OSS Training Programs¶
About this policy
Training programs and educational initiatives are essential to building long-term capacity for adopting, maintaining, and contributing to open-source software in the public sector. These policies foster internal knowledge, reduce vendor dependence, and enable sustainable OSS ecosystems.
What we include
This section highlights official training programs, funding schemes, public sector workshops, online courses, and related efforts that promote the development of OSS skills among civil servants, developers, and government partners. We also include government-backed guides and support materials that serve an educational purpose—even if not formal training curricula.
🌍 Policies¶
🇧🇷 Brazil¶
- 🔗 Law Nº 14.129/2021
- 📄 Overview:
Law Nº 14.129/2021 encourages the creation of innovation laboratories as collaborative spaces between government and society to develop and test new public service solutions. Defined in Article 4, item VIII, these labs promote the use of open and free technologies but do not explicitly establish training or capacity-building programs for OSS adoption or sustainability. While supportive of OSS principles, the law stops short of mandating or funding OSS-specific training efforts.
🇨🇦 Canada¶
- 🔗 Guide for Using Open Source Software
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📄 Overview:
The Guide for Using Open Source Software serves as a detailed capacity-building tool to help Canadian government departments evaluate, adopt, and manage OSS. It outlines best practices and key decision points such as assessing licensing terms, community support, and modification impacts, while also promoting responsible use, security, and contribution. The guide functions as an internal learning resource that supports OSS sustainability and aligns with Canada’s broader digital standards, including the principles of working in the open and selecting open solutions by default.
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📄 Overview:
The Open First Whitepaper highlights the importance of training and capacity building for successful OSS adoption in government. It emphasizes the need to allocate resources for user training, especially when transitioning from proprietary desktop software to open-source alternatives. Lessons learned include piloting OSS migrations, offering parallel access to legacy tools, and securing leadership support. The document also outlines support models—internal, interdepartmental, community-based, and vendor-supported—that help build the in-house expertise needed to sustain OSS use and reduce dependency on proprietary solutions.
- 📄 Overview:
The Policy on Service and Digital outlines the Government of Canada's commitment to building internal capacity for digital transformation, including through the adoption of open-source technologies. While it does not establish a formal OSS training program, it supports empowering staff to deliver better services and encourages the use of open standards and open solutions as part of the Digital Standards.
🇪🇨 Ecuador¶
- 🔗 Executive Decree No. 1014
- 📄 Overview:
Article 3 of the Decree No. 1014 requires that public entities ensure the existence of sufficient technical capacity before implementing open-source software. This implies a governmental responsibility to support OSS adoption through adequate training, staffing, or service arrangements to maintain system sustainability and performance.
🇫🇷 France¶
- 🔗 Free Software: A Strategic Lever for a Sovereign and Sustainable Digital Administration
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📄 Overview:
The 2024 interministerial OSS support contract, led by DGFiP, provides pooled funding and technical assistance across 13 ministries and public bodies to ensure the sustainability of open-source tools. While not a direct training program, it builds institutional capacity for OSS adoption by offering coordinated guidance and expert support.
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📄 Overview:
Code.gouv.fr maintains a curated list of certified training providers offering courses on open-source technologies. This government supported catalog helps public servants and organizations access capacity building programs in areas such as Linux administration, open-source development tools, and ethical digital practices, promoting OSS adoption across the public sector.
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📄 Overview:
The BlueHats initiative fosters OSS capacity-building across the public sector by organizing online workshops and local events where civil servants share expertise on open-source development, governance, and use. Supported by DINUM, it promotes collaborative learning and peer-driven training on Free Software within government institutions.
- 📄 Overview:
Launched in 2023, the CNRS OPEN program provides funding and tailored support to researchers aiming to develop and valorize open-source research software. Through calls for expressions of interest, it builds OSS capacity by helping academic teams explore sustainable models—such as service-based use, user consortiums, or hybrid licensing—while offering developer support and mentoring to maximize social and scientific impact.
🇩🇪 Germany¶
- 🔗 Digital Strategy
- 📄 Overview:
Germany's Digital Strategy details two key initiatives to fund and build capacity for open-source software. As outlined in Section 4.2, a Sovereign Tech Fund (STF) will promote the open-source ecosystem and its foundational technologies. Furthermore, Section 4.3 establishes the Center for Digital Sovereignty of Public Administration (ZenDiS), an organizational body created to ensure the availability of powerful OSS solutions, support their development, and establish their use within government.
🇮🇹 Italy¶
- 🔗 Digital Training: AgID Academy
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📄 Overview:
Launched in 2025, AgID Academy is a government-led training program by the Agency for Digital Italy to enhance digital skills in the public sector. While covering broad topics such as cybersecurity, AI, and digital services, it also includes content on open-source technologies, supporting public administration capacity for OSS adoption and use.
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🔗 Three-Year Plan for Information Technology in Public Administration 2024-2026
- 📄 Overview:
The plan integrates open-source software training into its broader national strategy for digital skills, detailed in Chapter 1. It fosters OSS capacity by promoting the development of "comunità di competenze" (communities of practice) and by setting concrete targets in Chapter 3 (RA3.2.1) for public administrations to release and adopt open-source solutions through the Developers Italia platform. This approach builds practical skills through active participation in the reuse, development, and maintenance of shared software, directly supporting the plan's guiding principle of "apertura come prima opzione" (openness by default).
