://github.com/camfindlay/opensource-
nzgovt/blob/master/open_innovation_and_strategic_code_sharing_on_cwp.md.
Government Information Services. (2016). Open source licence guidance for the New
Zealand Government through public participation. Retrieved on November 14, 2023,
from
https://www.data.govt.nz/catalogue-guide/showcase/nzgoal-se-open-source-
licensing/.
Government Information Services. (2017). Open source software release saves nearly
$1m. Retrieved on November 14, 2023, from https://www.data.govt.nz/catalogue-
guide/showcase/sia-open-source/.
Land Information New Zealand. (2016). NZGOAL-SE public consultation report - Open
Government Information and Data Programme. Retrieved on November 16, 2023, from
https://www.data.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/nzgoal-se-public-consultation-report-
2016.pdf.
Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment. (2019). Government Procurement
Rules - Rules for sustainable and inclusive procurement. Retrieved on November 14,
2023,
from
https://www.procurement.govt.nz/assets/procurement-
property/documents/government-procurement-rules.pdf.
New Zealand Government. (2022a). Digital Service Design Standard. Retrieved on
November
14,
2023,
from
https://www.digital.govt.nz/standards-and-
guidance/digital-service-design-standard/.
New Zealand Government. (2022b). Digital Service Design Standard. 8. Collaborate
widely, reuse and enable reuse by others. Retrieved on November 14, 2023, from
https://www.digital.govt.nz/standards-and-guidance/digital-service-design-
standard/principles/collaborate-widely-reuse-and-enable-reuse-by-others/.
New Zealand Government. (2019). Digital Service Design Standard. 7. Work in the
open. Retrieved on November 14, 2023, from https://www.digital.govt.nz/standards-
and-guidance/digital-service-design-standard/principles/work-in-the-open/.
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New Zealand Government. (2016). NZGOAL software extension policy. Version 1.
Retrieved
on
November
14,
2023,
from
https://www.data.govt.nz/toolkit/policies/nzgoal/nzgoal-se/.
New Zealand Government. (2014). NZGOAL (version 2). Retrieved on November 14,
2023, from https://www.data.govt.nz/toolkit/policies/nzgoal/nzgoal-version-2/.
New Zealand Government. (n.d.). Strategy for a Digital Public Service. Retrieved on
December
18,
2023,
from
https://www.digital.govt.nz/digital-
government/strategy/strategy-summary/strategy-for-a-digital-public-service/#the-
collective-behaviours-that-will-characterise-a-modern--agile-and-adaptive-public-
service-_title.
Open Source Open Society. (2016). A Policy Win For Open Source Software In New
Zealand.
Retrieved
on
November
14,
2023,
from
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1608/S00042/a-policy-win-for-open-source-
software-in-new-zealand.htm?source=post_page-----ce848f0a7edb-----------------------
---------.
State Services Commission. (2008). Guidelines for Treatment of Intellectual Property
Rights in ICT Contracts. Retrieved on November 14, 2023, from
https://www.data.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/ipr-guidelines-2008.pdf.
Upston, L. (2016). Guidelines unlock govt software for innovation. Press release.
Retrieved
on
November
14,
2023,
from
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/guidelines-unlock-govt-software-innovation.
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20
Country report: Spain
20.1 Abstract
Policy and stakeholders:
Spanish PSOs are required to share public software which
they own with others, where OSS is seen as a means according to Law no. 40/2015. The
law is complemented by the government instructions in Royal Decree 4/2010 which
provides, e.g., provides further details on licenses to consider. Existing software should
always be considered in the beginning of any acquisition and procurement process.
Policy goals:
The rationale overarching the several policies relates to maintaining the
independence of suppliers, enabling interoperability, and driving cost-efficiencies
across PSOs, explained and motivated through the reuse possibilities offered through
the sharing of software as OSS. Localization to regional languages another goal driving
regional governments.
Implementation and support:
General guidelines for the publication and licensing
of reusable assets as OSS is provided by the Secretariat-General for Digital
Administration. Red.es has incorporated the earlier national government OSPO
represented by CENATIC. The level of support provided as of today is though unclear.
The Technology Transfer Centre fills a complementary role by enabling and promoting
software reuse. Some regional governments have established their own OSPO to
support its own use and development of OSS-based solutions.
Promotion for reuse:
The Technology Transfer Centre maintains a general software
catalogue facilitating and promoting reuse among PSOs. The PSOs, in turn, are
required to consult the directory and report new software for reuse. Regional
catalogues are also reported of, e.g., in the regions of Andalusia, Galicia, and the Basque
Country.
Success stories:
gvSIG project
–
a catalogue of tools for managing and visualising
geographical information data (gvSIG, n.d.), founded in 2004 is maintained jointly by
Generalitat Valenciana and the gvSIG association. The OSS provides an example of how
a project may mature from the confines of a single PSO to a neutral governing body that
can facilitate the development and collaboration of an emerging international
community.
20.2 Policy and stakeholders
In Spain, current legislation and policy are primarily focused on promoting and
enabling the reuse of software in general in accordance with the Spanish National
Interoperability Framework (Esquema Nacional de Interoperabilidad
–
ENI, n.d.). OSS
is considered as an instrument for such reuse. Law no. 40/2015, succeeding the
eGovernment Law no.11/2007 (Ley 11/2007, de 22 de junio, de acceso electrónico de
los ciudadanos a los Servicios Públicos, 2007), requires PSOs to share an application to
which they own the intellectual property rights of, to another PSO upon such a request
unless special conditions apply (Ley 40/2015, de 1 de octubre, de Régimen Jurídico del
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Sector Público, 2015). The application may be released as OSS if this, e.g., contributes
to greater transparency for the PSO’s operations.
