After 100 days: German government falls short on Free Software policy
100 days after the German federal government took office, the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) sees its demand for Free Software in public administration unfulfilled. While the governing coalition of CDU, CSU, and SPD announced ambitious goals for Free Software in the coalition agreement, no concrete, effective measures have been taken.
The draft Public Procurement Acceleration Act (Vergabebeschleunigungsgesetz) adopted by the Federal Cabinet on 6 August 2025 misses the opportunity to prioritise Free Software (also known as Open Source) in public procurement. The planned “Germany Stack” risks becoming a purely national silo project. It will fail without EU-wide cooperation, transparency, and inclusion of the Free Software ecosystem, in particular as it remains unclear whether the stack will be developed entirely as Free Software. In addition, the 2025 federal budget provides neither long-term, reliable funding for Free Software nor adequate resources for the federal government’s Free Software initiatives.
“If the federal government is serious about technological sovereignty, it must consistently rely on Free Software. This is an absolute prerequisite for achieving vendor independence, replaceability, interoperability, and genuine innovation,” says Johannes Näder, Senior Policy Project Manager at the FSFE. “The government must finally secure reliable, long-term funding for Free Software and its initiatives such as ZenDiS. Free Software must be given priority in public procurement. This is the only way to end our administration’s risky dependency on proprietary providers.”
The FSFE also calls on the federal government to develop an IT stack in close cooperation with the EU, other member states, and the Free Software ecosystem, and to involve civil society in the process. It should also regularly collect and publish statistics on the procurement, commissioning, and development of Free Software in public administrations.
“We need accurate up-to-date data on the share of Free Software in the public sector now,” Näder explains.“Only then can we assess whether there is a real change in line with ‘Public Money? Public Code!’: Software funded with public money should always be Free Software. The time to act is now.”
A detailed analysis of the government’s performance will be published on the FSFE website on 14 August 2025. Also a presentation will be given at FrOSCon (German language).
Our demands for the election: https://fsfe.org/news/2025/news-20250206-01.html