Public Release of State-Owned Software¶
About this policy
Policies that require or strongly encourage governments to release software developed with public resources under open licenses. These measures aim to maximize the public value of digital assets by enabling transparency, reuse, and collaborative improvement.
What we include
This section highlights laws, regulations, or strategies that mandate the public release of source code created by government agencies, unless limited by confidentiality, national security, or contractual constraints.
🌍 Policies¶
🇧🇷 Brazil¶
- 🔗 Law Nº 14.063/2020
- 📄 Overview:
Article 16 of Law Nº 14.063/2020 requires public entities to release software they develop under open-source licenses, allowing reuse and modification. This applies retroactively, with exceptions for legal, security, or contractual restrictions.
🇨🇦 Canada¶
- 🔗 Government of Canada Enterprise Architecture Framework
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📄 Overview:
The Enterprise Architecture Framework promotes the public release of state-owned software by directing departments to prioritize open source solutions and contribute improvements back to the community. Under “Application Architecture,” it encourages reuse over custom builds, mandates registration of open source tools in the Open Resource Exchange, and calls for customizations, especially for SaaS to be developed as open source modules, supporting interoperability and open collaboration unless restricted by legal or security concerns.
- 📄 Overview:
The Guide for Publishing Open Source Code encourages departments to release source code as open source whenever legally possible, whether developed in-house, acquired as OSS, or through contracts with proper licensing. The process includes securing approvals, ensuring rights to the code, assessing security, choosing a license and repository, adding documentation, and considering legacy systems. The overall goal is to promote transparency by working in the open.
🇪🇨 Ecuador¶
- 🔗 Strategy for the Implementation of Free Software in the Central Public Administration
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📄 Overview:
This strategy, based on Presidential Decree No. 1014, mandates the use and public release of state-owned software across Ecuador’s central government. Chapter 3.3.4 and Article 1 require that software developed with public funds be made openly available for reuse, unless restricted by national security or technical limitations. The Subsecretariat of Informatics oversees compliance and promotes reuse through public repositories.
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🔗 Organic Code of the Social Economy of Knowledge, Creativity, and Innovation
- 📄 Overview:
Article 147 of this code mandates that public sector entities must make the source code of software they develop or contract for publicly available through the national Information System for Science, Technology, Innovation, and Ancestral Knowledge. This requirement may be waived, and the source code kept confidential, for reasons of national security, if the software pertains to strategic sectors, or if the relevant e-government regulatory body determines that it contains critical components.
🇪🇪 Estonia¶
- 🔗 Estonia’s Digital Agenda 2030
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📄 Overview:
Within the "Estonia’s Digital Agenda 2030," the policy for releasing state-owned software is articulated as a key result under Sub-objective I, "Digital government," specifically in the section on "Open innovation and development of govtech community." The agenda mandates that software developed for the government with public funds and containing public sector intellectual property must be published with an open source license. This rule is exempted only when the software is significant for national security. To support this initiative and encourage a robust "govtech" community, the plan also includes activities to adopt and develop tools for reuse and collaboration, such as a code repository and artifactory.
- 📄 Overview:
The State Property Amendment Act establishes that state-owned software in Estonia can be released publicly, free of charge and indefinitely, unless it poses risks to cybersecurity, public order, or national security. As outlined in Chapter III, Division 2, asset managers must publish the source code with usage terms online, and unreleased software must still be shared freely among government entities upon request.
🇫🇷 France¶
- 🔗 Public Policy on Data, Algorithms and Source Code
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📄 Overview:
The April 2021 circulaire n°6264/SG requires French ministries to publish state-owned software under open licenses, unless exceptions apply. Coordinated by DINUM, this policy mandates publication on code.gouv.fr and is backed by ministry roadmaps and actions to promote open source use and contribution.
- 📄 Overview:
France's 2016 Law for a Digital Republic mandates the public release of state-owned software by classifying source code as an administrative document. Article 2 of the law establishes that government-developed code is therefore subject to public disclosure upon request. However, this same article provides exceptions, allowing for non-disclosure if the release would compromise the security of information systems or other protected interests.
🇩🇪 Germany¶
- 🔗 Act to Amend the Online Access Act
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📄 Overview:
This law amends Germany's Online Access Act (OZG) and E-Government Act (EGovG) to require the public release of state-owned software. The justifications provided for the amendments, specifically concerning § 4 of the OZG and the new § 16a of the EGovG, mandate that when government software is further developed, its source code must be published under a suitable open-source license. Exceptions are permitted for compelling security reasons or if existing licensing terms prohibit the release.
- 📄 Overview:
In the section "Digitaler Staat und digitale Verwaltung" (Digital State and Digital Administration) within Chapter II, the Agreement establishes a foundational principle for publicly funded software. It stipulates that development contracts for public IT projects will generally be awarded as open source commissions. Following this principle, the resulting software is to be made publicly available. This commitment effectively aligns future federal software development with the "Public Money, Public Code" concept.
🇮🇹 Italy¶
- 🔗 Guidelines on the acquisition and reuse of software for public administrations
- 📄 Overview:
Under Article 69, Italian public administrations must release their owned software as open source. This policy requires them to publish the full source code and documentation in a public repository under an open license. The mandate covers all new, existing, and modified software, with exceptions for national security and public order.
🇰🇷 South Korea¶
- 🔗 Software Industry Promotion Act
- 📄 Overview:
The Software Industry Promotion Act mandates the public release of state-funded software developed through national R\&D projects. As specified in Article 25(2), the government must promote development practices that involve open access to source code and require that outcomes of national R\&D initiatives be distributed as open-source software. These provisions reinforce transparency and reuse, unless exceptions apply for security or legal reasons.