PSOs are accordingly required to consult the government’s general software
catalogue
of applications for any reuse candidates. If these do exist, PSOs are obliged to reuse
such options unless special conditions apply. The general software catalogue is
maintained by the Technology Transfer Centre (Centro de Transferencia de Tecnología,
n.d.). Each PSO is further obliged to maintain its own catalogue that may be reused by
others. These catalogues should be interoperable and connect with the overarching
catalogue.
Royal Decree 4/2010 (Real Decreto 4/2010, de 8 de enero, por el que se regula el
Esquema Nacional de Interoperabilidad en el ámbito de la Administración Electrónica,
2010) complements Law no. 40/2015 (and by extension Law no. 11/2007) by specifying
in detail the licensing conditions for any reuse. OSS is highlighted as a reuse
mechanism, and licenses that maintain the original rights of an OSS in derivative works
should be used, leaning towards what is referred to as copyleft licenses as the
preference (Secretaría de Estado de Administraciones Públicas, 2022). The European
Union Public License (EUPL) is explicitly highlighted, although others are not excluded
if they prescribe the same conditions as stated in the Decree.
To enforce the requirements, PSOs are urged to gain ownership of the IP when software
is developed from scratch through a public tender, in alignment with the national
procurement legislation, which obliges the service provider performing the
development to transfer any rights unless stated otherwise (Real Decreto Legislativo
3/2011, de 14 de noviembre, por el que se aprueba el texto refundido de la Ley de
Contratos del Sector Público, 2011). If a pre-existing software is received, it should be
under such conditions that it can be reshared with other PSOs under the conditions
defined in the Royal Decree 4/2010.
The Decree echoes the requirements in Law No. 40/2015 that the General State
Administration, through its Technology Transfer Centre (Centro de Transferencia de
Tecnología, n.d.), is to maintain a general software catalogue of applications for free
reuse between PSOs. Each PSO is, by extension, also required to publish such
applications either in the general catalogue or in a catalogue integrating with the
general one. Source code, documentation, license conditions, and associated costs
should be shared and declared.
On the regional and local levels, there has been additional policy work (Ajuntament de
Barcelona, 2018). The regional government of Galicia created the initiative Mancomún,
aimed at encouraging and facilitating the adoption of OSS in the region (Thévenet,
2023). The regional government of Andalusia initiated an Order of 21 February 2005
that encourages the (re)use of OSS among PSOs and the creation and maintenance of a
public software catalogue for OSS. The regional government of the Basque country also
encourages OSS and reuse in the context of IT platforms among PSOs through Decree
159/2012, of 24 July. Barcelona provides an example of OSS policy and adoption on the
local level (Ajuntament de Barcelona, 2018).
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20.3 Policy goals
The rationale overarching the several policies relates to maintaining the independence
of suppliers, enabling interoperability, and driving cost-efficiencies across PSOs,
explained and motivated through the reuse possibilities offered through the sharing of
software as OSS. CENTIAC highlighted several aspects in earlier reports (Centro
Nacional de Referencia de Aplicación de las TIC, n.d.-a, n.d.-b), although the use of
OSS as a key element for the development of electronic administration and a
government open to citizens is specifically emphasized, aligning with the Law no.
40/2015 and the eGovernment Law no.11/2007. On the regional level, OSS is also seen
as a means of localizing software to incorporate regional languages, and specific needs
(Thévenet, 2023).
20.4 Implementation and support
The several policies have been supported mainly from Centro Nacional de Referencia
de Aplicación de las TIC (CENATIC), a public entity corresponding to a national
government OSPO founded in 2006. Their scope was to support the adoption and
release of OSS from the Spanish PSOs. In 2013 they merged into Red.es, an entity
under the Secretary of State for Digitization and Artificial Intelligence (Secretaría de
Estado de Digitalización e Inteligencia Artificial), working to execute strategic
programs in enabling the information society in Spain. The Technology Transfer Centre
(Centro de Transferencia de Tecnología, n.d.), as earlier highlighted, also fills a
complementary role in promoting and facilitating reuse across the public sector.
General guidelines for the publication and licensing of reusable assets as OSS is
provided by the Secretariat-General for Digital Administration (Secretaría de Estado de
Administraciones Públicas, 2022). The intention is to support the reuse of applications
in alignment with Law no. 40/2015 (Secretaría de Estado de Administraciones
Públicas, 2021), and Royal Decree 4/2010. The guidelines provide clarity on the legal
and policy background and context for releasing OSS, provide clarity in terms of license
selection, and what to consider practically when releasing software such as OSS.
In some of the regions, OSS has been supported for longer periods of time, commonly
including a migration towards GNU/Linux-based environments localized to regional
languages. Galicia is one of the regions where the migration as progressed the most,
where the whole public sector finished its migration towards a GNU/Linux-based-
environment with Libreoffice as a productivity suite in 2018 (Thévenet, 2023). The
regional OSPO (La Oficina de Software Libre of La Xunta de Galicia) provides general
support for regional PSOs. A regional platform is operated to collect and share
knowledge on the use and release of OSS, including a guide with best practices
(Manomún Iniciativas Sobre Software Libre En Galicia, 2022).
20.5 Promotion for reuse
The Technology Transfer Centre (Centro de Transferencia de Tecnología, n.d.)
maintains a general software catalogue facilitating and promoting reuse among PSOs.
The PSOs, in turn, are required to consult the directory and report new software for
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reuse. Regional catalogues are also reported of, e.g., in the regions of Andalusia,
Galicia, and the Basque Country (Ajuntament de Barcelona, 2018). The regional
government of Galicia also hosts their own coding platform where the regional OSS
projects are hosted (Thévenet, 2023).
20.6 Success stories
A prominent success case includes the gvSIG project
–
a catalogue of tools for
managing and visualising geographical information data (gvSIG, n.d.). Founded in
2004 by the Generalitat Valenciana, the OSS provides a large series of use cases
ranging from natural resource management to urban planning and is adopted among
160 countries. Today, the project is maintained jointly by Generalitat Valenciana and
the gvSIG association. The OSS provides an example of how a project may mature from
the confines of a single PSO to a neutral governing body that can facilitate the
development and collaboration of an emerging international community.
