OSSBIG—the Austrian FOSS group consisting of high-ranking IT-managers and professionals from various companies and public sectors with the aim of working for open-source in the public sector—has published a new paper that provides a blueprint for public administrations on how to achieve digital sovereignty via open source. The authors of the paper Georg Hahn and Wilfred Jäger both have extensive experience of working with FOSS in public administrations. Mr. Jäger has many years’ experience as IT-Chief Operations Officer for the Austrian Federal Government (Bundesrechenzentrum GmbH) and Georg…

The city of Vienna has been on an open source journey which started in the 2000s, and today it has become a Smart City using open source software and methods as well as FIWARE evaluation tools. Since 2006, Vienna has had its own Linux distribution – Wienux – and during the 2000s and ‘10s it replaced proprietary software with open source in the public sector. Today it is a Smart City with open standards and FIWARE tools for evaluation. An e-Government Bund-Länder-Gemeinden report from 2020 states that the relevance for open source is to foster and allow interorganisational collaboration in the…