The adoption of the Interoperable Europe Act has given OSOR a boost to further assist public administrations in adopting open source. Your next OSOR newsletter will come from a new email address, and for those subscribed to the Interoperable Europe newsletter, you’ll find there a new section devoted to open source to which our team will contribute. So, you’re encouraged to subscribe to this newsletter too.
Our team has kept busy these last few months working on finalising and publishing OSOR’s latest study, which will soon be available. It covers for the first time the existing OSPOs in European governments and gives an overview of their current initiatives and functions. For those eager to learn more, a recording of “OSOR turns 15” features Johan Linåker presenting the study’s preliminary findings (Timestamp: 3:22).
As a side note, for those of you that joined us at the OSOR Turns 15 event, we also published some of the pictures from the event. You can find them here.
Additionally, the OSOR handbook will soon be put to consultation with the OSOR community. We appreciate the participation of community members in our webinar and workshop series, which laid the foundation for this work. More details on how to contribute to this valuable resource for public administrations across Europe will be shared soon.
We are pleased to announce the publication of two new country reports analysing the state of open source in Bolivia and Singapore. These reports provide insights into the progress and challenges in these countries, showcasing different yet successful approaches to adopting open source in the public sector. Bolivia emphasises digital sovereignty, while Singapore fosters a strong entrepreneurial and innovative work environment.
This month we highlighted Switzerland's new “Federal Law on the Use of Electronic Means for the Fulfilment of Governmental Tasks”. This law mandates open source software in public sector bodies. Championed by Professor Dr. Matthias Stürmer from CH Open and the Parliamentarian Group for Digital Sustainability, this law promotes transparency, security, and efficiency, aiming to reduce vendor lock-in and enhance public services through OSS.
We also shared an overview of the current definition and state of open source in EU legislation, aiming to bring clarity to administrations looking to understand legal requirements.
In other news, we reported on the latest development in the release of the source code for the DigiD app. The Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations has released the second part of DigiD’s app source code following a request made under the Open Government Act (Woo) in 2022.
This month, you’ll also learn more about the newly adopted Danish digitalisation strategy. We had the opportunity to exchange with Rasmus Frey, the Chief Executive and Secretary of OS2, who shared the importance of this strategy for open source in Denmark’s public sector.
Finally, we highlighted a successful cross-border collaboration between Germany's Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Commit Global, an association producing many open source solutions for humanitarian relief.
We look forward to sharing with you our journey fostering open source collaboration and innovation across Europe and beyond. If you are interested to continue discussions on the role of reusable solutions in boosting European interoperability that we started at the OSOR anniversary conference last year, join the parallel track 4 at the SEMIC conference on 27 June in Brussels.
The OSOR Team
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