Another corresponding example regards Decidim, an OSS platform for enabling citizen
participation, primarily on a city level (Decidim, n.d.). The project originates from the
City of Barcelona, and is based on Consul, a similar project sprung out of the City of
Madrid. Since the initial application of Decidim in Barcelona in 2016, the development
has progressed beyond the city and is now facilitated by the independent not-for-profit
organization The Decidim Free Software Association, which is similar to the setup of
the gvSIG project.
20.7 References
Ajuntament de Barcelona. (2018). Technological sovereignty guide - Free software and
the Public
administration. Retrieved on December 4, 2023, from
https://ajuntamentdebarcelona.github.io/ethical-digital-standards-site/tech-
sovereignty/0.1/public-administration.html.
Axencia Para A Modernización Tecnolóxica De Galicia. Plan de Acción Software Libre
2022. Retrieved on December 21, 2023, from https://mancomun.gal/es/ficha/plan-de-
software-libre-2022/.
Centro de Transferencia de Tecnología. (n.d.). Centro de Transferencia de TecnologÍa
–
CTT.
Retrieved
on
December
4,
2023,
from
https://administracionelectronica.gob.es/ctt/CTTprincipalEs.htm?urlMagnolia=/pae_
Home/pae_SolucionesCTT.html.
Centro Nacional de Referencia de Aplicación de las TIC. (n.d.-a). Diez razones para el
uso de software de fuentes abiertas en la educación. Retrieved on December 4, 2023,
from https://administracionelectronica.gob.es/pae_Home/dam/jcr:e3df3245-9549-
4087-b48e-
1f7119c89fe4/10_razones_para_el_uso_de_Software_de_Fuentes_Abiertas_en_la_E
ducacion_2010.pdf.
Centro Nacional de Referencia de Aplicación de las TIC. (n.d.-b). Diez razones para que
la administración libere software. Retrieved on December 4, 2023, from
https://administracionelectronica.gob.es/pae_Home/dam/jcr:2d2a13c2-744f-4882-
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96f8-
caee449e887d/10_razones_para_que_la_Administracion_libere_software_2010_ext
endido.pdf.
Decidim. (n.d.). Decidim Documentation
–
About. Retrieved on December 6, 2023,
from https://docs.decidim.org/en/develop/understand/about.html.
Esquema Nacional de Interoperabilidad
–
ENI. (n.d.). Retrieved on December 4, 2023,
from
https://administracionelectronica.gob.es/pae_Home/pae_Estrategias/pae_Interopera
bilidad_Inicio/pae_Esquema_Nacional_de_Interoperabilidad.html.
gvSIG. (2023). The GVSIG Project, driven by the Generalitat Valenciana and the GVSIG
Association, awarded as the best software project in Europe at the OSOR Awards.
Retrieved on December 6, 2023, from https://blog.gvsig.org/2023/11/23/the-gvsig-
project-driven-by-the-generalitat-valenciana-and-the-gvsig-association-awarded-as-
the-best-software-project-in-europe-at-the-osor-awards/.
Ley 40/2015, de 1 de octubre, de Régimen Jurídico del Sector Público. (2015).
Retrieved
on
December
1,
2023,
from
https://www.boe.es/eli/es/l/2015/10/01/40/con.
Ley 11/2007, de 22 de junio, de acceso electrónico de los ciudadanos a los Servicios
Públicos.
(2007).
Retrieved
on
December
4,
2023,
from
https://www.boe.es/eli/es/l/2007/06/22/11/con.
Manomún Iniciativas Sobre Software Libre En Galicia. (2022). Guía de Boas Prácticas
para Liberación de Contidos e Software. Retrieved on December 21, 2023, from
https://mancomun.gal/ficha/guia-de-boas-practicas-para-liberacion-de-contidos-e-
software/.
Real Decreto 4/2010, de 8 de enero, por el que se regula el Esquema Nacional de
Interoperabilidad en el ámbito de la Administración Electrónica. (2010). Retrieved on
December 1, 2023, from https://www.boe.es/eli/es/rd/2010/01/08/4/con.
Real Decreto Legislativo 3/2011, de 14 de noviembre, por el que se aprueba el texto
refundido de la Ley de Contratos del Sector Público. (2011). Retrieved on December 4,
2023, from https://www.boe.es/eli/es/rdlg/2011/11/14/3/con.
Secretaría de Estado de Administraciones Públicas. (2022). Reutilización de activos.
Guía de publicación y licenciamiento de activos. 2ª edición electrónica: octubre 2022.
Ministerio de Hacienda y Administraciones Públicas. Retrieved on December 1, 2023,
from
https://administracionelectronica.gob.es/pae_Home/ca/dam/jcr:d277818a-
3f2d-408f-87e3-85a925863088/2022-ENI_ReutilizacionActivos.pdf.
Thévenet, A. (2023). Free & Open Source Software in Galicia, Spain: The Mancomún
Project.
Retrieved
on
December
21,
2023,
from
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/open-source-observatory-osor/document/free-
open-source-software-galicia-spain-mancomun-project.
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21
South Korea
21.1 Abstract
Policy and stakeholders:
The first public policy initiatives related to OSS in Korea
were motivated by wanting to reduce vendor lock-in and involved attempts to move
away from dominant proprietary software government computers to OSS alternatives.
However, since then, the Korean government’s
OSS policy initiatives
have focused
mostly on OSS as part of industrial policy.
Policy goals:
The overarching goal of South Korea’s OSS policy is to stimulate
economic development. The government aims to create a
“software-centric
society”
and
becoming a hub for running software businesses. The pursuit of digital sovereignty and
reducing foreign dependency is another driver.