🇰🇷 South Korea¶
- 🔗 Open Source Contribution Academy
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📄 Overview:
The Open Source Contribution Academy is a government-led training initiative managed by NIPA and OpenUP that supports OSS adoption and developer capacity building through a tiered program. It includes beginner lectures, hands-on training with collaboration tools like Git, and project-based mentoring where participants contribute directly to active OSS projects. By targeting university students and early-career developers, the Academy strengthens the OSS ecosystem and fosters sustainable engagement in both public and private sectors.
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📄 Overview:
The OSS Activation Support Program, led by NIPA under the Ministry of Science and ICT, funds and coordinates national initiatives to strengthen OSS training and developer capacity. It includes structured education for emerging developers, public competitions like the OSS Developer Contest, and events such as the OSS Festival. The program also supports mentoring and skills development through targeted initiatives like the Contribution Academy, contributing to long-term sustainability and innovation in the OSS ecosystem.
- 📄 Overview:
The 2025 Open Source Developer Contest, part of NIPA’s OSS Activation Support Program, is a national training initiative designed to build OSS capacity through hands-on education, mentorship, and project-based development. The program targets students and the general public, offering online training, mentorship, and competitive challenges in fields like AI, cybersecurity, and cloud computing. By incorporating licensing compliance checks and business-oriented project categories, it fosters both technical and practical skills for sustained OSS adoption.
🇨🇭 Switzerland¶
- 🔗 Strategic Guidelines for Open Source Software in the Federal Administration
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📄 Overview:
Measure 4 explicitly calls for the promotion of knowledge and experience exchange regarding open source software. Furthermore, Objective F and Measure 3 emphasize the need for specialists with OSS experience, encouraging efforts to build up internal know-how among employees and procurement authorities to support the use and release of open source solutions effectively.
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🔗 Practical Guidelines for Open Source Software in the Federal Administration
- 📄 Overview:
The guidelines recognize the need for specialized skills. The "Challenges" section identifies a potential lack of in-house expertise and recommends that it be built up through further training and self-study. The support models described in the document also encourage developing internal know-how as a way to professionally manage OSS within the administration.
🇪🇸 Spain¶
- 🔗 Reuse of assets. Guide for the publication and licensing of assets
- 📄 Overview:
This guide serves as a primary capacity-building and training resource for Spanish public officials on open-source software policy. While not a formal curriculum, its stated objective is to be a support tool for implementing national reuse and interoperability laws. It provides civil servants with practical, step-by-step instructions on the entire OSS release lifecycle, covering preliminary analysis (Chapter 3), license selection (Chapter 4), and preparation for distribution (Chapter 5). The document's role as a training tool is reinforced by its annexes, which contain model procurement clauses (Annex I) and a comprehensive release checklist (Annex III). Furthermore, Chapter 7 explicitly recommends that public bodies train developers and managers on the legal aspects of OSS, positioning this guide as a foundational text for such internal training efforts.
🇨🇭 Switzerland¶
- 🔗 Em002 Strategic Guidelines
- 📄 Overview:
The practical guidelines are intended to clarify the legal and strategic requirements. The document serves as instructions for users within the Federal Administration, including those without prior knowledge. It can therefore be read selectively as a reference guide. Depending on your level of knowledge, you can start working with the tools straight away. The guidelines also include definitions, an overview of the potential of OSS, the challenges involved, a practical overview of various constellations in working with OSS, as well as information on the choice of licences and on OSS procurement.
🇬🇧 United kingdom¶
- 🔗 Open Source, Open Standards and Re‑Use: Government Action Plan)
- 📄 Overview:
As outlined in Action 2, the UK government committed to strengthening internal capacity for OSS adoption by launching a training and education program for IT and procurement professionals. Coordinated by the CIO Council and OGC, this initiative aimed to improve understanding of open source licensing, support models, and cost structures, thereby enabling more informed decisions and encouraging the sustainable use of OSS in public services.
🇺🇸 United States¶
- 🔗 CISA Open Source Software Security Roadmap
- 📄 Overview:
The policy supports security education for the OSS ecosystem. Under Objective 4.2, CISA commits to fostering training for developers and publishing security toolkits with best practices for OSS maintainers. Objective 4.3 adds to this by planning the publication of guidance for federal agencies and critical infrastructure on the secure consumption of open source software.
🇺🇾 Uruguay¶
- 🔗 AI Strategy for the Digital Government
- 📄 Overview:
The "Capacity Development" pillar outlined on page 11 establishes a plan for extensive training in AI. Objective III mandates a program to build skills for responsible AI development and use across the public sector, preparing staff to implement the strategy's transparency and open source principles.
🇪🇺 European Commission¶
- 🔗 Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 (Cyber Resilience Act)
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📄 Overview:
While not exclusively for OSS, Article 10 requires Member States to promote measures to enhance cybersecurity skills needed to implement the regulation. This includes supporting the re-skilling and up-skilling of manufacturers' employees. Recital (23) explicitly links these training initiatives to the skills gap in both the public and private sectors, which is critical for managing software component security.
- 📄 Overview:
The strategy includes actions to foster an open source culture through skill development. A key action outlined in Section 6.4 is to "Develop skills and recruit expertise." This involves focusing on recruiting staff with proven open source expertise and providing internal support to help interested colleagues learn about and experiment with innovative open source solutions.
🤝 How to contribute¶
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