Why Open Source in the Public Sector?

The state of Open Source in the International arenaVaasa 2011-04-27

Tommi Karttaavi

Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities (Kuntaliitto)

• Interest, service and development organisation of the Finnish local government

• All Finnish municipalities are members of the association; service agreements with other local government organisations

• Kuntaliitto Group employs 1.310 people; 300 in the association and others in the companies it owns

Use of open source software in municipalities(Municipal IT-survey 2006 and 2010)

Municipalities using open source software in 2006 (blue)

Municipalities using open source software in 2010 (blue)

Reasons for using Open Source in the public sector

•Cost savings•Democracy•Interoperability•Reuse of technology

Cost savings

• Using open source software can help reduce IT spending

• Not automatic, license fees just one cost among many others

• Sometimes migrating to open source may even be more expensive, due to poor planning or having to buy a lot of expert services

• City of Naantali migrated its schools from Linux to Microsoft environment in 2010, citing costs as the reason

• The municipal IT-department could not support the Linux environment at schools, so the support had to be outsourced

Linux terminal servers in schools

• Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP) is a free and open source terminal server

• Applications run on the server with a terminal known as a thin client

• Dozens of schools in Finland are using LTSP solutions for workstations

• Map by Elias Aarnio: http://ra.fi/KUMz • City of Kankaanpää

• Schools in Kankaanpää migrated to LTSP from Windows in 2009

• Monthly costs per workstation went down from EUR 34 to EUR 5,67

Ministry of Justice OpenOffice migration

• In 2005 the Ministry and its administrative sector had a mixture of Lotus SmartSuite and Microsoft Office (plus some WordPerfect) office suites

• The mixed environment was causing problems and the prevalent Lotus SmartSuite was being discontinued

• Evaluation of alternative solutions was conducted

Ministry of Justice cost savings from OpenOffice migration

• OpenOffice.org was selected after evaluating the costs of alternatives over the period of six years (2006-2011)

• A new cost evaluation was conducted in 2010

Source: Large-scale migration to an open source office suite: An innovation adoption study in Finland, Martti Karjalainen, academic dissertation, Univ. of Tampere, 2010

Democracy

• “No citizen or company should be forced or encouraged to choose a closed technology over an open one, through a government having made that choice first” EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes

• Public authorities should be able to receive documents from citizens or businesses in standardised and open formats

• Software used in public administration should be auditable

• Using open source software in schools makes it possible for the students to use the same software at home, without having to pay for it

Interoperability

• Interoperability does not automatically follow from using open source

• Open source can increase interoperability by making the software's functionality transparent

• Using open source helps avoiding vendor lock-in• Open standards are even more important than open

source from the interoperability point of view

Reuse

• Open source solutions that can be copied, altered and used by anyone are a great way of sharing within the public sector

• Possibility to reuse software could offer significant benefits for the public sector

• Software developed for an individual municipality could be used by all of them

• Costs can be saved in licence fees, development costs and even maintenance and support

OmaOulu.fi

• A citizen's portal with personalised access to municipal services

• Made with open source software• Liferay, JBoss, Openfire, Alfresco, Intalio, MySQL,

Redhat

• Components developed by contractor (Ixonos) are also open source and available at Osor.eu

• The architecture model and documentation has also been made available

• http://wiki.kuntait.fi/tiki-index.php

Obstacles for using open source in the public sector

•Prejudices•Lack of skills•Lack of knowledge•Lack of governance

Prejudices

•Open source is not serious business•Licensing is too confusing•Procurement is too difficult•Open source is not secure

Lack of skills

• Using open source is just like using proprietary software, development and distribution however require specialised know-how

• Public authorities generally lack the expertise• Proprietary software is prevalent• Resources are scant and they are not shared with others

• Open source procurement needs some expertise too• Comparing tenders with or without license fees• Public authorities should prefer open source when buying

software

Lack of knowledge

• “Where can I find the software I need?”• “How do I know it is good?”• “Where can I find someone who supports it?”• “Who else is using it?”• Hard to find out how other public authorities are

using open source• No gathering of best practices and no place to

publish them on the national level

Lack of governance

• Some common governance policies and routines are needed to effectively utilise open source in the public sector

• There is no centralised distribution channel for disseminating software developed for public authorities

• There is no administrative framework for version management

• There are no common licensing policies for public authorities

Overcoming the obstacles

• Prejudices• Open source business models are becoming more mainstream

• Lack of skills• A new kind of culture, where not only software but other resources

are shared between public authorities needs to be fostered• Best practices need to be documented and disseminated

• Lack of knowledge• Objective information should be gathered and published on the

national level• JHS recommendation system

• Lack of governance• The European Open Source Observatory and Repository Osor.eu • The national interoperability portal Yhteentoimivuus.fi• The European Union Public License (EUPL)

Some public policy documents worth reading

• Recommendation on the Openness of the Code and Interfaces of State Information Systems (2003)

• http://www.vm.fi/vm/fi/04_julkaisut_ja_asiakirjat/01_julkaisut/04_hallinnon_kehittaminen/64242/name.jsp

• JHS 169 Public Administration Recommendation on the Use of Open Source software in Public Administration (2008)

• http://www.jhs-suositukset.fi/suomi/jhs169

• Public administration enterprise architecture principles (2011, draft)

• http://www.vm.fi/vm/fi/04_julkaisut_ja_asiakirjat/03_muut_asiakirjat/20110407Luonno/11_JHKA_Arkkitehtuuriperiaatteet_20110404.pdf

Public administration enterprise architecture principle number 16: make use of open source

• Open source solutions should be made use of in information systems development and procurement

• Open source solutions support technology and product neutrality, increase competition, transparency and adaptability

Public authorities should...

• Prefer open source software when feasible• Demand open licenses when buying software

development• Share the code and share the experiences• Cooperate more within the public sector, pool resources

and stop re-inventing the wheel• Stop concentrating on their own budget and start

thinking about benefits for the society as a whole

“The modernisation of public services and administration must rely on information

technology. At the same time, it is particularly important to adjust processes and structures to fully utilise the benefits of IT. Administrative and service processes must be developed throughout

as a whole, from the perspective of either the customer or the product in question. Partial

optimisation carried out by government agencies or sectors of administration, which is inefficient

from the perspective of the whole, must be eliminated.”

Finland 2020 – From thought to action, a press release by the Council of State 30.8.2010

Thank you!

http://www.kunnat.net/http://www.jhs-suositukset.fi/

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