Implementation and support:
The government maintains a strong institutional
framework, allocating substantial budgets, such as the $12 million for the Open Source
Software Competence Plaza (OSSCP), to provide comprehensive support. The Korea
Copyright Commission (KCC) dedicates $3 million annually to promote OSS license
compliance and governance. Guidance provided to companies ensures adherence to
license terms, fostering a culture of reuse.
Promotion for reuse:
The addition of Article 24-2 to the South Korean Copyright
Law allows for the free reuse of governmental works, including software. The
government maintains a database containing OSS product information and source
code, promoting transparency and facilitating reuse.
21.2 Policy and stakeholders
South Korea is widely recognized as one of the most digitally advanced countries
advanced in the world. It ranked second among 176 countries in the International
Telecommunication Union (ITU)’s 2017 ICT Development Index.
The country is also
among the world’s top performers in the digitalization of its public sector. According to
the UN DESA’s 2022 E-government
Index, South Korea is the leading country in Asia,
and third worldwide in e-government development.
The first public policy initiatives related to OSS in Korea were motivated by wanting to
reduce vendor lock-in and involved attempts to move away from dominant proprietary
software government computers to OSS alternatives. Since then, the Korean
government’s
OSS policy initiatives
have focused mostly on OSS as part of industrial
policy. Public procurement and re-use of software within the public sector plays a
secondary role. The Ministry of Strategy and Finance has issued a guideline on budget
preparation which mentions the possibility of procuring OSS, but no preference is
stated for OSS (National IT Industry Promotion Agency, 2016).
The Open Source Software Invigoration Plan of 2014
is South Korea’s overarching OSS
promotion policy. It outlines the South Korean government’s intention to increase its
use of OSS to decrease its dependence on proprietary software solutions. The plan
involves switching to open standards such as HTML5 to reduce e-government services
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3051604_0097.png
lock-in to specific IT vendors. The plan also foresees a gradual increase in alternative
operating systems, web browsers, and other software solutions. The intention to
increase South Korean participation in global projects and to grow its domestic
communities of OSS developers is also stated.
In 2020, the South Korean government amended the Software Promotion Act in
relation to OSS
32
. Specifically, Article 25 of the amended Act states that when
conducting national research and development projects in the software field, the
Government shall endeavor to a) adopt a development method that discloses the source
code of the software so that those other than the software developer can participate in
the process of developing, maintaining, and managing the software; and b) distribute
the results of national research and development projects as open source. The Minister
of Science and ICT shall also make efforts to disseminate a software development
culture based on openness, sharing and cooperation.
21.3 Policy goals
The overarching goal of South Korea’s OSS policy is to stimulate economic
development. In 2023, the government announced that as a part of its aims of creating
a “software-centric society” and becoming a hub for running software businesses
it
planned to train 200,000 specialized workers and encourage the use of open-source
computing to create a competitive open source-based ecosystem (Pulsenews, 2023).
The pursuit of digital sovereignty by reducing its dependence on proprietary software
solutions is another driver.
21.4 Implementation and support
In 2007,
the South Korean government published an “Open Source Software License
Guide”, which is still being updated. The government aimed to help software
developers and companies to fully understand the terms and conditions of typical OSS
licences (Metzger, 2016).
The Open Up - Open Software Support Centre was founded in 2020 (by integrating the
existing OSS Competency Plaza and Korea Open Source Software Developers Lab) and
is a joint initiative by The Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) and The National IT-
Industry Promotion Agency (NIPA). Open Up is dedicated to assisting OSS developers,
communities, and companies utilizing OSS solutions. The OSS Contribution Academy
offers programmes to help developers improve their OSS capabilities. Open Up also
offers learning opportunities for the public sector, consulting on OSS adoption, and
expertise on licensing issues. The center encourages public organizations to transition
to open source and provides a free dedicated space for OSS developers and community
activities, including meetings and seminars.
32
https://elaw.klri.re.kr/eng_mobile/viewer.do?hseq=54778&type=sogan&key=54
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21.5 Promotion for reuse
The re-use of governmental work, including software, was added to the South Korean
Copyright Law in 2013 as Article 24-2. Governmental works (to which the government
owns all rights) can be freely re-used by everyone, including the government. The law
also leaves the option for the government further to incentivise the re-use of
governmental work. The government maintains a database, containing OSS product
information and source code that is in scope for the law (Korea Copyright Commission,
2013).
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22
Country report: Sweden
22.1 Abstract
Policy and stakeholders:
Sweden has no legislative or national policy requiring or
encouraging the use or release of OSS. Several PSOs does, however, have corresponding
internal advisory policies, including the Agency for Digital Government, Swedish
Insurance Agency, Statistics Sweden, and Sundsvall municipality.
Policy goals:
Several PSOs emphasise how the drivers for adopting and contributing
to OSS are many, including cost savings, reuse, increase attractiveness for skilled
labour, and increase of transparency for public services. The agency-specific policies
further emphasize the potential for interoperable and digitally sovereign public services
and infrastructure.
Implementation and support:
Specific guidelines are provided from the different
PSOs who have adopted internal OSS policies, as well as through the NOSAD network
where knowledge is shared and collaboratively created. The network further provides a
source of support by connecting experts, users, researchers, and practitioners, together
helping to mature the use and adoption of OSS in the Swedish public sector.
Promotion for reuse:
Offentligkod.se is a public catalogue of OSS used by PSOs
within Sweden. The catalogue is maintained through NOSAD with data reported on a
voluntary basis from the PSOs and vendors themselves. Another catalogue, although
closed, is the Dela Digitalt platform, maintained by the Swedish Association of
Municipalities and Counties, where PSOs can share insights on software solutions that
they are using, either open or proprietary.
Success stories:
A set of PSOs have collaborated on the development of a moderator
panel and outlook-plugin for Jitsi which is hosted under the GitHub organization of the
Agency for Digital Government. This has proved an exploratory process for how PSOs
can collaborate on the development, as well as how to think about the long-term
maintenance of the project, now providing a template for how new components can be
developed collaboratively.
