With its emphasis on open source and open data, and modular, interoperable ICT solutions, OS2 is challenging Denmark’s incumbent public administration ICT organisations. The community favours smaller ICT development cycles, avoiding IT vendor lock-in and fostering sharing and reuse.
OS2 is a community that specifies, develops and governs ICT solutions by municipalities and for municipalities and, in just four years, has grown from 5 to 57 of Denmark’s 98 municipalities. The community includes ICT services providers, and it’s overall objective is to collectively develop ICT solutions based on open source and open data, that are shared and reused by its members.
Denmark’s public administrations are slow to realise they should retain ownership over the ICT solutions that are developed for them, and should be free to share them with others, says Rasmus Frey, OS2 business manager, in an interview with Version2, a Danish IT trade publication, published on 22 December. OS2 now works with 44 ICT service suppliers, providing them with guidance on IT architecture, code documentation, user experience and testing. A key requirement is that development of ICT solutions should involve multiple ICT service providers, and OS2 also encourages all software and content to be shared on GitHub.
OS2’s approach should be the standard for public administration IT projects, writes OS2 community manager Nicolai Juhler on the community’s website on 9 December. He reports on a meeting with the ICT services providers working with OS2. The meeting focused on the guidance for cooperation and sharing, Juhler explains, adding that OS2 needs to continue to explain its values and principles to public administrations - requiring them to work together to split the bill.
More OSOR information:
OS2 blog post (in Danish)
Version2 news item (in Danish)
OSOR case study in Aarhus