The Historical Dictionary of Switzerland (Historische Lexikon der Schweiz - HLS) has taken a significant step forward in modernising its digital platform by turning to open source technologies. At the heart of this transformation is XWiki, an open source wiki and knowledge management solution that replaced a system that was no longer fit for the requirements of online publishing after the printed edition was finished.
The HLS is a nationally funded publication that documents Swiss history in four official languages – German, French, Italian and Romansh – and involves many editors, authors, and reviewers. The editorial process is both collaborative and demanding, requiring a platform that supports multilingual content, role-based access, and extensive editorial workflows. The previous system, in use for about 15 years, was increasingly unable to meet these needs due to technical obsolescence and limited flexibility.
By choosing XWiki, already in 2017, HLS embraced an open source software solution that aligns with its goals of transparency, maintainability, and long-term sustainability. The switch to open source wasn’t just a technical upgrade. It was a strategic decision to invest in a flexible and community-supported tool that puts the organisation in control of its own data and development path, something that could not be guaranteed with proprietary solutions that follow a “take-it-or-leave-it” approach which lead to vendor lock-in situations.
The new platform provides structured content editing and metadata management, which are crucial for encyclopaedic content; multilingual support and version tracking, essential for consistency across language editions; granular user rights management, allowing different levels of contribution from different team members; a future-proof architecture that HLS can extend and adapt as their editorial model evolves.
Importantly, the choice of an open source software solution has proven to be a cost-effective choice in the terms that it remains a viable and sustainable solution for HLS, which is funded by public money. It reduced the risk of vendor lock-in and allowed the HLS team to actively participate in shaping the tool to their needs while benefiting from the work of contributors across the XWiki open source community. At the same time, XWiki benefited from developing solutions that could be further shared with the open source community and other clients. Furthermore, the project was carried out with full transparency, including a public webinar where HLS shared their experiences and lessons learned, which stands as a valuable resource for other institutions considering similar transformations.
Overall, the HLS project shows that transitioning to open source software solutions is not just a technical upgrade, but an opportunity to rethink workflows and enhance technological autonomy. Key lessons learned include the importance of early stakeholder engagement, clear definition of editorial needs, and choosing flexible, modular tools that adapt and evolve over time. The collaboration with XWiki also highlighted the value of working with a partner that understands both open source principles and institutional requirements, ensuring long-term sustainability and reduced dependence on proprietary vendors.
"Launching the new production platform in 2018 and the website in 2019 with XWiki was a huge step for our everyday routine and the visibility of our work in public. Since then, we have been constantly improving the backend and the frontend and count on XWiki as a reliable partner that helps us to realise our visions for the HLS."
Stephanie Summermatter, former editor and now head of Digital Services
At the moment, HLS is also using qgis, an open source software tool that aids them with spatial visualisation and following the benefits experienced in their collaboration with the open source software community, they are further considering how to use more open source software tools in their everyday operation. In addition they provide different sets of meta-data concerning HLS as open-data and under a CC BY-SA licence.
This successful case highlights how public institutions can leverage open source not only to meet specific functional requirements but also to build more resilient, collaborative, and adaptable digital infrastructures. Further similar activities in collaboration with XWiki are ChatEurope, an EU funded chatbot dedicated to European news that includes news platform, an integrated chatbot and social media channels and the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) hub which is a “European multidisciplinary community seeking to actively detect, analyze, and expose disinformation campaigns across Europe”. For projects like the HLS, where cultural heritage and public service go hand in hand, open source software offers a clear path to digital sovereignty and sustainability.