22.2 Policy and stakeholders
Sweden does not have a legislative or national policy requiring or encouraging the use
or release of OSS. There are, however, institution-focused policies that guide and
provide inspiration for other PSOs. The Swedish Insurance Agency released their
guidelines for adoption and release of OSS in 2019 (Försäkringskassan, 2019), which
has provided inspiration for the Agency of Digital Government, and the municipality of
Sundsvall (Sundsvalls kommun, 2023). These guidelines states that OSS should always
be considered if they fulfil the stated requirements, and when the total cost of
ownership, including implementation and transition costs. Statictics Sweden
(Statistiska Centralbyrån, 2022) is another example where an OSS policy also recently
has been created.
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The Agency for Digital Government revised their policy in 2022 which defines a set of
principles inspired by the European Commission’s OSS strategy (2020). The principles
highlight the need for being as open as possible, and limitations should only be
introduced when explicitly motivated (DIGG, 2022a). Active reuse, contributions back
to the OSS projects, security monitoring, and use of open standards are also highlighted
by the principles. The Swedish Insurance Agency’s policy
An earlier and more general recommendation was provided by the Swedish
government through an expert group in e-government, E-delegationen (later evolved
into eSamverkan - eSam), highlighting that public e-services as far as possible should
be based on open standards and use OSS to avoid dependence on any single platform or
solution. E-delegationen later added that OSS should always be considered if motivated
from a total cost of ownership (SOU, 2009).
22.3 Policy goals
The several institution-centric policies highlight the goal of maximising the value for
themselves and others by enabling the reuse and collaborative development of software
(e.g., DIGG, 2022a). The enablement of interoperability for a common digital
infrastructure, and digital sovereignty in terms of technical solutions are other aspects
highlighted. E-delegationen emphasises how the drivers for adopting and contributing
to OSS are many, including cost savings, reuse, increase attractiveness for skilled
labour, and increase of transparency for public services (SOU, 2010). A Government
letter to the Swedish parliament further highlights OSS as a tool along with innovation
procurement and partnerships to promote the development and adoption of digital
innovations (Regeringen, 2017).
Risks and benefits of adopting OSS has been studied by various reports, e.g., by the
Swedish Public Employment Service (Arbetsförmedlingen, 2021). The study concludes
that any potential risk is manageable, and among other things proposes the creation of
an Open Source Program Office (OSPO) to support the adoption and development of
OSS, while proactively contributing to their sustainability and managing potential risks
up-front. In another report, the Swedish Public Broadcasting Service provides internal
view on OSS to anchor a general understand of its potential value, and related
challenges (Hjelm, 2023).
22.4 Implementation and support
The Agency for Digital Government released guidelines for the development and
release of OSS in 2022, following the revision of their OSS policy. The guidelines
provide guidance in terms of licensing choices, where preference is given to copyleft
licenses in cases where the OSS makes up part of a larger platform or infrastructure to
ensure public investments are kept open (DIGG, 2022b). For cases where the OSS is
intended to be spread widely both in open and closed settings, a set of permissive
licenses are recommended. The guidelines further recommend (among other things)
that documentation be kept up to date and licensed under a Creative Commons license,
lists additional artifacts to include such as a readme file, use an open issue tracker while
a project is active, and create a routine to note and reply to new pull requests and issues
that are posted in a project.
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Another initiative underway is the creation of a template for OSS project repositories in
terms of what documentation, artefacts and processes that should be defined according
to best practice to enable reuse and collaborative development (DIGG, 2023a). The
repository template is developed by the agency in collaboration with the Danish OSS
association OS2, and the Dutch civil society organization Foundation for Public Code. A
related checklist for releasing OSS is also maintained (DIGG, 2023b).
The agency is further a driving force in an informal collaboration referred to as ASOM
where mainly national level PSOs collaborate the development and maintenance of
common OSS components, hosted under the Agency for Digital Government GitHub
organization. Two examples include a moderation panel, and outlook-plugin for Jitsi,
an OSS chat service.
Another, though more formal type of collaboration is represented by eSam (n.d.-a), an
association of PSOs, also mostly on the national level. The association brings together
the secretary generals and main decision makers of the PSOs, as well as experts and
architects to collaborate and harmonize on solutions for e-government and common
digital infrastructure projects. They have recently conducted a market survey of
technical solutions that comply with data protection and cloud regulation implied from
the EU level (eSam, n.d.-b). Many of the solutions identified are OSS-based and are
currently undergoing evaluation among a minor set of PSOs. The association has also
released their own guidelines for the use and release of OSS highlighting the existence
of external resources for support (eSam, 2022).
On the municipal level, there are several initiatives ongoing and varying in maturity.
One example concerns Sambruk (n.d.-a), a municipal association focused on enabling
and maintaining common systems and standards for its members. The association is
not specifically focused on OSS exclusively but does facilitate the maintenance of a
smaller set of OSS-based solutions. The association have also started to experiment
with OSS solutions from the Danish sister association OS2. Certain municipalities play
an especially important role in driving the general change and transformation forward,
including Sundsvall (n.d.) and Alingsås municipalities. Both have a strong local
political support of OSS adoption and development, policies in place, and substantial
infrastructure based and concisely developed as OSS to promote and enable reuse with
other municipalities.
Complementary to aforementioned collaborations is NOSAD (Network Open Source
and Data), a network for knowledge-sharing and creation in the context of OSS and
open data (NOSAD, n.d.). The network facilitates monthly workshops on different
themes within the context and acts as a platform for general as well as specific
discussions. Subnetworks are also facilitated, including the user group for RODA, an
OSS e-archival solution (NOSAD, 2023). The Swedish Open Source Program Office
(OSPO) network is also facilitated under the NOSAD umbrella, brining together both
public and private actors to share knowledge hands-on in physical workshops.
