The Dutch Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) has upheld its decision not to investigate allegations that several municipalities in the country are unfairly competing with software companies by publishing source code as open source. The software in question, ID Contact (repository), is an innovation pilot developed by the municipalities of Arnhem, Nijmegen, and the Drechtsteden, which allows residents to securely identify themselves remotely and exchange personal data. ID Contact has a focus on ease-of-use and reliability. Because it is Open Source, other companies and municipalities can…

The City of Amsterdam has a website dedicated to open source software methods, on how to create healthy code, contribute, use and reuse the repositories. Open Panorama is one of ten projects featured on the City of Amsterdam’s website of open source software. Open Panorama is 'An end to end solution for processing, normalisation, anonymisation and serving 360° street view panoramas. From raw files to API', as stated on the project page. The project is based on requirements from the City of Amsterdam, which include principles to create a healthy code and facilitate reuse. Open Panorama is an…

To increase the competence in the usage of new technologies, a Digital Government Directorate under the Ministry of the Interior is being formed in Netherlands. At the same time, the Dutch government has a set out to using more open source within the government, summarised under the phrase “Open, unless…”. In order to increase the understanding of how the shift to open source can be used within the public sector, the Ministry of the Interior contracted the consultancy ANNE for a report. The research team were given four main questions to be investigated and the task to develop policy…

As part of its Digitisation Strategy, the Dutch government launched its new open source toolbox, which includes useful information for civil servants to switch to open source, as well as a communication platform to engage with each other. In the wake of the Dutch Digitisation Strategy 2018-2021 (Nederlandse Digitaliseringstrategie 2018-2021, NDS) launched by the State Secretary for Economic Affairs and Climate Policy, the Minister of Justice and Security, and the State Secretary of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, on 17 April 2020 the latter sent a letter to the House of Representatives…

Citizens expect well-functioning digital services from their government. Until recently, municipalities in the Netherlands were held back in providing these services by fragmented systems that would not exchange data. If a citizen request would require data from two systems, a lack of interoperability meant this data had to be duplicated in multiple systems and could go out of date. Dutch municipalities came to together to change this. Today, these municipalities start collecting the fruits of their labour initiated years ago. From 1 April 2021, Dutch municipalities are expected to start…

This is the third of a series of five studies exploring the sustainability of open source software communities in the public sector. INTRODUCTION In 2019, the City of Groningen started a new participatory democracy project following the successful launch of the Stem van Groningen (Voice of Groningen) platform. The new project was designed with the aim of giving citizens more decision-making power in relation to their locality. On the advice of the Dutch Ministry of Interior’s Digital Democracy Lab, the city of Groningen decided to use open source software. To host the platform, the…