# Workshop on Contributions to Open Source Software by Public Institutions

Matthias Stuermer

► To cite this version:

Matthias Stuermer. Workshop on Contributions to Open Source Software by Public Institutions . 12th IFIP International Conference on Open Source Systems (OSS), May 2016, Gothenburg, Sweden. pp.206-207, 10.1007/978-3-319-39225-7 . hal-01369121

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Submitted on 20 Sep 2016

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# Workshop on Contributions to Open Source Software by Public Institutions

Matthias Stuermer

Research Center for Digital Sustainability, Institute of Information Systems
at University of Bern, Engehaldenstrasse 8, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
matthias.stuermer@iwi.unibe.ch
http://www.digitalenachhaltigkeit.unibe.ch

## Background, Goals, and Target Audience

Governments, universities, and other public institutions not only use open source software (OSS) but also contribute to existing OSS projects or even initiate new OSS communities. Public administrations such as City of Munich are actively involved in the development of LibreOffice (City of Munich 2012; Sneddon 2015); others like the Swiss Federal Office of Topography (swisstopo) supported the OpenLayers 3 implementation substantially via an international crowdfunding campaign (Moullet 2014). Starting a new OSS project may simply mean publishing source code on public repositories as the UK government is doing on GitHub<fnref n="1" /> using the *GitHub and Government* service.<fnref n="2" /> Or it may also include establishing governance rules as the Swiss Federal Court did when releasing its internal court decision administration system thus initiating the OSS project OpenJustitia (Brunner 2013).

Contributing to OSS has benefits such as lower development cost or increased transparency. Reducing IT spending is the major motivator for Swiss cantons collaboratively developing CAMAC, an open source construction permit system (Moser 2015). Transparency of the software is the reason why the Canton of Geneva plans to open-source its e-voting platform (Geneva State Chancellery 2010; Atmani 2015). Obviously committing source code and managing OSS projects does involve various challenges such as governance of user communities, establishing institutional structures, funding of ongoing development, effective release management or collaboration of public institutions with firms and volunteers.

The goal of this workshop is to share experiences and discuss solutions on how to increase contributions of public institutions to OSS and improve collaboration among all stakeholders. This workshop is targeted to practitioners with or without experience in managing OSS communities as well as academics researching governance and development processes within OSS projects.

<footnote n="1">¹ https://github.com/alphagov.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² https://government.github.com.</footnote>
## Topics of the Workshop

The workshop addresses, but is not limited to, the following topics:

* Identification of relevant incentives, advantages, challenges, and problem-solving approaches regarding contributions to OSS by public institutions

* Presentation of case studies, success stories as well as failures and lessons learned when public institutions contribute to OSS

* Sharing of good practices in solving organizational, technical, financial, and legal issues of OSS projects involving public institutions

* Development of guidelines, whitepapers etc. for public institutions on how to successfully conduct OSS contributions and launch new projects

## References

Atmani, M.: Genève Veut Offrir Le Libre Accès Au Code Source de Son Application de Vote électronique. *Le Temps* (2015). http://www.letemps.ch/suisse/2015/08/19/geneve-veut-offrir-libre-acces-code-source-application-vote-electronique

Brunner, D.: The OpenJustitia project at the Swiss Federal Supreme Court. In: Creating Awareness for the Use of OpenSource Systems in the Public Sector in Afghanistan: Workshop Proceedings, September 15–17, 2012, Kabul/Afghanistan. Kabul, Afghanistan (2013)

City of Munich: LibreOffice Hackfest 2012 in Munich. The document foundation Wiki (2012). https://wiki documentfoundation.org/Hackfest/Munich2012

Geneva State Chancellery: The Geneva internet voting bysystem (2010). http://www.coe.int/t/dgap/goodgovernance/Activities/E-voting/EVoting_Documentation/passport_evoting2010.pdf

Moser, M.: Baubewilligungsverfahren basierend auf Open Source Software. In: Open Source Studie Schweiz 2015 (2015). http://www.ossdirectory.com/knowhow/OSSStudie Schweiz2015_28.pdf

Moullet, C.: OpenLayers 3 - how to successfully run a crowdfunding campaign for an OSS project. Presented at the SIK OSS Forum: Open Source Fachanwendungen von Behörden, Bern (2014). http://www.ch-open.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/events/sikossforum2014/06-C-Moullet-OpenLayers.pdf

Sneddon, J.-E.: City of Munich Joins Document Foundation Advisory Board. OMG! Ubuntu! (2015). http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2015/01/german-city-munich-help-shape-future-libreoffice