You cannot select more than 25 topics
Topics must start with a letter or number, can include dashes ('-') and can be up to 35 characters long.
93 lines
4.7 KiB
HTML
93 lines
4.7 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
|
|
|
|
<html newsdate="2017-12-06">
|
|
<version>1</version>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<head>
|
|
<title>Dutch government publishes large project as Free Software</title>
|
|
</head>
|
|
<body>
|
|
|
|
<h1>Dutch government publishes large project as Free Software</h1>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
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://my.fsfe.org/donate">become a supporter today</a> to enable
|
|
our work!</p>
|
|
|
|
</body>
|
|
<tags>
|
|
<tag key="front-page"/>
|
|
<tag key="pmpc"/>
|
|
</tags>
|
|
<author id="carmenbianca" />
|
|
</html>
|