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Terms and Definitions | 2. Joining an existing community | 
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join an existing community or create a new one. Before deciding, there are several elements to consider. In this chapter, we review the criteria to help guide you through making this choice. We also outline some crucial elements that can help to ensure your engagement’s long-term sustainability such as well-defined funding and internal support.
1.1 Assess your needs & capabilities
Before you engage with a specific OSS community or embark upon building your own, there are several aspects to consider. Firstly, you should carefully evaluate your software needs and identify whether they are unique to the public administration alone or whether there are other potential software partners with similar needs. Secondly, you should assess the IT capabilities of your public administration and, in turn, scan the OSS market to see whether a solution that meets your needs already exists.
What kind of software are we looking for?
Organisations’ software needs must be assessed prior to engaging with any OSS. Your public administration might need various types of software, such as an operating system, word processors, database management, an intranet portal, or a specific application, to cover different business processes. Having a clear understanding of your software needs will make it easier to look for existing solutions on the market.
Another key element to keep in mind is the interoperability of the software. Your new open source engagement cannot inhibit the upgrade path for related legacy IT systems, and it needs to be compatible with the infrastructure already in place within your public administration. That is why the licence of the open source software that you develop or decide to reuse has to be compatible with the existing IT infrastructure at your administration. This will increase the sustainability of your OSS venture.
You should assess the most important functional aspects that you are looking for in a solution. This will help you better understand the efforts that would be required to maintain and develop the software. By doing so, you will have a clear idea of the short-, mid-, and long-term goals you wish to achieve, and you will be prepared for the agile needs of the public sector.
Finally, there are some non-functional aspects of the software to consider. You should take into account the security requirements of the planned OSS engagement, as this might potentially restrict the range of software your administration can reuse. It is also beneficial to assess the software’s targeted user base, consider its scalability in the future, and understand the resources that need to be allocated for software maintenance, among other things. Figure 2 below summarises these considerations.
What are the IT capabilities available at our public administration?
The type of OSS engagement that your public administration will choose is largely dependent on its IT capabilities. If there is a dedicated in-house developer team, then it is very likely that the public administration will be in a good position to host existing OSS or even develop the software from scratch. This is more likely to be the case in large, centralised administrations such as ministries or agencies. Yet, as detailed in the next section, it is not always necessary to develop a solution from scratch. You can reuse or build on the work of other communities.
When it comes to smaller public administrations, there might not be an in-house developer team or civil servants with a high level of IT knowledge. In this case, you might consider joining an existing OSS community with vendors offering tailored versions of the software (i.e. vendors who provide Software as a Service).
However, even if your public administration does not have in-house IT support, you could consider developing such capabilities, be it on a small scale over time. This will give the public administration more autonomy over the software development. Alternatively, you could procure civil society organisations or SMEs to develop the open source solution while making sure that you also build and participate in the community around it.
How to ensure software compatibility with our administrations’ existing legacy systems?
No matter what you decide, you should consider having an in-house team of software experts that continue to build their knowledge and expertise over time. This is essential because lock-in is not always a strategic and purposeful act by a vendor. Indeed, vendors can create lock-in by building systems that are incompatible with competitor vendors, applying closed standards, or adopting less reciprocal[11] or closed licences. Additionally, an open source community with a relevant project could be building software that is incompatible with your public administration’s legacy systems. Searching for a good alternative to this software may result in limited strong options and cause an accidental lock-out. An internal team of IT experts would not only be able to recognise this but perhaps customise and interface different systems. To be able to do so, your experts will need in-depth knowledge of your organisation’s current IT systems as well as the open source project.
Is there an existing open source solution that meets our needs?
Having assessed the software needs of your public administration as well as your IT capabilities, you should then conduct some in-depth research to analyse if any software that matches your needs already exists. This can be done in several ways.
A good place to start is to check whether your central government has published a dedicated catalogue or repository of available solutions for reuse. Alternatively, you can take a look at catalogues or repositories produced by other governments. This way, you can save valuable public resources and reuse software supported by public administrations.
