The Social Democratic Party, the Greens, the Pirate Party and the Left Party want software, where development was funded by the public administrations, to be published under a free licence, according to the Free Software Foundation Europe. On Tuesday the FSFE published the answers by all of Germany's political parties to a range of questions regarding free software. Germany is electing a new parliament in September.
The two parties in the current government coalition, FPD and CDU/CSU, have a different approach, the FSFE notes. Indirectly replying, the FDP says it wants both proprietary and free software to be considered in public procurement. The CDU points to a restriction in the state budget law, that would prevent the publication of certain publicly funded software. The FSFE comments that the restriction does not apply to most software applications, and notes that the CDU in its past eight years in government had ample opportunity "to improve the law if they perceive it to be problematic".
Penalty
The FSFE reports that all political parties agree that public authorities should demand all rights when contracting out software development, including access to the source code, the right for further developments and the right to distribute the software to others. The arguments include avoiding IT vendor lock-in, increased IT security and innovation. Germany's conservative Free Voters state that they will consider fines for officials who sign contracts without such rights, the FSFE reports.
Free and open source advocacy groups have been approaching political parties ahead of elections for several years, with similar campaigns organised in France and Belgium. "From the responses, it's clear that most parties now know more about free software than they did in the past", the FSFE concludes.
More information:
FSFE announcement
Linux Magazine news item (in German) Opensource.com news item