News item about Dutch policy (#1323)
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news/2020/news-20200424-01.en.xhtml
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news/2020/news-20200424-01.en.xhtml
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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<html newsdate="2020-04-24">
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<version>1</version>
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<head>
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<title>Netherlands commits to Free Software by default</title>
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</head>
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<body>
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<h1>Netherlands commits to Free Software by default</h1>
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<p newsteaser="yes">In an open letter to the Parliament, the Dutch
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minister for internal affairs Raymond Knops commits to a "Free Software
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by default" policy and underlines its benefits for society. Current
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market regulations shall be reworded to allow publishing Free Software
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by the government. </p>
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<p>In the 2018 budget debate, Members of the Dutch Parliament raised
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questions about actively publishing Free Software by the government,
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and an 'open source by default' policy for procurement. These questions
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appealed to a <a
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href="https://kennisopenbaarbestuur.nl/rapporten-publicaties/onderzoek-open-source-software/">report</a>
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earlier in 2017 on a government-ordered inquiry in the options for
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publishing software under a Free and Open-Source-Software-License. The
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report states that adopting Free Software could make the government
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more transparent, as well as reduce costs and stimulate the economy.
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Additional efforts are deemed necessary to reap these benefits by
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ensuring readable and secure code and supporting the community at
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large. However, it also underlined the possibility that the government
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publishing Free Software could be considered unfair competition under
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current market regulations. Doing so would only be legal if the
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government abides by a strict set of regulations, which in its current
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form would render such publication nearly impossible.</p>
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<figure>
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<img src="/picturebase/miscellaneous/202004-Raymond-Knops-800px.jpg" alt="Picture of Dutch minister Raymond Knops" />
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<figcaption>Dutch minister Raymond Knops at an Open Data award ceremony. CC-BY-2.0 Sebastiaan ter Burg</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p>After some delay, the Dutch minister for internal affairs, Raymond
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Knops, has finally answered these questions by publishing a <a
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href="https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/kamerstukken/2020/04/17/kamerbrief-inzake-vrijgeven-broncode-overheidssoftware">letter
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to the Parliament</a>. In this letter, the minister agrees to the
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principle of Free Software by default ("Open Source by default") for
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procurement, which can be considered a parallel to the 'comply or
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explain' policy that is already in effect for the adoption of open
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standards. The minister also agrees to the government actively
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developing and publishing Free Software. The letter comes with a
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summation of benefits that are similar to the ones mentioned in our <a
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href="https://publiccode.eu/">"Public Money? Public Code!"
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campaign</a>. Still, some reservations are mentioned: exceptions shall
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be made for information that could compromise national or governmental
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security and for information considered a privacy risk. Additionally,
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the letter states that it might not be worth taking on the additional
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effort of converting existing software into Free Software, making this
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policy mostly applicable for new projects.</p>
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<p>In the <a
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href="https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/publicaties/2020/04/17/overwegingen-bij-open-tenzij-en-aanpak-open-source">attachment
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to the letter</a>, the minister takes note of ongoing efforts in the
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public sector and makes detailed promises of enabling and encouraging a
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Free Software community in the public sector. One of these is a promise
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to make changes later this year to current market regulations in order
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to make exceptions for publishing Free Software by the government. This
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will remove the current legal grey area. A new procurement policy will
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also be adopted: Free Software by default is the way to go, and the
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government and its institutions will actively start to publish Free
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Software. The minister will report on the progress of these measures in
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the beginning of 2021.</p>
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<p>"At the FSFE we welcome this policy and we will monitor the progress
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together with our strong partners in the Netherlands." says Nico
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Rikken, the FSFE's coordinator for the Netherlands. "We also invite
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Dutch national and local governments to sign our open letter that
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demands that publicly financed software developed for the public sector
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be made publicly available under a Free Software licence."</p>
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<blockquote>The Public Money? Public Code! campaign aims to set Free
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Software as the standard for publicly financed software. Public
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administrations following this principle can benefit from collaboration
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with other public bodies, independence from single vendors, potential
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tax savings, increased innovation, and a better basis for IT security.
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The Free Software Foundation Europe together with over 180 civil
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society organisations and more than 27.000 individuals signed the Open
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Letter. We will use the signatures to contact decision makers and
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political representatives all over Europe and convince them to make
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public code the standard. You are invited to <a
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href="https://publiccode.eu">add your signature</a> to make a bigger
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impact.</blockquote>
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</body>
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<tags>
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<tag>front-page</tag>
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<tag content="Public Money? Public Code!">pmpc</tag>
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<tag content="Public Administration">publicadministration</tag>
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<tag content="Policy">policy</tag>
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<tag content="Netherlands">nl</tag>
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</tags>
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<image url="https://fsfe.org/picturebase/miscellaneous/202004-Raymond-Knops-800px.jpg" />
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<author id="rikken"/>
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<discussion href="https://community.fsfe.org/t/netherlands-commits-to-free-software-by-default/432" />
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</html>
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SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2020 Sebastiaan ter Burg
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SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-2.0
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Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Uitreiking_Stuiveling_Open_Data_Award_(SODA)_(45067925722).jpg
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