Bear in mind that an open source solution existing on the market does not need to fully meet the requirements of your public administration in order to be considered. If, having assessed the available software, you believe that additional features that suit your needs could be developed as add-ons, then the software could indeed be reused by your public administration. The OSOR community has indicated that preference is often given to readily available ‘off-the-shelf’ proprietary solutions. When looking for a solution that would suit your needs, use it as an opportunity to explore being innovative in developing add-ons and look at ready-to-use open source solutions which may suffer from less visibility than their proprietary counterparts.
However, if the core software itself must be modified, it is preferable to work with the OSS community or a vendor that develops the solution in order to add your required features to the core. This is because making local changes to any open source community-driven project brings its own risks. The adapted fork[12] that you produce would have to be updated by your public administration alone as the community surrounding the software will continue to work on the original branch, rather than the fork that you developed. Updates and maintenance needs must then be met in-house as any forked project will need to be sustained over time. Working with the OSS community is generally a more sustainable option than forking.
However, if having assessed the software landscape, you fail to identify a suitable solution, it is worthwhile considering launching your own OSS community and developing a new solution. Where possible, this should be done in collaboration with other public administrations. This will help you to mitigate the risk of having a low number of contributions. As mentioned above, the development of such a solution does not necessarily have to be done in-house. Together with other public administrations, you could hire an IT company to develop the open source solution for you. Your responsibility would then be to grow the community around the software within the public administration.
Could other public administrations partner with us for this project?
Identifying potential synergies with other public administrations will facilitate the pooling of resources and exchanging lessons learnt and best practices when it comes to working on the software together. You can also look outside your own country for software that could be adapted to your needs. Although pooling resources requires more coordination efforts, the benefits of such collaboration will outweigh the costs in the long run. Working with universities is another great way to pool resources, generate ideas, and gather OSS expertise. Public administrations within a country tend to share the same culture and have similar government institutions. Therefore, they are likely to have similar IT needs. Before you procure or develop software, you should check whether other public administrations at the national, regional, or local levels might want to collaborate. It may be helpful to reach out to public administrations of the same type – i.e. another municipality, public institution, or a ministry.
The Groningen municipalities often work with the Hanze University of Applied Sciences and the University of Groningen (RUG) on the implementation of different projects, including that of CONSUL.
Identifying potential synergies with other public administrations will facilitate the pooling of resources and exchanging lessons learnt and best practices when it comes to working on the software together. You can also look outside your own country for software that could be adapted to your needs. Although pooling resources requires more coordination efforts, the benefits of such collaboration will outweigh the costs in the long run. Working with universities is another great way to pool resources, generate ideas, and gather OSS expertise.
1.2 Embed your community within the public administration – make it ‘official’
Once your team has selected the most suitable way to engage in a public sector OSS project, the next key step is to formalise this engagement within your public administration.
Which key public administration actors do we need to onboard to kick- start the community?
Political support is a strong enabler of sustainable OSS communities in the public sector.[13] One of the reasons why political support is crucial is the hierarchical decision-making structure found in public administrations. Even if you have the IT personnel and mid-level management on board, the initiative might struggle to take off without the approval of the political layer.
Between 2018 and 2019, the Dutch Ministry of Interior ran a digital participatory democracy project, the basis of which was the use of OSS. Thanks to the leadership of the Ministry, several local municipalities then harnessed OSS to deliver participatory democracy platforms.
Open source efforts risk being abandoned if there is no true buy-in from an organisation’s political leadership.[14] Furthermore, the initial period of building a new OSS project and community around it might bring its own challenges. Hence, having political and managerial support might be helpful to keep the momentum going.
OSS community leaders and members play an important role as advocates of their project in the public administration. They should invest resources in demonstrating the benefits of using OSS, which can help them gain political support within their public administration.
How do we formalise our community within the public administration?
In order to ensure the longevity of a public sector OSS community, it is crucial to formalise the community within the public administration, rather than view it as an ad hoc engagement.
