Switzerland mandates government agencies use open-source software

Switzerland has recently enacted a law requiring its government to use open-source software (OSS) and disclose the source code of any software developed by or for the public sector. According to ZDNet, this “public body, public code” approach makes government operations more transparent while increasing security and efficiency. Such a move would likely fail in the U.S. but is becoming increasingly common throughout Europe.

According to Switzerland’s new “Federal Law on the Use of Electronic Means for the Fulfillment of Government Tasks” (EMBAG), government agencies must use open-source software throughout the public sector. 

It’s not an entirely new move for Switzerland. In 2011, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court published its court application, Open Justitia, using an OSS license. It was unpopular with legal software company Weblaw, and more than a decade of political and legal battles followed.

The new law allows the codifies allowing Switzerland to release its software under OSS licenses. Not just that; it requires the source code be released that way “unless the rights of third parties or security-related reasons would exclude or restrict this.” 

In addition to mandating the OSS code, EMBAG also requires Swiss government agencies to release non-personal and non-security-sensitive government data to the public. Calling this Open Government Data, this aspect of the new law contributes to a dual “open by default” approach that should allow for easier reuse of software and data while also making governance more transparent.

Other nations throughout Europe have made similar moves. France’s version of the U.S. FBI, known as the National Gendarmerie, uses Linux on most PCs. Schleswig-Holstein, one of Germany’s 16 states, recently migrated 30,000 computers from Microsoft products to Linux and LibreOffice. 

The European Union has also worked for years to help OSS become more secure through the Free and Open Source Software Auditing (FOSSA) project. At the same time, there could be some cause for concern about the future of OSS in Europe — there are concerns the European Commission might cut funding for an essential source of financing for OSS projects.

In the U.S., however, there’s much less support for OSS. The U.S. government does offer some support for open-source, but it’s much more constrained. For example, the Federal Source Code Policy requires government agencies to release at least 20% of their new custom-developed code as OSS. Also, the General Services Administration (GSA) requires its organizations to account for and publish any of their open-source code.

The critical difference, though, is that no laws in the U.S. mandate the use of open-source software like Switzerland’s. If Switzerland’s new openness works well, it could be a model for further change throughout the rest of Europe and the United States.