The National Procurement Services has in several iterations since 2007 created a
framework agreement related to the procurement of OSS, e.g., through supply,
integration, or support (OSOR, 2012). The framework agreement is optional to use,
aside from a more general framework agreement where OSS may also be procured
under. The framework focusing on OSS requires mini-competitions to be held between
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the selected suppliers, and provides templates for what information to ask for, along
with conditions to be included in the tender detailing, e.g., that must provide the
software under the conditions implicated by an OSS license (referring to the list
maintained by the Open Source Initiative), that any changes or additions to existing
OSS projects should be contributed back upstream, and that all source code and related
documentation should be published on a public website. The detailed conditions and
templates lower the bar for PSOs with limited knowledge in terms of how to consider
OSS in a procurement process. The latest version of the framework and templates are
valid from 2021 (Kammarkollegiet, 2021).
22.5 Promotion for reuse
Offentligkod.se is a public catalogue of OSS used by PSOs within Sweden (NOSAD,
n.d.-b). The catalogue is maintained through NOSAD with data reported on a voluntary
basis from the PSOs and vendors themselves. By listing the PSOs using an OSS, other
PSOs are able to know who to contact, but also creates a level of trust towards the OSS
listed. Another catalogue, although closed, is the Dela Digitalt platform, maintained by
the Swedish Association of Municipalities and Counties, where PSOs can share insights
on software solutions that they are using, either open or proprietary (Sveriges
Kommuner och Regioner, n.d.).
22.6 Success stories
In line with the exploration and adoption of GDPR and Schrems II compliant tools for
collaboration and communication, several PSOs have begun experimenting with Jitsi,
an OSS video chat platform. As part of the integration process, a set of PSOs have
collaborated on the development of a moderator panel and outlook-plugin for Jitsi
which is hosted under the GitHub organization of the Agency for Digital Government.
This has proved an exploratory process for how PSOs can collaborate on the
development, as well as how to think about the long-term maintenance of the project.
The goal is to upstream the components to the Jitsi OSS project. The means of working
has provided a template for how new components can be developed collaboratively.
One of the more well-adopted OSS is the Open ePlatform, an e-service platform
originating from an EU-project in 2016 and today used by almost 200 of the 290
municipalities in Sweden. The municipalities collaborate in a user association sharing
knowledge and use cases of the platform. They are also currently driving a
transformation of the project as they are currently in a soft lock-in with the vendor who
develops and maintains the project (Persson & Magnusson, 2023). The goal is for the
project to become open for competition and support by multiple vendors, and reduce
the technical debt that has grown due to the vendor lock-in.
Another example includes HAJK, a web-based editor and visualisation tool for
Geographical Information System (GIS) data (Hajk, n.d.). The platform is used and
collaboratively developed by about 15 municipalities. A similar OSS tool is the map
framework Origo (n.d.), which has also received broad adoption. FixaMinGata, a
localized version of the upstream and international OSS project FixMyStreet is another
well-adopted example hosted and maintained by Sambruk (n.d.-b).
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22.7 References
Arbetsförmedlingen. (2021). Öppen källkod Riskanalys av Arbetsförmedlingens
hantering av öppen källkod (Af-2021/0082 2220). Retrieved on December 18, 2023,
from
https://gitlab.com/open-data-knowledge-sharing/wiki/-
/wikis/uploads/filer/2021-10-25_Shared_Riskanalys_Arbetsformedlingen.pdf.
DIGG. (2022a). Policy för anskaffning samt utveckling av programvara (2022-2606).
Retrieved
on
December
18,
2023,
from
https://www.digg.se/download/18.72c5e64d183579af3fd1b6b/1664286148262/policy-
for-anskaffning-samt-utveckling-av-programvara.pdf.
DIGG. (2022b). Riktlinjer för utveckling och publicering av öppen programvara (2022-
2607).
Retrieved
on
December
18,
2023,
from
https://www.digg.se/download/18.72c5e64d183579af3fd1b6c/1664286148293/riktlinj
er-for-utveckling-och-publicering-av-oppen-programvara.pdf.
DIGG. (2023a). Open Source Project Template. Retrieved on December 18, 2023, from
https://github.com/diggsweden/open-source-project-template.
DIGG. (2023b). The Open Source Release Checklist. Retrieved on December 18, 2023,
from
https://github.com/diggsweden/open-source-project-
template/blob/main/docs/Open_Source_Checklist.adoc#workflows.
European Commission. (2020). Open Source Software Strategy 2020-2023 - Think
Open.
Retrieved
on
December
14,
2023,
from
https://commission.europa.eu/system/files/2023-
02/en_ec_open_source_strategy_2020-2023.pdf.
eSam. (n.d.-a). Om Esam. Offentlig samverkan för ökad digitalisering. Retrieved on
December 18, 2023, from https://www.esamverka.se/om-esam/om-esam.html.
eSam. (n.d.-b). Om Esam. Utveckling i Samverkan. Digital samarbetsplattform.
Retrieved on December 18, 2023, from https://www.esamverka.se/vad-vi-
gor/trendanalys-och-omvarldsbevakning/digital-samarbetsplattform.html.
eSam. (2022). Råd. Delning och användning av öppen källkod (ES2022-09). Retrieved
on
December
18,
2023,
from
https://www.esamverka.se/download/18.74e1936a1808eb1ad123f609/1652347194550
/ES2022-
09%20Delning%20och%20anv%C3%A4ndning%20av%20%C3%B6ppen%20k%C3%A
4llkod.pdf.
Försäkringskassan. (2019). Riktlinje för öppen källkod. Retrieved on December 14,
2023, from https://github.com/Forsakringskassan/riktlinje-oppenkallkod.
Hajk. (n.d.). Om Hajk. Retrieved on December 18, 2023, from https://hajkmap.se/om-
hajk/.
Hjelm, F. (2023).
