The city of Hamburg gets it. In an agreement published by its new government coalition, the city promises the equal consideration of all types of software alternatives, and especially those offering services based on open source.
The city has realised that, in order to get a grip on the technologies that are used by our public services, they need to be open. The new policy will most certainly help innovators and enterprises cut the often-rough diamonds of open source into usable solutions.
On the other side of Germany, the Ministry of Education in Bavaria is showing the opportunity costs of ignoring open source. Seeking a unified communication and collaboration platform to be used in all schools, the ministry chose a proprietary solution without making a public procurement request. It might have been better off with a solution from a nearby company founded on open source components.
The Open Source Observatory has plenty of positive examples of public services cooperating with open source communities. See our study into OpenFisca, France's project involving software start-ups and programmers building an ecosystem of solutions around the government tax system. Another example is Decidim, the citizen participation software originally developed by the city of Barcelona and now used across the world.
Over the summer OSOR will continue to highlight examples of public services that see the multi-faceted value open source. It empowers them to fulfil their own IT needs, and at the same time, helps to create a dynamic and innovative industry.
As always, OSOR very much welcomes your input. The OSOR team is launching a survey to collect your ideas on how to further enrich the content on the Open Source Observatory. Do not hesitate to share your thoughts with us!
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