Slides from the presentation "Why Open Source in the Public Sector?" at the "The state of Open Source in the International arena" seminar in Vaasa Apr 27, 2011

1. Why Open Source in the Public Sector?
The state of Open Source in the International arena
Vaasa 2011-04-27
Tommi Karttaavi

2. Association of Finnish Local and
Regional Authorities (Kuntaliitto)
• Interest, service and development organisation of the
Finnish local government
• All Finnish municipalities are members of the association;
service agreements with other local government
organisations
• Kuntaliitto Group employs 1.310 people; 300 in the
association and others in the companies it owns

3. Use of open source software in municipalities
(Municipal IT-survey 2006 and 2010)
Municipalities using open Municipalities using open
source software in 2006 source software in 2010
(blue) (blue)

4. Reasons for using Open Source in the
public sector
• Cost savings
• Democracy
• Interoperability
• Reuse of technology

5. Cost savings
• Using open source software can help reduce IT
spending
• Not automatic, license fees just one cost among
many others
• Sometimes migrating to open source may even be
more expensive, due to poor planning or having to
buy a lot of expert services
• City of Naantali migrated its schools from Linux to Microsoft
environment in 2010, citing costs as the reason
• The municipal IT-department could not support the Linux
environment at schools, so the support had to be
outsourced

6. Linux terminal servers in schools
• Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP) is a
free and open source terminal server
• Applications run on the server with a
terminal known as a thin client
• Dozens of schools in Finland are using LTSP
solutions for workstations
• Map by Elias Aarnio: http://ra.fi/KUMz
• City of Kankaanpää
• Schools in Kankaanpää migrated to LTSP
from Windows in 2009
• Monthly costs per workstation went down
from EUR 34 to EUR 5,67

7. Ministry of Justice OpenOffice
migration
• In 2005 the Ministry and its administrative sector had a mixture of
Lotus SmartSuite and Microsoft Office (plus some WordPerfect) office
suites
• The mixed environment was causing problems and the prevalent
Lotus SmartSuite was being discontinued
• Evaluation of alternative solutions was conducted

8. Ministry of Justice cost savings from
OpenOffice migration
• OpenOffice.org was selected after evaluating the costs of alternatives
over the period of six years (2006-2011)
• A new cost evaluation was conducted in 2010
Source: Large-scale migration to an open source office suite: An innovation adoption
study in Finland, Martti Karjalainen, academic dissertation, Univ. of Tampere, 2010

9. Democracy
• “No citizen or company should be forced or encouraged
to choose a closed technology over an open one, through
a government having made that choice first”
EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes
• Public authorities should be able to receive documents
from citizens or businesses in standardised and open
formats
• Software used in public administration should be
auditable
• Using open source software in schools makes it possible
for the students to use the same software at home,
without having to pay for it

10. Interoperability
• Interoperability does not automatically follow from using
open source
• Open source can increase interoperability by making the
software's functionality transparent
• Using open source helps avoiding vendor lock-in
• Open standards are even more important than open
source from the interoperability point of view

11. Reuse
• Open source solutions that can be copied, altered and
used by anyone are a great way of sharing within the
public sector
• Possibility to reuse software could offer significant
benefits for the public sector
• Software developed for an individual municipality could
be used by all of them
• Costs can be saved in licence fees, development costs
and even maintenance and support

12. OmaOulu.fi
• A citizen's portal with personalised access to
municipal services
• Made with open source software
• Liferay, JBoss, Openfire, Alfresco, Intalio, MySQL,
Redhat
• Components developed by contractor (Ixonos) are
also open source and available at Osor.eu
• The architecture model and documentation has also
been made available
• http://wiki.kuntait.fi/tiki-index.php

13. Obstacles for using open source in the
public sector
• Prejudices
• Lack of skills
• Lack of knowledge
• Lack of governance

14. Prejudices
• Open source is not serious business
• Licensing is too confusing
• Procurement is too difficult
• Open source is not secure

15. Lack of skills
• Using open source is just like using proprietary software,
development and distribution however require specialised
know-how
• Public authorities generally lack the expertise
• Proprietary software is prevalent
• Resources are scant and they are not shared with others
• Open source procurement needs some expertise too
• Comparing tenders with or without license fees
• Public authorities should prefer open source when buying
software

16. Lack of knowledge
• “Where can I find the software I need?”
• “How do I know it is good?”
• “Where can I find someone who supports it?”
• “Who else is using it?”
• Hard to find out how other public authorities are
using open source
• No gathering of best practices and no place to
publish them on the national level

17. Lack of governance
• Some common governance policies and routines are
needed to effectively utilise open source in the public
sector
• There is no centralised distribution channel for
disseminating software developed for public authorities
• There is no administrative framework for version
management
• There are no common licensing policies for public
authorities

18. Overcoming the obstacles
• Prejudices
• Open source business models are becoming more mainstream
• Lack of skills
• A new kind of culture, where not only software but other resources
are shared between public authorities needs to be fostered
• Best practices need to be documented and disseminated
• Lack of knowledge
• Objective information should be gathered and published on the
national level
• JHS recommendation system
• Lack of governance
• The European Open Source Observatory and Repository Osor.eu
• The national interoperability portal Yhteentoimivuus.fi
• The European Union Public License (EUPL)

21. Some public policy documents worth
reading
• Recommendation on the Openness of the Code and
Interfaces of State Information Systems (2003)
• http://www.vm.fi/vm/fi/04_julkaisut_ja_asiakirjat/01_julkaisut/
04_hallinnon_kehittaminen/64242/name.jsp
• JHS 169 Public Administration Recommendation on the
Use of Open Source software in Public Administration
(2008)
• http://www.jhs-suositukset.fi/suomi/jhs169
• Public administration enterprise architecture principles
(2011, draft)
• http://www.vm.fi/vm/fi/04_julkaisut_ja_asiakirjat/03_muut_asi
akirjat/20110407Luonno/11_JHKA_Arkkitehtuuriperiaatteet_20
110404.pdf

22. Public administration enterprise architecture
principle number 16: make use of open source
• Open source solutions should be made use of in
information systems development and procurement
• Open source solutions support technology and product
neutrality, increase competition, transparency and
adaptability

23. Public authorities should...
• Prefer open source software when feasible
• Demand open licenses when buying software
development
• Share the code and share the experiences
• Cooperate more within the public sector, pool resources
and stop re-inventing the wheel
• Stop concentrating on their own budget and start
thinking about benefits for the society as a whole

24. “The modernisation of public services and
administration must rely on information
technology. At the same time, it is particularly
important to adjust processes and structures to
fully utilise the benefits of IT. Administrative and
service processes must be developed throughout
as a whole, from the perspective of either the
customer or the product in question. Partial
optimisation carried out by government agencies
or sectors of administration, which is inefficient
from the perspective of the whole, must be
eliminated.”
Finland 2020 – From thought to action, a press release by the Council of
State 30.8.2010

25. Thank you!
http://www.kunnat.net/
http://www.jhs-suositukset.fi/
tommi.karttaavi@kuntaliitto.fi
http://www.linkedin.com/in/tommikarttaavi
http://www.slideshare.net/tommikarttaavi
http://tommikarttaavi.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/tommikarttaavi