Hjelm, F. (2023). The State of F/LOSS* @ SVT * Free/Libre Open Source Software.
Retrieved on December 18, 2023, from https://gitlab.com/open-data-knowledge-
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sharing/wiki/-/wikis/uploads/9765b5f3c5d2a6ad99121a6c767a6c13/SVT_State-of-
FLOSS_FridaHjelm_20230623__002_.pdf.
Kammarkollegiet. (2021). Bilaga Särskilda villkor för Öppen källkod Datacenter 2021
(23.3-2771-21).
Retrieved
on
December
20,
2023,
from
https://www.avropa.se/globalassets/bilagor/1.-aktuella-rao/datacenter/natverk-och-
sakerhet/1.-gemensamma-dok/bilaga-sarskilda-villkor-for-oppen-
kallkod.pdf?v=8dab13d061c8400&_t_id=u8cQX_zWMvliVZ3THPtZjg%3d%3d&_t_u
uid=meO56DPjRAyxLVlIF8xFog&_t_q=%C3%B6ppen+k%C3%A4llkod&_t_tags=sitei
d%3a95d515a5-23ca-47bf-87a9-
07b10d8ac360%2clanguage%3asv%2candquerymatch&_t_hit.id=Avropa_Core_Mode
ls_Media_GenericMedia/_cf21e5e1-497a-4b6e-9e6f-2c2d55ae3493&_t_hit.pos=3.
Linåker, J., & Runeson, P. (2020). Collaboration in open government data ecosystems:
Open cross-sector sharing and co-development of data and software. In Electronic
Government: 19th IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference, EGOV 2020, Linköping,
Sweden, August 31–September 2, 2020, Proceedings 19 (pp. 290-303). Springer
International Publishing.
Myndigheten för Digital Förvaltning. (2022a). Policy för anskaffning samt utveckling
av
programvara.
Retrieved
on
December
14,
2023,
from
https://www.digg.se/download/18.72c5e64d183579af3fd1b6b/1664286148262/policy-
for-anskaffning-samt-utveckling-av-programvara.pdf.
Myndigheten för Digital Förvaltning. (2022b). Riktlinjer för utveckling och publicering
av
öppen
programvara.
Retrieved
on
December
14,
2023,
from
https://www.digg.se/download/18.72c5e64d183579af3fd1b6c/1664286148293/riktlinj
er-for-utveckling-och-publicering-av-oppen-programvara.pdf.
NOSAD. (n.d.-a). NOSAD. Retrieved on December 18, 2023, from https://nosad.se/.
NOSAD. (n.d.-b). Offentligkod.se.
https://offentligkod.se/.
Retrieved
on
December
18,
2023,
from
NOSAD. (2023). Roda-nätverket för svenska myndigheter. Retrieved on December 18,
2023, from https://nosad.se/roda.
Origo. (n.d.) Origo documentation. Retrieved on December 18, 2023, from
https://origo-map.github.io/origo-documentation/latest/.
Persson, P., & Magnusson, J. (2023). Öppen källkod i offentlig digitalisering: Analys av
Open ePlatform ur ett öppet källkodsperspektiv. Retrieved on December 18, 2023, from
https://gup.ub.gu.se/publication/324611.
Regeringen. (2017). Hur Sverige blir bäst i världen på att använda digitaliseringens
möjligheter
–
en skrivelse om politikens inriktning. Regeringens skrivelse 2017/18:47,
Skr. 2017/18:47.
Sambruk. (n.d.-a). Om Sambruk. Retrieved on December 18, 2023, from
https://sambruk.se/om-sambruk/.
Sambruk. (n.d.-b). Fixa min gata. Retrieved on December 18, 2018, from
https://sambruk.se/fixa-min-gata/.
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SOU. (2009). Strategi för myndigheternas arbete med e-förvaltning. Statens Offentliga
Utredningar: SOU 2009:86, e-Delegationen, Finansdepartementet, Regeringskansliet,
Stockholm.
SOU. (2010). Så enkelt som möjligt för så många som möjligt - från strategi till
handling för e-förvaltning. Statens Offentliga Utredningar: SOU 2010:20, e-
Delegationen, Finansdepartementet, Regeringskansliet, Stockholm.
Statistiska Centralbyrån. (2022). Riktlinjer för tillgängliggörande av Öppen källkod på
SCB.
Retrieved
on
December
18,
2023,
from
https://github.com/statisticssweden/riktlinje-
oppenkallkod/blob/main/riktlinjer%20f%C3%B6r%20tillg%C3%A4ngligg%C3%B6ran
de%20av%20oppen%20kallkod%20p%C3%A5%20SCB.md.
Sundsvalls kommun. (n.d.). Öppen källkod och öppna lösningar. Retrieved on
December 18, 2023, from https://utveckling.sundsvall.se/kallkod-och-data/oppen-
kallkod-och-oppna-losningar.
Sundsvalls kommun. (2023). Riktlinje för öppen källkod. Retrieved on December 14,
2023, from https://github.com/Sundsvallskommun/riktlinjer-oppenkallkod.
Sveriges Kommuner och Regioner. (n.d.). Välkommen till Dela Digitalt. Retrieved on
December 18, 2023, from https://deladigitalt.se/loggain?redirect=%2Fdelameddig.
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23
United Kingdom
23.1 Abstract
Policy and stakeholders:
The UK government has a history of promoting OSS use in
the public sector dating back to 2002. The policy has evolved over the years, gradually
becoming more prescriptive; it is not contained in one comprehensive document but
rather a handful of key documents combine to make government software and code
open by default (Cabinet Office, 2023).
Policy goals:
The key principle motivating the UK’s OSS policies is the responsible
use of public funds. Since public services are funded by taxpayers, it is considered
prudent to make the underlying code available for public scrutiny and reuse, unless
there are compelling reasons to withhold it. The adoption of open-source code is also
seen to facilitate collaboration among government developers, preventing redundant
efforts and ultimately lowering overall government expenditures. Moreover, releasing
source code under an open license is presented as a safeguard against vendor lock-in,
promoting flexibility and interoperability in government operations.
