Claus Wickinghoff

The strength of FOSS lies in their corresponding licenses. Public administrations however sometimes have a hard time wrapping their heads around the specifics of FOSS licenses although they more and more understand the advantages.

In this talk we want to illustrate the underlying reasons for the existing problems and present ideas how the procurement of FOSS can be improved and made easier for all those involved. We combine this with an outlook to the impending changes and developments with regard to the public procurement of FOSS in Germany.

When procuring software the German administration usually works with standardized model contracts (the so-called EVB-IT) which are not ideally designed for the procurement of FOSS.

In 2022 members of the Open Source Business Alliance performed a number of workshops with the German Ministry of Interior that maintains the EVB-IT in order to remove existing barriers and to eventually reform these standardized model contracts. Additionally a survey among members of the Open Source Business Alliance revealed typical recurring practical problems that companies face when offering Open Source Software or corresponding services to public administrations.