[FSFE] Halftime for the German government: Thank you for the fine words, now let the deeds speak!

press at fsfe.org press at fsfe.org
Tue Aug 29 09:39:18 UTC 2023 

 = Halftime for the German government: Thank you for the fine words, now let the deeds speak! =

[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/2023/news-20230829-01.it.html ]

The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), together with an alliance of
civil society and the Free Software industry, calls on the German
government to implement a sustainable digital policy and to provide the
necessary funds in the federal budget now.

FSFE draws a negative mid-term balance for the digital policy of the
German government. Together with 20 actors from civil society and the
Free Software industry, the FSFE demands: The Federal Government and the
coalition parties in the Bundestag must now urgently implement their
digital policy promises from the coalition agreement. They must provide
sufficient funding for this in the 2024 budget. Civil society must also
be more closely involved in the decision-making process. It is high time
to put Germany on a sustainable, inclusive digital policy course. The
government must not squander its last chance to do so in this
parliamentary term.

Two years ago, the German government launched a good and widely praised
digital policy programme, promising a change of course and a more
successful, sustainable and inclusive digitisation. Unfortunately,
halfway through the legislative period, this change of course is still a
long way off. So far, the government has launched only a few projects
and is planning to make painful cuts in next year's budget. This
threatens to lead to a failure of digital policy at the end of the
legislative period, and to long-term damage to society and the economy.

 === FSFE calls for Free Software in German administrations ===

Halfway through its term in office, the German government has failed to
live up to its promise in the coalition agreement to prioritise Free
Software (also known as Open Source) and open standards in the
digitisation of the administration. Isolated steps in the right
direction, such as the establishment of the Centre for Digital
Sovereignty (ZenDiS), are to be thwarted in the 2024 budget. Public
procurement law has not been modernised to facilitate the tendering and
procurement of Free Software. There are still no public statistics on
the procurement of Free Software by administrations.

Instead, the federal government continues to rely largely on proprietary
software. More than three billion euros of budget funds are earmarked
for the proprietary “Oracle cloud”, while the already too small funds
for digital sovereignty of currently 48 million euros are to be cut by
almost half in the new budget. At the same time, the government seems to
regard Free Software as expendable in ensuring digital sovereignty. The
proprietary Federal Client (Bundesclient) developed on the government’s
behalf by the ITZ Bund is in blatant contradiction to the government's
declared goal of strengthening Free Software and thus true digital
sovereignty.

Johannes Näder, FSFE’s Senior Policy Project Manager, explains: "The
German government must stand by its promises in the coalition agreement
and decide that Free Software will be procured and developed as a
priority for the administration in the future. The principle 'Public
Money? Public Code!' must become the guiding principle of German digital
policy: Publicly financed software developed for the public sector must
be Free Software. This is the only way the government can achieve a
sustainable, innovative digitisation of Germany that benefits everyone
and empowers citizens to control technology.".

Under the slogan "Public Money? Public Code!", the Free Software
Foundation Europe has long been calling for the sustainable digitisation
of the German administration through the use of Free Software. The fact
that the corresponding plans from the coalition agreement have not yet
been implemented has recently also been criticised within the government
parties.

"Within the next two years, important steps need to be taken to digitise
the German administration. The German Government has only two years left
to fulfil the promises made in the coalition agreement. Digital
sovereignty can only be guaranteed through Free Software. The government
must therefore modernise public procurement law in line with ‘Public
Money? Public Code!’ and finally publish statistics on the share of Free
Software in development and procurement in the administration. Last but
not least, a fully-fledged Free Software working environment should be
made available to public authorities in a timely manner. For this to
succeed, the budget for digital sovereignty must be increased and
consistently used for Free Software," demands Johannes Näder.

 === Free Software and "Public Money"? ===

Free Software gives everyone the right to use, study, share, and improve
applications for any purpose. These freedoms ensure that similar
applications do not have to be programmed from scratch every time and,
thanks to transparent processes, others do not have to reinvent the
wheel. In large projects, expertise and costs can be shared and
applications paid for by the general public are available to all. This
promotes innovation and saves taxpayers money in the medium to long
term. Dependencies on vendors are minimised and security issues can be
fixed more easily. The Free Software Foundation Europe, together with
over 200 organisations and administrations, is therefore calling for
“Public Money? Public Code!” - If it is public money, it should be
public code as well. More information on the initiative is available on
the “Public Money? Public Code!” website [1].

 === A broad alliance ===

The following organisations from civil society and the Free Software
industry published press releases on 29.08.2023 with their respective
analyses and digital policy demands to the German government:

- AWO Bundesverband

- betterplace lab [2]

- Bits & Bäume [3]

    - FifF

    - BUND

    - Germanwatch [4]

    - Wikimedia Deutschland

    - Chaos Computer Club e.V. [5]

    - Deutscher Naturschutzring

    - Institut für Ökologische Wirtschaftsforschung [6]

- D64 Zentrum für Digitalen Fortschritt [7]

- DAASI International [8]

- Do-FOSS

- Free Software Foundation Europe [9]

- future_s

- Innovationsverbund Öffentliche Gesundheit e.V. [10]

- Open Knowledge Foundation Deutschland [11]

- Open Source Business Alliance [12]

    - #cnetz

    - German Unix User Group

    - Gesellschaft für Informatik

    - VITAKO

- Rat für Digitale Ökologie [13]

  1: https://publiccode.eu/
  2: https://www.betterplace-lab.org/halbzeit-f%C3%BCr-die-ampel-danke-f%C3%BCr-die-sch%C3%B6nen-worte-lasst-endlich-taten-sprechen
  3: https://bits-und-baeume.org/pressemitteilung-halbzeit-fuer-die-ampel/
  4: https://www.germanwatch.org/de/89123
  5: https://www.ccc.de/de/updates/2023/updates/2023/halbzeit
  6: https://www.ioew.de/presse/pressemitteilungen/halbzeit-fuer-die-ampel-nachhaltige-digitalpolitik-muss-jetzt-fahrt-aufnehmen
  7: https://d-64.org/ampel-halbzeit
  8: https://daasi.de/de/2023/08/29/halbzeit-fuer-die-ampel/
  9: https://fsfe.org/news/2023/news-20230829-01.it.html
 10: https://www.inoeg.de/veroeffentlichungen.html
 11: https://okfn.de/blog/2023/08/halbzeitkritik-ampel/
 12: https://osb-alliance.de/featured/offener-brief-halbzeit-fuer-die-ampel-danke-fuer-die-schoenen-worte-lasst-endlich-taten-sprechen
 13: https://ratfuerdigitaleoekologie.org/de/presse/107-halbzeit-ampel

  == Informazioni sulla Free Software Foundation Europe ==

  La Free Software Foundation Europe è una Onlus che incoraggia gli utenti
  ad avere il controllo della tecnologia. Il Software è presente in tutti
  gli aspetti della nostra vita ed è importante che questa tecnologia ci
  aiuti anziché limitarci. Il Software Libero garantisce a tutti il
  diritto di usare, studiare, modificare e condividere il software. Questi
  diritti aiutano a sostenere altre libertà fondamentali come il diritto
  di parola, la libertà di stampa e la privacy.

  La FSFE aiuta persone e organizzazioni a comprendere come il Software
  Libero contribuisce alla libertà, alla trasparenza e
  all'auto-determinazione.  Potenziamo i diritti degli utenti abolendo le
  barriere che esistono nell'adottare il Software Libero, incoraggiamo le
  persone ad usare e sviluppare il Software Libero e forniamo le risorse
  per consentire a tutti di promuovere ulteriormente il Software Libero in
  Europa. 

  https://fsfe.org

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