Developers Italia, a community launched by the Agency for Digital Italy and the Digital Transformation Team, was promoted to be part of the Department of Digital Transformation within the Ministry for Innovation and Technology.
This means giving it status, a clear name, choosing a project manager and a dedicated team, and securing the budget (described in more details below). This will make it easier to lock in dedicated resources. The time that community contributors spend fostering the community and/or working on the OSS project should be officially recognised as part of their work duties rather than as a voluntary engagement. Official recognition of the community improves its long-term sustainability as the community becomes part of the administration’s strategic planning. This protects the community against any short-term shifts in public administration’s political focus or priorities.
With the adoption of Guidelines for Code Acquisition and Reuse of Software, which mandate that any software developed or owned by the Italian government must be released under an OSI approved license and made available on Developers Italia, the community has gained legal certainty.
1.3 Secure project and community funding
The final crucial aspect of getting your community off the ground is securing funding. There are several factors to consider when assessing your funding needs and securing resources for it.
What elements should we consider when defining the budget for an OSS project and the community around it?
In order to secure a sufficient budget for the OSS project and the community around it, you should evaluate the ex-ante costs associated with it. This involves considering the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) in order to help you better understand the project’s long-term costs. Some of the costs to be considered include:
▪ initial hiring of IT staff;
▪ exit costs for existing software being used;
▪ development or implementation of the new software;
▪ staff training, if any, on working with the new software;
▪ maintaining the software;
▪ developing the community;
▪ managing the community.
In addition to assessing the TCO of your project, you could also develop a business case demonstrating the long-term benefits of your OSS community to help secure managerial and political support for it.
Young public sector OSS communities sometimes underappreciate the importance of dedicating resources to software maintenance and ensuring community vibrancy (community management). A budget should be allocated in order to nurture the community itself (developing the community) by investing in community events, such as hackathons, physical meetups, or online gatherings where members can exchange feedback, lessons learnt, and future ideas.
How do we secure project and community funding?
A clearly defined budget is crucial for any public sector initiative.[15] Our research clearly shows the importance of having sufficient funds to develop the core aspects of a community and its associated software. Therefore, public administrations should dedicate a portion of their annual budget to launch their OSS project and to help maintain the associated community. It can be complemented by additional funds from other organisations interested in participating.
The CONSUL digital participatory platform is funded through contributions from all participating municipalities across the world. Municipalities set a dedicated amount of their budget to invest in the platform - whether through contributing to code or community engagement.
For administrations with constrained budgets, there is an option to consider: co-funding. It refers to the involvement of one or more organisations willing to contribute financial support for software development to supplement funding provided by the public administration. This arrangement may also result in public-private partnerships.
The nine main public administrations involved in the use and development of the Finnish OSKARI geospatial software each contribute a yearly fee of € 5 000 for the development of the platform.
If you decide to engage with OSS by joining an existing community, one way to support it is through crowdfunding, which refers to the raising of funds from a wide range of donors, usually through a dedicated platform. Some communities choose this option to fund the development of specific software components or to receive financial support for the growth of the community. If the community of your choice is open to crowdfunding, there is a variety of platforms that it may select for this purpose. Bear in mind that any public sector organisation interested in crowdfunding should first check if it is compliant with existing policy and national legal frameworks.
Should we consider hiring additional resources?
Before diving into a new OSS project, you need to assess whether additional resources are required to guarantee its smooth implementation. Whilst contributions to OSS are largely driven by members’ commitment to collaborative open source values, public sector OSS communities need certainty and structure to ensure their longevity.
If there is a need for additional community contributors, it is worthwhile to invest resources in hiring developers to implement, maintain and provide support for your software. This will help to maintain the project’s quality and usefulness in the long run.[16] It is also a great opportunity to make skilled skilled IT professionals a part of your public administration, thus providing support and encouragement for new community members and users with less IT knowledge.
Public administration community managers and members might have parallel commitments and hence, might not be available to focus on the OSS full time. Hiring individual developers can help to ensure that the software is regularly maintained. Nevertheless, this is not to say that the project management should be outsourced to these contributors. Public administration community managers should be empowered to dedicate time to the community and its growth, even if they have parallel commitments.
