Switzerland now requires all government software to be open source
Switzerland passes EMBAG law mandating open-source government software for transparency and efficiency. Dr. Stürmer supports it for reducing costs and promoting innovation. Other countries, like France, lead in open source adoption.
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Switzerland has passed a groundbreaking law, the "Federal Law on the Use of Electronic Means for the Fulfillment of Governmental Tasks" (EMBAG), requiring all government software to be open source. This legislation aims to enhance transparency, security, and efficiency in government operations by mandating the disclosure of source code unless restricted by third-party rights or security concerns. The law, passed in 2023 after a decade-long process, also promotes the release of non-personal and non-security-sensitive government data as Open Government Data (OGD). Professor Dr. Matthias Stürmer, a key advocate for the law, sees it as beneficial for government, the IT industry, and society, reducing vendor lock-in and potentially lowering IT costs. Switzerland's move is seen as a model for other countries, encouraging digital sovereignty, innovation, and collaboration within the public sector. While European countries like France have embraced open source, the United States lags behind, with less comprehensive support for open-source initiatives at the federal level.
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13 comments> This new law requires all public bodies to disclose the source code of software developed by or for them unless third-party rights or security concerns prevent it. This "public money, public code" approach aims to enhance government operations' transparency, security, and efficiency.
Governments not knowing what their software is doing is a recipe for chaos.
Hopefully this also leads to more audits of said code.
So it's "all" but in a different context to what you might understand as "all". ;)
https://opensource.com/government/12/8/brazil-forefront-open...
Some more discussion earlier this month: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40852084
Regarding the "Several European countries are betting on open-source software for their technology. In the United States, eh, not so much." I thought software developed by the US govt is public domain? At least that's how I remember sqlite got it's license because it was developed for the US Navy.
[0] https://fosdem.org/2024/schedule/event/fosdem-2024-3401-the-...
I have tried several times to get Node.js into the military on approved software lists for internal development and its a huge struggle. I suspect the main culprits are due to valid security concerns regarding package managers like NPM and old ignorant thinking about open source being either immature or open software being a wide open exploitation vector. That is really tough because there aren't official binaries of Node without NPM and ignorant thinking about open source is really persistent.
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Switzerland mandates software source code disclosure for public sector
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Switzerland mandates software source code disclosure for public sector
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