Poland’s new eGovernment strategy recommends that publicly financed software should use an open architecture, and consider publication under an open source licence. The eGovernment strategy twice emphasises the use of open source, for a new system of public registers and for an eInvoicing system that interoperates with a national document management system.

The ministry first refers to the use of open source solutions for a central citizen registry.

This modular system is to become the basis for modern eGovernment services, and make data available across systems and services, saving time and resources. “The state-funded development of new IT solutions shall be based on the principle of open architecture (avoiding monolithic structures). Moreover, the related software should be easy to service (to avoid getting stuck with just one supplier) and made available as open source, if possible.”

The Polish government also wants to weigh the use of open source when deciding on an eInvoicing system. The software should connect to the country’s preferred document management system, EZD.

Make it open

EZD is built by a consortium of public administrations and IT service providers, and is built with and requires the use of proprietary technology. The solution is made available for free to public administrations. EZD is used by over 200 organisations across the country.

“The ultimate goal would be to have the EZD transform into an open system”, the government writes, “sharing not only within the administration, but also going beyond to connect to other entities in matters such as making public data available. For this solution to be as effective as possible, consideration will be given to making it available as open source, partially or fully.”

More information:

eGovernment strategy (PDF, in Polish and English)
Announcement by the Ministry of Digitization (in Polish)