Politicians in the German states of Berlin and Lower Saxony are again pushing for the use of free and open source software solutions by the states' public administration, the IT trade press reports.

In the Berlin state parliament, the Bündnis 90/Die Grünen (Alliance 90/The Greens) in February filed a request to the state government to develop a 'forward looking strategy with open source'. The parliamentarians argue this type of solutions will results in long-term savings, increased openness of government and IT-vendor independence. The proposal was discussed last week, reports the German IT news site Heise.

The Berlin parliamentarians are calling for a centre of excellence, where public administrations and research institutions work together on this kind of software solutions. They also want a clearing house, to resolve interoperability problems between public administrations.

Increasing the use of open source by public administrations is to be the goal of a five-year investment program. In 2018, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen want open source to be a standard part of IT in the Berlin government.

Attractive
In Lower Saxony the Social Democratic Party and Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, in February write in their draft coalition agreement that they will "promote the extensive use of free and open source software in all government organisations and educational institutions." "We want to be an attractive location for the information and communications technologies. We want to focus on cloud computing, open source software and Green IT."

In Lower Saxony, the parliamentarians want an IT strategy that prefers open source solutions above proprietary alternatives, when performance is the same.

More information:
Pro Linux news item (in German)
(pdf, in German)
Linux Magazine news item (in German)
Lower Saxony's Red-Green coalition agreement (pdf, in German)
Heise news item (in German)
Heise news item (in German)