Free software in Europe's public sector
A Maturity Model

Disclaimers


  1. The information and views set out in this presentation are those of the presenter and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the European Union. Neither the European Union institutions and bodies nor any person acting on their behalf may be held responsible for the use which may be made of this presentation.
  2. Free software and open source software are synonyms

This talk


  1. A Maturity Model
  2. Key policies
  3. Expected benefits
  4. What's missing?
  5. But first: about OSOR

Open Source Observatory & Repository




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HOWTO open source in public administration

1. Make free & open source a task for the CIO


  • Licence costs are just the tip of the iceberg
  • Flexibility, scalability, speed
  • Take control, get rid of lock-in
Examples  
   
National UK GDS Open Source Lead, France CIO/DINSIC
Multi-municipal DK OS2, Norway Kongsberg, Belgium Imio
Municipality Germany Mayor of Munich
Region Basque Country CIO
Organisation Finland CIO Ministry of Justice

2. Make Moz://a Firefox the default browser


  • Provides leverage in dealing with IT suppliers
  • Break the lock-in to IE and proprietary technology
  • Available on all workstation operating systems
Examples  
   
Supreme Court, Slovenia Leipzig, Germany
Gendarmerie, France Vienna, Austria
LNEC, Portugal Fontaine, France
Schoten, Belgium Munich, Germany
Zaragoza, Spain Arnhem, Netherlands
Aarhus, Denmark Basque Country, Spain

3. Make open standards mandatory


  • Be mindful of the definition
  • Take care of the selection process
  • Walk your talk
Examples  
policies United Kingdom
  France
  Netherlands
  Spain
lists Sweden
ISA² projects Sharing and Reuse Framework
  EIF
  CAMSS

4. Help the organisation change


  • Small-scale pilots
  • Involve key-actors
  • Communicate, explain and motivate
Good Bad
   
Nantes, France Ede, Netherlands
Justice Ministry, Finland Freiburg, Germany
Zaragoza, Spain Duisburg, Germany
Defence Ministry, Italy Pesaro, Italy
Bern, Switzerland Emilia-Romagna region, Italy
Genoa, Italy South Tyrol province, Italy
  Justice Ministry, Belgium
  Ostrava, Czech Republic
   
See also:  
The Document Foundation  

5. Engage the communities


  • Require open source skills (in-house and suppliers)
  • Optimise procurement to SMEs and sole proprietors
  • Promote, sponsor and facilitate open source development
Examples  
   
Nantes (FR) organises improvements to LibreOffice
Munich (DE) main contributor to open source
DINSIC (FR) hackathons

Key policies


  • France's Digital Law & rules on Public Sector Information
  • United Kingdom's Open Standards Policy
  • Bulgaria's amended eGovernment law, mandating a national 'GitHub'

Expected benefits


  • Autonomy, sovereignty, control
  • Increased efficiency, innovation
  • Growth of local, national & European software & services sector

What's missing?


  • Political awareness
  • Well-organised advocacy by civil groups and industry
  • Patches for procurement

Recaputulation

  • CIO's task
  • Use Firefox
  • Open standards
  • Manage change
  • Dig communities

Credits


ec-logo-st-rvb-web_en.jpg

  • Thanks to our European Commission for making this possible
  • Thanks to Clémentine Valayer, Daniel Melin, Eric Ficheux, Laurent Joubert, and many others for their valuable comments
  • Thanks to the herculean Debian, Emacs, Org-mode, and Reveal.js






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