How Development and Collaboration is Done in Public Sector Open Source Software Projects
Talkat Open Source Summit Europe 2025 · on Monday, 2025-08-25· at 13:30· Elicium 2A (Elicium Level 1)·
summary
Study of six public‑sector OSS cases across countries finds development concentrated in core teams below about 10–15 developers, work pushed to GitHub/GitLab, and funding split between centralized sponsors (one or few agencies) and decentralized municipal pools. Examples include EnergyPlus, Oscari, Geotrek and the Italian Pagopa IO app. Sustainability often needs roughly 30–40 adopting municipalities or a stewarding body; heavy reliance on national vendors/consultants creates procurement and lock‑in risks that must be managed.
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chapters (22)
- 0:00Public sector open source intro
- 1:05Empirical study on public sector OSS
- 3:59Development structure and collaboration
- 6:55External resources and sustainability
- 9:02Procurement complexities
- 11:34Governance models and challenges
- 14:43User vs developer communities
- 16:07Funding and sustainability strategies
- 19:02Success stories and public value
- 21:49Public sector not benefiting
- 22:53Procurement directive revision
- 26:34Procurement cost and criteria
- 27:37Soft value propositions in policy
- 29:01Procurement decision challenges
- 30:24Engaging community in policy
- 31:08Interoperable Europe Act obligations
- 35:02Procurement culture and risk
- 36:27Co-creation in public sector
- 37:58Policy approaches by country
- 39:00Cross-border collaboration barriers
- 40:27X-Road and stewardship
- 41:30Final remarks and barriers
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