Event: Municipalities Need Free Software - Dortmund is a Reference Municipality
The City of Dortmund, together with Berlin and Munich, is initialising the "Open Source Big 3" and setting up a "Coordination Office for Digital Sovereignty and Open Source". The Free Software Foundation Europe, the Do-FOSS initiative, and the Offene Kommunen.NRW association will provide information about these current developments in an online event on 11 January 2023.
The City of Dortmund is embracing its role as a pioneer for digital sovereignty through Free Software (also known as Open Source): Together with Berlin and Munich, Dortmund has initialised the "Open Source Big 3". In addition, at the beginning of next year, a "Coordination Office for Digital Sovereignty and Open Source" will be set up in Dortmund in 2023 under the Chief Information/Innovation Officer (CIO) of the city administration, as the city council of Dortmund decided today. Through this coordination office, open source governance is to be developed as a cross-sectional task of the administration in cooperation with the Kommunale Gemeinschaftsstelle für Verwaltungsmanagement (KGSt). Due to the involvement of KGSt, this development will also be relevant for all other municipalities in Germany.
With the increasing collaboration of administrations in Free Software development, the development platform "Open CoDE" tailored to the public sector is gaining in importance. This opens up new perspectives for cooperation with communities. Conscious community building is necessary for the administrations. Moreover, the “Open Source Big 3” partnership should not be limited to three cities in the future, but can turn out to become the "Open Source Big X" with other municipalities joining.
We would like to invite you to an online event in which we will talk about these current developments and decisions. We will also discuss what opportunities and challenges arise for Dortmund and other municipalities throughout Germany. Interested persons - not only from Dortmund - are invited to join us!
When: 11.01.2023, 4:00 - 5:00 p.m. CET
Where: https://registration.fsfe.org/Dortmund
For any questions on the event please contact
Christian Nähle
Do-FOSS - Initiative for the Use of Free and Open Source Software at the City of Dortmund
christian.naehle (at) do-foss.de
0176 / 56 74 76 29
The political decision to establish the "Coordination Office Digital Sovereignty and Open Source" can be found here. This also already contains the requirements profile for the upcoming job advertisement. The formally published job advertisement will be available at Do-FOSS website from mid-January.
Free Software and “Public Money? Public Code!”
Free Software gives everyone the right to use, study, share and improve applications for any purpose. These freedoms ensure that similar applications do not have to be programmed from scratch every time and, thanks to transparent processes, others do not have to reinvent the wheel. In large projects, expertise and costs can be shared and applications paid for by the general public are available to all. This promotes innovation and saves tax payers money in the medium to long term. Dependencies on vendors are minimised and security issues can be fixed more easily. The Free Software Foundation Europe, together with over 200 organisations, is therefore calling for "Public Money? Public Code!" - If it is public money, it should be public code as well. More information on the initiative on the “Public Money? Public Code!” website.