Open source software is a powerful lever for change. It gives teams greater flexibility on how they solve problems and develop services based on users’ needs. To really achieve change using open source requires a wider set of changes.
In this paper, co-authored with Emma Gawen, Emily Middleton, Anna Hirschfeld, and Angie Kenny we lay out a case for how open source in government can:
— enable greater digital sovereignty by helping governments to move away from contracts where they are locked-in to specific vendors for decades at a time — support the development of local or regional digital economies — create competition thereby bringing down prices — grant governments greater flexibility and control over how their services are delivered.
We synthesised the experiences of numerous governments globally to set out an Open Source Capability Model identifying the set of supporting reforms that can enable open source success.
Thanks to Govind Shivkumar at the Omidyar Network for funding support.