🇪🇸 Spain¶
- 🔗 Reuse of assets. Guide for the publication and licensing of assets
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📄 Overview:
Spanish policy enables public administrations to declare their proprietary software as open source to enhance transparency, as established in Article 157 of Law 40/2015. The specific conditions are outlined in Royal Decree 4/2010, which mandates the use of licenses that guarantee the freedoms to run, study, modify, and redistribute the software, with a recommendation for the European Union Public Licence (Article 16). To ensure availability, Article 17 of the same decree requires the publication of the application's source code and documentation in public directories.
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🔗 Royal Decree 4/2010 on the National Interoperability Framework
- 📄 Overview:
Royal Decree 4/2010 establishes a clear mandate for the public release of state-owned software developed by or for Spain’s public administrations. Article 16 outlines default licensing conditions that promote the reuse of software, documentation, and other digital assets, favoring open-source licenses that guarantee rights to use, access source code, modify, and redistribute. It further ensures that public contracts secure full intellectual property rights and enable future outputs, especially those based on open-source components, to be released under the same conditions. The reuse-oriented provisions are reinforced in Article 17, which mandates publication in public repositories for open access and further reuse.
🇨🇭 Switzerland¶
- 🔗 Federal Act on the Use of Electronic Means for the Fulfilment of Official Duties (EMBAG)
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📄 Overview:
As mandated by Article 9, federal authorities must publish the source code of software they develop or commission. This release is required unless prevented by third-party rights or significant security reasons. The policy ensures that publicly funded software is open by default, promoting transparency and reuse by allowing anyone to use, modify, and share it without license fees.
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🔗 Strategic Guidelines for Open Source Software in the Federal Administration
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📄 Overview:
The guidelines are based on Article 9 of the EMOTA legislation, which legally mandates that federal authorities must publish the source code of software developed or commissioned by them. As detailed in the "Objective and purpose" section, this policy aims to eliminate legal uncertainty and make open publication the default, with exceptions only for third-party rights or security reasons.
- 📄 Overview:
These instructions operationalize the legal mandate from Article 9 of the EMOTA legislation, which requires the disclosure of source code for software the federal government develops or commissions. As detailed in Section 3, the guidelines establish a formal process, including checklists, to ensure that publicly funded software is published by default, with clearly defined exceptions.
🇬🇧 United Kingdom¶
- 🔗 Open Source, Open Standards and Re‑Use: Government Action Plan)
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📄 Overview:
The UK Government’s 2010 action plan commits to releasing general-purpose software developed by or for the government under open source licenses when appropriate. As outlined in Action 9, it ensures that publicly funded code is reusable across the public sector and may be published, integrating this into procurement practices and standard contracts unless legal or security constraints apply.
- 📄 Overview:
The playbook establishes a key policy that software and code developed by the government should be open source by default. This approach is intended to increase transparency, allow for the reuse of software components, and reduce the overall cost of digital services. As detailed in the "Open and interoperable data and software" policy within Chapter 8, new government software is expected to be developed openly and published under a license approved by the Open Source Initiative.
🇺🇸 United States¶
- 🔗 Federal Source Code Policy (M-16-21)
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📄 Overview:
The policy establishes a three-year pilot program requiring federal agencies to release at least 20% of their new, custom-developed code as Open Source Software. As outlined in Section 5.1, this initiative aims to promote transparency, collaboration, and public access to government-funded software projects, with agencies encouraged to release even more than the minimum requirement.
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📄 Overview:
This guide details the General Services Administration's goal to become "100% open." The policy directs the conversion of closed source projects to open source, applying to all new and existing custom code developed by both GSA employees and contracted partners. This makes the public release of government-funded software the default operational standard for the agency.
- 📄 Overview:
This Act mandates the public release of specific, government-developed software. As detailed in Section 2220F(c)(2)(G), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is required to publish and maintain any software tools it develops for its open source risk assessments as open source software, making these government-funded tools available to the public.
🇺🇾 Uruguay¶
- 🔗 Law No. 19179: Regulation on Digital Information Formats and Software
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📄 Overview:
As mandated by Article 2, any software that the state develops or commissions must be distributed under a free software license. The law, in Article 5, defines free software by its adherence to the four fundamental freedoms, which include the ability for anyone to study, modify, and redistribute the code.
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📄 Overview:
As part of the Digital 9 (D9) objectives adopted in this strategy (page 4), Uruguay commits to being as open as possible by sharing source code, algorithms, and training data. This is reinforced by the general principle of Transparency, ensuring public access to the components of AI solutions.
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🔗 Decree No. 44/015: Regulation of Law 19.179 on Digital Information and Software
- 📄 Overview:
This decree operationalizes the public release policy through the "Uruguayan Public Software Portal." As outlined in Article 7, any free software developed or modified by the state must meet the necessary requirements to be integrated into this central portal, making it available to the public.
🇪🇺 European Commission¶
- 🔗 Open Source Software Strategy 2020-2023: Think Open
- 📄 Overview:
The strategy, under its "Share" principle in Section 5.3, commits the Commission to publishing the source code of its future IT projects where it is sensible to do so. It also simplifies internal rules for software distribution and designates the European Union Public Licence (EUPL) as the preferred license for these releases, aiming to lower costs for society and increase knowledge sharing.
🤝 How to contribute¶
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