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- <html newsdate="2017-12-06">
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- <head>
- <title>Dutch government publishes large project as Free Software</title>
- </head>
- <body>
-
- <h1>Dutch government publishes large project as Free Software</h1>
-
- <p newsteaser="yes">
- The Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations
- released the source code and documentation of Basisregistratie Personen (BRP), a
- 100M€ IT system that registers information about inhabitants within the
- Netherlands. This comes as a great success for Public Code, and the FSFE
- applauds the Dutch government's shift to Free Software.
- </p>
-
- <p>Operation BRP is an IT project by the Dutch government that has been in the
- works since 2004. It has cost Dutch taxpayers upwards of 100 million Euros and
- has endured three failed attempts at revival, without anything to show for
- it. From the outside, it was unclear what exactly was costing taxpayers so much
- money with very little information to go on. After the plug had been pulled from
- the project earlier this year in July, the former interior minister agreed to
- publish the source code under pressure of Parliament, to offer transparency
- about the failed project. Secretary of state Knops has now gone beyond that
- promise and released the source code as Free Software (a.k.a. Open Source
- Software) to the public.</p>
-
- <p>In 2013, when the first smoke signals showed, the former interior minister
- initially wanted to address concerns about the project by providing limited
- parts of the source code to a limited amount of people under certain restrictive
- conditions. The ministry has since made a complete about-face,
- releasing <a href="https://github.com/MinBZK/OperatieBRP">a snapshot of the
- (allegedly) full source code and documentation</a> under the terms of the GNU
- Affero General Public License, with the development history soon to follow.</p>
-
- <p>In <a href="https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/brieven/2017/11/10/afschrift-brief-over-openbaarmaking-broncode-brp">a
- letter to Dutch municipalities</a> earlier in November, secretary of state Knops
- said that he is convinced of the need of an even playing field for all parties,
- and that he intends to "let the publication happen under open source
- terms". He went on to say: "What has been realised in operation BRP
- has namely been financed with public funds. Software that is built on top of
- this source code should in turn be available to the public again."</p>
-
- <p>These statements are an echo of the Free Software Foundation
- Europe's <a href="https://publiccode.eu/">Public Money, Public Code</a>
- campaign, in which we implore public administrations to release software funded
- by the public as Free Software available to the citizenry that paid for it.</p>
-
- <p>The echoes of 'Public Money, Public Code' do not stop
- there. In <a href="https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/kamerstukken/2017/11/29/kamerbrief-over-openbaarmaking-meest-recente-versie-broncode-brp">a
- letter to the Dutch parliament</a> Wednesday 29 November, the secretary of state
- writes about the AGPL: "The license terms assure that changes to the source code
- are also made publicly available. In this way, reuse is further supported. The
- AGPL offers the best guarantee for this, and besides the GPL (General Public
- License), sees a lot of use and support in the open source community.</p>
-
- <p>"Publication will happen free of charge so that, in the public interest,
- an even playing field is created for everyone who wants to reuse this
- code."</p>
-
- <p>This is big news from the Netherlands and an unprecedented move of
- transparency by the Dutch
- government. Following <a href="https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/rapporten/2017/10/11/onderzoek-open-source-software">a
- report</a> to the Ministry of the Interior about publishing government software
- as Free Software (Open Source Software), it seems that this will happen more
- often. In it, Free Software is described as making the government more
- transparent, lowering costs, increasing innovation, forming the foundation for a
- digital participation society, and increasing the quality of code.</p>
-
- <blockquote><p>"We applaud the Dutch government for releasing the source code
- for BRP. We have been asking for this method of working since 2001, and it is
- good to see that the government is finally taking steps towards Free Software.
- In the future, we hope that the source code will be released during an earlier
- stage of development, which we believe in this case would have brought issues to
- light sooner", says Maurice Verheesen, coordinator FSFE Netherlands.</p></blockquote>
-
- <p>If you like our campaign "Public Money, Public Code",
- please <a href="https://fsfe.org/donate">become a supporter today</a> to enable
- our work!</p>
-
- </body>
- <tags>
- <tag>front-page</tag>
- <tag>PMPC</tag>
- </tags>
- <author id="carmenbianca" />
- </html>
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