Free & open source software in Europe implementations and strategies
Disclaimers
- The information and views set out in this presentation are those of the author 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 the information contained therein.
- Free software and open source software are synonymous.
Innovate & modernise
To deliver innovative government solutions, Europe's public administrations turn to free and open source software. Innovation is the main motive, costs savings come next.
The OSOR news items show that the freedom, flexibility and scalability enabled by open source software make it an obvious choice for public ventures.
Share
It makes business sense to use open source software - that is why all the big IT companies are. But public administrations especially ought to share their software.
Public administrations that invest in open source create future benefits and generate a right-minded loop between the public and private sector.
For public administrations the real value is in the openness and accountability and efficiency of open source.
Pay it forward
Public administration software is financed by taxpayers, and making it public is the best way to share the solutions with citizens and companies.
Publicly sharing code and improvements to existing code, lets public administrations pay their it investments forward. they get technological self-reliance into the bargain.
Swiss, German, and French public administrations have pooled budgets to make new software solutions possible and publicly available.
Public administration
Source code is information.
And - just like other public administrative documents -
it should be publicly accessible.
About this talk
- The big trends
- Four problems areas
- Practical strategies
- Transition to open source in five steps
- But first: about OSOR.
OSOR
Open Source Observatory & Repository
Repository
- Almost 4000 interoperability solutions.
- Incl. 1200 in 12 federated repositories like:
- Andalucía
- Catalunia
- France
Observatory
- more than 1600 news items
- over 100 studies
- innovation champions
The big trends
Public administrations increasingly use free and open source
French Gendarmerie: "Open source desktop lowers TCO by 40%"
“Using an open source desktop lowers the total cost of ownership by 40% in savings on proprietary software licences and by reducing costs on IT management.”
The number of politicians that appreciate open source is rising
New MEPs urge building links to open source communities
Julia Reda @senficon and Max Andersson @maxandersson, members of the European Parliament, want to build links with well-known free software communities.
Public administrations use open source
for everything, everywhere
- content management
- document management
- database applications
- egovernment services
- citizen participation
- geoinformation systems
- open data
- software development
and across all sectors
open source is everywhere
in Ireland
Ireland National Library: open source everywhere
Award for Ireland building regulations software
Ireland agency helps local governments beat open source fear
Northern Ireland studying re-use of Estonia's e-gov services
in the EU institutions
European Commission to update its open source policy
EU: EUR 1 million for security audit of open source
EC recommends supporting open document format
European Parliament releases amendment software as open source
Two hundred ways to switch an EC directorate to open source
Open source software assists european citizens to petition the EU
in ministries
How 17 French ministries joined forces to support free software
German Interior Ministry seeks open source expertise
French ministries prove free software is viable
Linux clusters in German Finance Ministry data centre
French Interior Ministry: open source 5 to 10 times cheaper
Finland's Ministry of Justice migrates to openoffice
Polish Economy Ministry makes consultation site open source
Spain's Finance Ministry offers open source email cloud service
Norway Local Gov Ministry uses open source version control system
in regional governments
Andalusia provides messaging services 4 euro user year
Emilia-Romagna completes switch to Openoffice
Italy's Puglia region passes law on use of open source and open data
Italy's Lazio region adopts law on open source and open data
in capitals, big cities, towns and tiny villages
Spanish cities Zaragoza, Madrid, Bilbao and Badajoz
Portugal's Vieira do minho
Denmark's second-largest city Århus
Dutch city of Ede
Towns of Grygov and Jihlava in the Czech Republic
Villages of Toulouse, Arles, Voreppe and many others in France
Poland's Poznan
Italy's Bologna, Genoa, Udine and towns in the Umbria region
across all sectors, including:
healthcare
Open source healthcare system adds 3 more hospitals
Open source central to e-health project Danish Syddjurs
Open source empowers Sintra health centre
Luxembourg open source health records system gains foothold
More and more Linux in Riga children hospital
Hospitals eyeing open source patient record system
Hospital in Porto to switch 3000 PCs to open source office suite
Danish hospital: "Hassle free use of ODF"
Rotterdam hospital selects open source for internal ordering system
defence
Open source advancing at Dutch defence ministry
Polish defence ministry moving to open source email and groupware
Dutch government to shore up open source security
education
New Extremadura Govt to support open source in schools
Tallinn schools piloting open source software
Slovakia school open source campaign to continue
Valencia Linux school distro saves EUR 36 million
Umbrian schools teach Venice how to switch to open source
Swiss school invests open source savings in education
Epoptes - PC lab management tool - in over 500 Greek schools
Malcolm Moore, network manager at UK's Westcliff High School for Girls academy:
“This school specialises in science and engineering and if our students are to go on to do great things, like start the next Google, or collapse the universe at CERN... they will certainly need to know linux.”
