The city of Dortmund in Germany has decided to adopt the open source. On March 25, 2021, Dortmund City Council decided to use open source software for the administration.
In addition, software that will be developed by management or commissioned for development should be made available to the general public.
This is an exciting decision, as there have been many calls for the administration to move away from its reliance on proprietary software such as Microsoft 365.
On March 25, 2021, the city council decided the following:
- Use open source software where possible and
- Making available any software developed or commissioned for development by management to the general public.
This changes the practice of software selection by the Dortmund authorities. In the future, management will have to justify any use of proprietary software and why no open source software can be used.
The approval of this decision for open source software is due to the efforts of Intitive Do-FOSS (from Dortmund-FOSS).
To promote the use of Free Software in public administration, Do-FOSS uses a variety of different ways of dealing with and implementing Free Software. Among other things, Do-FOOS is working with the city of Dortmund to promote the use of Free Software in the city's strategic digitization.
In the early days of Do-FOSS, members initially envisioned writing a letter to the mayor outlining members' findings on Free Software's lucrative capabilities and convincing the mayor with arguments. However, it quickly became clear to members that the mayor is simply the general manager of a very large authority and that he must rely on others to make his decisions.