This is something that was done by the Developers Italia community, which, upon its inception, launched several public tenders to develop core products associated with the community.
Similarly, rather than hiring full-time developers, it might be worth launching a public tender calling for developers to work on certain aspects of the OSS project. This will help to ensure continuous developer commitment to the project, and it is also an effective way to produce initial project output.
How should we approach private sector contributions?
OSS communities often benefit from private sector’s financial contributions from the private sector. However, when it comes to private sector involvement, especially from large organisations, the support should not manifest itself in indirect control of the community and its outputs.
The French OSS community of Lutece, founded by the City of Paris, received funding from the Bloomberg Philanthropies to re-design their website and launch an online training course for potential new community members.
This also holds true for OSS initiatives in the public sector.
The public sector should retain the steering role of the community while private sector contributions should take the form of providing additional support and advice, when necessary. Generally, it is advisable to allow private sector contributions when the community is more mature. Particular attention should be paid to the transparency of the community’s governance model and to ensuring that engagement with the private sector does not compromise this model. In other words, community funding and participation in a community’s growth and evolution should be separated.
1.4 Foster a favourable environment in your administration to work with OSS
Public administrations should view engagement with open source communities as a long-term commitment. In order to build a smooth and long-term commitment to open source, public administrations should work toward creating a nurturing environment for open source communities and projects.
How should we build the capacity of open source in my public administration?
Sustainability of open source communities is driven by members’ commitment to them. There will be at least two different kinds of audience in public administrations: The first and much smaller group will be the software/IT teams, and the second will be the majority of any administration – computer-literate users without software development knowledge. For the first group, it is important to build awareness of open source. However, if civil servants are not aware of the benefits of working with open source and do not have any know-how on doing so, public sector engagement with OSS will not go very far. Therefore, you should consider creating a ‘basics guide’ for your colleagues, detailing the benefits and ways your administration is planning to work with OSS.
Bringing the second type of civil servants on board with open source is usually harder as they usually do not immediately understand the value of an open licence and can also prove reluctant to switch to software they haven’t used before. You could consider organising regular events and, more importantly, training sessions to build awareness of OSS and what should be considered when working with the software and being part of a community. Drawing attention to the value of increased functionality offered by an open source product would be helpful. The functionality of the software can be adapted and increased because of its open licence. This will encourage users to get engaged and request changes. Studies show that when requested changes are included in new product versions, the people that requested them become more devoted to the product. Such devotees often become strong advocates for the product amongst their immediate colleagues.
Another possibility is to invite open source community representatives and devoted users belonging to a public administration to your training sessions to share real-life testimonials and examples of working with open source.
How do we create a favourable environment for open source communities and OSS in our administration?
One way to encourage your public administration’s commitment to nurturing open source communities is by adopting a communication or vision document that puts these goals in writing. As highlighted throughout the OSOR country intelligence reports, many countries use their political strategies and action plans to commit to OSS, e.g. Portugal’s ICT Strategy (2019) and Slovakia’s Digital Transformation Strategy and Action Plan (2019-2022). In the case of Malta, the Malta Information Technology Agency went beyond committing to open source by pledging its support to open source communities in the government’s white paper Open Source Vision.
How can we support our colleagues who want to work with open source?
Nurturing a favourable environment for working with OSS requires that public officials feel comfortable and supported when embarking on a new open source engagement. To facilitate knowledge exchange and the provision of technical support, consider gathering like-minded individuals from other public administrations and/or organisations to build OSS expertise together. For example, the Dutch Government, putting its policy “open, unless” (“Open, tenzij”)[17] into practice, has launched a website (hosted on the Pleio platform) that offers an open source toolbox and open source discussion groups about various topics. The toolbox is meant for government employees and offers practical information and tools to get started with OSS. Similarly, any public official can join the open source discussion groups on Pleio. Together, members can chat on related topics (e.g. procurement processes), join events, learn about the latest software developments, exchange good practices, and find the latest news on open source in the Netherlands.