Japan is working on a national FOSS strategy and some preparatory documents have already been published. In this article we'll look at the recently published "2024 Open Source Promotion Report: Current Status and Future Prospects for the Formation of an Open Source Strategy in Japan" (which I will refer to in this article as "the Report").

We've read and quoted machine translations which we hope are accurate.

It's a high-quality document and should be read by people in other countries who may work on government FOSS strategies. The current FOSS strategy of the European Commission is in a document titled "Open source software strategy 2020-2023". If a newer version is to be published, then looking at the work in Japan may be useful.

For context about FOSS in Japan, readers may wish to read OSOR's country intelligence report on Japan.

After looking at the Report's structure, this article will focus on three topics:

1. Economic reasons for a FOSS strategy
2. The role of software in sovereignty
3. The need for long-term strategies

Structure of the Report

This article's first focus will be on sections 1 and 3 which discuss the need for a FOSS strategy. Section 1 is more about why governments should be focussing on FOSS, and section 3 is more about why a strategy is needed. The other focus is on the recommendations which are in sections 5 and 6.

The Report itself is available as a PDF, or split into nine webpages:

• Background and Issues of this Report
• Section 1. Introduction: Why an Open Source Strategy is Needed Now
• Section 2. Current status and challenges of OSS use in Japanese companies
• Section 3. Giving back to the open source ecosystem and community
• Section 4. Global policy examples: government-led initiatives and system development
• Section 5. Promotion measures that Japan should take: Proposals to support policies, systems, human resources, and regions
• Section 6. Future Key Actions for IPA Open Source Promotion
• Section 7. Conclusion
• References

1. Economic reasons for a FOSS strategy

The Report highlights two economic factors. The first is the issue of IT investment increasingly going to overseas companies. Besides the issue of money leaving the country, this is a missed opportunity for local investment which could build up Japan's business capacity for FOSS. (1.2, "In Japan, while the use of cloud services and digital-related technologies is increasing, payments to overseas companies are on the rise (...) External payments are increasing in the fields of communications, computer and information services, copyright royalties and management consulting".)

The second is about efficiency being harmed. One example is the issue of technology becoming obsolete simply because the software can't be updated. (3.1, "FOSS projects can continually evolve and prevent technology from becoming obsolete") A second example is the issue of costs which are unnecessary and could be avoided if there was more awareness of the existing FOSS solutions which can be reused. (1.3 "By using open source as one of the 'parts' it becomes possible to flexibly build and expand a system while minimising in-house development resources." and "by reusing and sharing functions, it reduces the need to develop from scratch".)

The same issues exist in Europe and have been discussed for many years. If there is increased interest in moving government services to FOSS, it is probably more linked to the next point.

2. The role of software in sovereignty

In recent months there has been a large increase in the number of people who are seriously discussing "digital sovereignty" or "strategic autonomy". For IT, these could be expressed as a general idea that governments should be able to audit and modify the software they use, and should not have a dependency on a single company for essential services or security updates.

The Report does not present this as an issue of international relations, but rather as an issue of becoming dependent on a small number of large corporations. (section 1.1) And while using FOSS does not automatically solve these issues, users of FOSS at least have the autonomy necessary to make decisions about who to depend on or whether to invest in local skills. Section 3.1 notes that when using FOSS, employees can "gain practical experience in the international development community while being exposed to cutting-edge OSS, which is expected to improve their work-ready capabilities and raise the overall level of Japan's technological capabilities."

The Report, in the initial section about the background, notes that "Around the world, FOSS has been institutionalised as part of public infrastructure and is being used as a foundation for technological independence and democratic technological development." In section 1.3 it further notes that FOSS provides a "degree of freedom not found in proprietary software. In addition, because the source code is open, security risks can be discovered and fixed early, making it possible to build a robust system against external attacks and unauthorised use."

3. The need for long-term strategies

3a. The challenges

Sections 3.2 and 3.3 say that short-term benefits are often prioritised and this leads to a lack of investment and a lack of effort to build the cooperative relationships necessary to maintain the motivation which is essential for success. Section 3.3 also notes that work on systems with similar functionality is often duplicated. Human resource limitations can then lead to an inability to maintain these duplicate projects.

In section 3.2, also describes an issue created when only a part of the ecosystem is involved in the maintenance efforts:

"There is insufficient cooperation between companies and between the public and private sectors, and it is easy for some players to be placed under an excessive burden. If this imbalance continues, players who are burdened by the burden may abandon the activity, and the entire community may stagnate."

The last part of section 3.3 also discusses a "Lack of understanding of open source", which adds that a lack of investment may be due to lack of understanding of FOSS project management. That paragraph also suggests a possible solution by saying that cooperation between entities might lead to a greater understanding of the benefits of investing and how to invest effectively.

Before we move on to the solutions proposed in the Report, we could note that it's possible that the above problem is partly because some have heard that paying for FOSS is optional, but they haven't been told about the benefits which can be obtained by paying. You may not be required to audit your software or modify it to increase interoperability or standards compliance, but with FOSS you have the option of paying for these services, in a free market. And if you invest to do these things internally, then you gain skills and expertise in software which you rely on. If this topic was discussed more broadly, it's possible that more companies would choose to avail of some of these options and this would increase the capacity of Japanese businesses to provide relevant services and would help counteract any issue of becoming depending on a small number of large, foreign corporations.

3b. Solutions

Possible solutions are discussed in section 5, in a more general sense, and section 6 presents practical ways to work on these. There is also an important note in section 3.4 which underlines the importance of collaboration, suggesting to "establish the necessary policies and rules for collaboration with external parties required for introducing and operating FOSS, and share best practices."

The measures recommended in section 5.2 are:

• 5.2.1: Creation of an OSPO (or national entity which can be a point of contact)
• 5.2.2: Increasing participation in standardisation organisations and FOSS foundations
• 5.2.3: Public Procurement Reform
• 5.2.4: Promote local businesses to use FOSS in their digitalisation efforts

And the practical recommendations of section 6 are:

• Studying the domestic FOSS ecosystem, to design support measures for both the public and private sectors.
• Increasing the level of understanding, at executive and managerial levels, of the role of FOSS in risk management and investment decisions.
• Cultivating talent to increase participation in FOSS projects and the FOSS ecosystem.

Closing remarks

The Report cites a 2025 Black Duck study which concluded that for commercial software (which we presume means both FOSS and proprietary software), 70% of the code is FOSS. If anyone thinks that migrating to FOSS would be a big change, they may be unaware of how much FOSS they are already using.

As the Report notes, FOSS is "global public good shared on a global scale." (section 1.4) More contributors leads to better software for everyone. International cooperation will also be useful to deal with newer issues of software market regulations. With this in mind, it is important for regions of the world to learn from each other and that we all foster international dialogue on how to make progress.