Implementation and support:
The UK government Service Manual provides
detailed guidance relating to several aspects of OSS use and contribution. In addition,
the Government Digital Service functions as an OSPSO-like construct, developing OSS
solutions and acting as a steward for policies relating to OSS.
Promotion for reuse:
While there is no official UK catalogue listing all public sector
OSS solutions, a total of 78 central government entities publish their code on GitHub,
including the GDS.
Success stories:
The UK Government leveraged the potential of Open Source and its
reusability in the creation of a
“one-stop-shop”
for digital government services known
as GOV.UK. Adopted by all departments, it is recognized as a success for GDS and the
UK Government, and has inspired reuse internationally.
23.2 Policy and stakeholders
The United Kingdom has a longstanding history of embracing open source software
(OSS) in its government policies. The foundation for these policies was laid out in 2002
by the Office of Government Commerce (OGC), which provided guidance to improve
the efficiency of public procurement. This guidance encouraged public sector
organizations to consider OSS solutions based on value for money, avoid lock-in to
proprietary products, and obtain the necessary rights for custom solutions for reuse
(OGC, 2002). These principles have persisted through subsequent iterations of
government policies.
In 2010, the government published
“Open
source, open standards and re-use: a
government action plan” (Cabinet Office, 2010) which built on previous documents to
develop a more comprehensive OSS strategy that evolved the UK's approach to open
source. This plan considered indirect benefits of open source, such as flexibility and re-
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use, embedding an open-source culture across government, and removing procedural
barriers to open source adoption.
The UK government further reinforced its commitment to open source with the
"Government Service Design Manual" in 2014. This manual encouraged government
departments to use open standards and open source software when developing digital
services. It also promoted the idea of making source code open by default, ensuring
transparency and collaboration.
As part of the Government Transformation Strategy 2017-2020 public administrations
are required to demonstrate that they have considered the use of OSS solutions and the
open publication of their code in order to comply with Point 3 of the Technology Code
of Practice.
Finally, a 2022 update to the Digital, Data and Technology Playbook recognises the
expectation that government software and code is open-source by default (Cabinet
Office 2022).
23.3 Policy goals
As public sector engagement and policy on OSS has evolved, so has the motivations and
associated goals. Early policy documents focused on procurement and the need to
consider OSS on their merits and according to total lifetime cost of ownership.
Subsequent policy documents promote OSS as part of a wider focus on lowering
barriers to participation, including for SMEs, reducing vendor lock in, increasing use of
open standards, improving competition. The principle of responsible public spending
remains a focus and includes the rationale for making code available for reuse also
outside of the public sector.
23.4 Implementation and support
The Government Digital Service functions as an OSPSO-like construct, developing OSS
solutions and acting as a steward for policies relating to OSS (Blind et al, 2021),
including the UK government Service Manual which provides detailed guidance
relating to several aspects of OSS use and contribution (Government Digital Service,
2017). Guidance is also included in the HMG ICT Strategy which specifically details the
publication of a toolkit for procurers on best practice for evaluating the use of open
source solutions. In addition, the National Cyber Security Centre has published
guidelines about secure development and deployment practice (National Cyber Security
Centre, 2018).
23.5 Promotion for reuse
The UK Service Standard for public services requires public authorities to “[m]ake new
source code open”, in order “for people to reuse and build on” the code. The Service
Standard additionally asks public authorities to publish code in an open repository and
to retain ownership of the associated intellectual property rights, so as to make it
available for re-use under an open licence (Government Digital Service, 2019). While
there is no official centralised catalogue of public sector OSS. Some UK some 63 central
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government entities and 33 local councils publish their code on the code sharing
platform.
33
23.6 Success stories
The UK Government leveraged the potential of Open Source and its reusability in the
creation of a centralized hub for digital government services known as GOV.UK. This
platform, developed by the Government Digital Service (GDS), is constructed using
open technologies, with most components actively developed on GitHub under the MIT
License. GOV.UK serves as a standardized foundation, offering templates that
government units can seamlessly integrate into their websites. This approach enables
departments to easily add services to their websites. Adopted by all government
departments, GOV.UK unifies central government websites on a shared platform,
utilizing common components. Recognized as a success for GDS and the UK
Government, GOV.UK's open-source methodology has inspired adoption by other
governments, showcasing the collaborative potential of the Open Source approach
(Derek du Perez, 2019).
23.7 References
Blind, K., Böhm, M., Grzegorzewska, P., Katz, A., Muto, S., Pätsch, S., & Schubert, T.
(2021). The impact of Open Source Software and Hardware on technological
independence, competitiveness and innovation in the EU economy. Final Study Report.
European Commission, Brussels.
Cabinet Office (2010) Open source, open standards and re-use: government action
plan.
Retrieved
on
19
December
2023
from:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-source-open-standards-and-re-
use-government-action-plan
Cabinet Office (2022). The Digital, Data and Technology Playbook. Retrieved on 18
December from:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-digital-data-and-
technology-playbook
Cabinet Office (2021; 2023). The Technology Code of Practice. Retrieved on 18
December 2023 from: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-technology-code-of-practice
Derek du Perez. (2019). GDS takes GOV.UK open source code and makes it
private...but why? Diginomica.
Government Digital Service (2014). Government Service Design Manual: Making
source code open and reusable. Retrieved on 18 December 2023 from:
https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/technology/making-source-code-open-and-
reusable
OGC (2002). Open Source Software Policy. Retrieved on 18 December from:
https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20110822131357/http://www.ogc.
gov.uk/documents/Open_Source_Software.pdf
33
https://government.github.com/community/
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National Cyber Security Centre (2018). Secure development and deployment guidance.
Retrieved on 19 December 2023 from: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/collection/developers-
collection
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