First problem
No political support
Too few politicians are aware of the values of free software
More politicians need to recognise the value of open source in terms of responsable government, sustainability, openness and independence from IT vendors. They should recognise that governments using open source create future benefits.
Serafín Olcoz Yanguas, the former chief information officer of Basque Country
“Free and open source software creates a virtuous loop between the public and private sector, with a recurring public contribution.”
Research done on municipal governments in the Netherlands shows:
Political support and pioneers are pivotal for open source.
Blame shifting
| problem¹ | learn more |
|---|---|
| - short-term versus long-term | |
| - migration costs & exit costs | Hidden cost of proprietary standards |
| - lack of business models | |
| - lock-in | NL: Cost of vendor lock-in too high |
| - legal uncertainty | European Union Public Licence |
| - perceived as risky | |
| - lack of leading examples | |
| - lack of ICT support | How 17 French ministries joined forces |
| - lack of governmental policies | |
| - no incentives | |
| - large procurement favours large firms | UK Government G-Cloud |
Second problem
Entrenched IT vendors
Even the EC admits that it is locked-in.
"The current captivity situation as regards desktop operating systems and productivity tools is not new or limited to the Commission."
Do as I say, not as I do.
Dutch government agency switches core services to open source
“We had reached the limit of proprietary licence possibilities. Switching to open source gave us freedom of choice.”
Third problem
The playing field is uneven
Open ICT standards fundamental for small ICT firms
MEP Andersdotter: 'EC procurement practice blocks European firms'
EC calls for use of ICT standards to battle IT vendor lock-in
EC considering hotline for procurement errors
'Discriminatory procurement specifications widespread'
'Procurement law fails to address discriminatory practices'
Must hear Procuring software by mentioning brand names
Must read Issues in open source procurement in the European public sector
Fourth problem
Lack of experience
Public administrations are unsure how to release their code as open source, and are wary to contributing to well-known open source projects.
There are no legal objections. This was thoroughly researched at the EC. Public administrations, as system owner of a software asset, have
every right to 'give away' an asset via the appropriate licensing scheme.
Pierre Damas, Head of Sector at the Directorate General for IT (DIGIT) at the EC:
“We use a lot of open source components that we adapt and integrate, and it is time that we contribute back.”
There are good examples
Sharing and Re-use policies
- All EU member states address sharing and re-use
- About half of them have legislation
- by listing standards or
- with a policy on sharing and re-use of software
Sharing and Re-use contract clauses
- The right to redistribute software when written by/for the authority
- Reusing third parties' IPR assets
- Reusing and distributing the documentation
- 'No Vendor Lock-in' clause
Practical strategies
Five step programme
Step 1: the UK
- Make the use of open standards mandatory (ODF);
- Be serious about creating a level playing field for open source software;
- Make that a task for the nation's CIO;
Step 2: The Canary Islands (Spain)
- Provide political support for the CIO;
- Allow him to keep in his budget the savings realised by switching to open source;
Step 3: Basque Country (Spain), the city of Munich (Germany), or France
- Make all parts of the IT infrastructure open source;
- Promote diversification, create chances for local industry;
- Pay it forward, instead of sunk costs
Step 4. Gendarmerie (France)
- Open source provides leverage in dealing with ICT suppliers;
- Open source improves IT management
- Reducing licence costs is the tip of the iceberg;
Step 5. The city of Ede (The Netherlands):
- Make Firefox the mandatory standard browser;
Credits
Thanks to our
Courtesy to the Herculean Emacs Org-mode
and the stirring Reveal.js
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License