Switzerland mandates government agencies use open-source software

Excellent, good for them! I don't understand why other governments don't follow suit, or why people are opposed to it. There might be some valid cons about requiring the use of FOSS (e.g. LibreOffice vs MS Office), but the part about requiring government sponsored code to be released as open source is clearly good for governments. Having the code freely open is good leverage against greed and good insurance for vendor failures.

This seems like something almost every government would have already done. Open source software means they aren&#x27;t locked into a single vendor and can hire anybody they wish (including their own internal developers) to modify their software to meet their needs. With proprietary software, a company like Microsoft or Apple can change your software whenever they want and however they want even if that isn&#x27;t in your interest.<p>From the perspective of a consumer, being able to hire your own developers to modify your software is basically useless. But this is very useful if you&#x27;re the government and have relatively unlimited funds taxed from your subjects.

It’s only responsible to use tax money in ways the resources used revert to its internal markets as much as possible.<p>What good is Swiss tax money that creates jobs in Redmond?

Really curious to see what turns up. A lot of stuff like geo-data and tools [1], as well as meteorological tools and models [2] were already partly public. Having worked for the federal administration and using their IT at least a few weeks yearly, the rest is mostly Microsoft and SAP software, or classified software that they can’t and won’t release.<p>In Switzerland, a lot of public services are located at the « Cantonal » (i.e. state) or « Communal » (i.e. city) level, which AFAIK isn’t affected by this.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;swisstopo">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;swisstopo</a> [2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;MeteoSwiss">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;MeteoSwiss</a>

Good. I would like to see an industry wide movement away from proprietary formats as well, especially Office or Adobe related formats.

[dupe]<p>Some discussion a few weeks ago: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=40852084">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=40852084</a><p>and this week <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=41047172">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=41047172</a>

Munich tried switching to open source (from MS Office) back in 2003.[0] It was a bit of a rough road, though I suppose no more so than many rollouts of software to enterprises. SAP implementations are a case in point. [1]<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.zdnet.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;linux-not-windows-why-munich-is-shifting-back-from-microsoft-to-open-source-again&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.zdnet.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;linux-not-windows-why-munich-i...</a><p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.linkedin.com&#x2F;pulse&#x2F;108-do-all-sap-implementation-projects-fail-why-nieto-rodriguez-uvmuf&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.linkedin.com&#x2F;pulse&#x2F;108-do-all-sap-implementation...</a><p>edit: typo

So they finally agreed with with the arguments of this petition: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;publiccode.eu" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;publiccode.eu</a>.

Good. This will probably also lower the conflict of interests with regulations and collusion temptation.

Misleading title, it says they only have to open-source software when that software is explicitly written for use by the government.

Does that also cover public healthcare ?