Reuse and Transfer of Government Software¶

About this policy

Policies that promote the sharing and reuse of software solutions across government entities to reduce costs and improve efficiency. These frameworks aim to avoid duplication, foster collaboration, and make better use of public investments in software.

What we include

This section highlights official policies, strategies, or legal frameworks that promote or require the reuse and internal transfer of software within the public sector, including mandates to check for existing solutions before building or procuring new software.

🌍 Policies¶

🇨🇦 Canada¶

🔗 Government of Canada Enterprise Architecture Framework
📄 Overview:

The Enterprise Architecture Framework promotes software reuse and transfer across government by requiring departments to prioritize reusable open source solutions over custom development. Under “Application Architecture” and “Business Architecture,” it encourages contributions back to OSS communities, modular system design, and the registration of reusable components in the Open Resource Exchange to facilitate adoption across departments.

🇪🇪 Estonia¶

🔗 Interoperability Framework of the State Information System
📄 Overview:

The "Interoperability Framework of the State Information System" encourages public sector institutions to build upon solutions and experiences from other agencies. To facilitate this, it recommends that when software is commissioned, the resulting code should be procured and registered in a repository, such as the EU's, under a free software license like the European Union Public Licence (EUPL). Furthermore, Requirement 6.5 specifies that software ordered by public institutions should be usable without restriction by other administrations, and it also suggests joint procurement for common needs. The framework even extends the principle of transfer beyond the public sector, allowing contractors to use these solutions in business activities and foreign projects, provided it does not conflict with the interests of the commissioning body.

🇫🇷 France¶

🔗 Code.gouv.fr Platform
📄 Overview:

Code.gouv.fr, maintained by DINUM, serves as a centralized platform to catalogue and share source code developed by French public administrations. Through its searchable inventory and API-accessible datasets, it facilitates the reuse and transfer of government-developed open-source software across agencies, promoting interoperability and collaborative development.
🔗 Interministerial Free Software Base (SILL)
📄 Overview:

The SILL, maintained by DINUM and published on code.gouv.fr, is an official catalog of open-source software recommended for reuse across French public administrations. It promotes software transfer and standardization by guiding agencies toward vetted OSS solutions instead of developing redundant tools.
🔗 Interministerial Support and Expertise Contracts for Free Software
📄 Overview:

The interministerial OSS support and expertise contracts, coordinated by DGFiP, promote reuse and transfer of government software by requiring that all fixes and enhancements be contributed back to the original open-source projects. This ensures that improvements made within one public agency can be shared across others, supporting collaborative maintenance and lifecycle management across the administration.

🇩🇪 Germany¶

🔗 Act to Amend the Online Access Act
📄 Overview:

This law promotes the reuse and transfer of government software by mandating that modifications be made public. As detailed in the justifications for the amendments to both the Online Access Act (§ 4) and the E-Government Act (§ 16a), if a public authority further develops software already in use, it is required to publish the improved source code under an open-source license. This policy ensures that enhancements to publicly funded software are shared for broader reuse and collaborative development, provided no overriding security or licensing constraints exist.

🇮🇹 Italy¶

🔗 Guidelines on the acquisition and reuse of software for public administrations
📄 Overview:

As mandated by Article 69 and elaborated in Chapter 3, this policy establishes a comprehensive model for the reuse and transfer of government software. Public administrations are obligated to make software they own available to other public bodies and legal entities by publishing the full source code and documentation under an open license. This process is facilitated by the Developers Italia platform, which serves as a central search engine for reusable solutions, thereby promoting inter-agency collaboration and preventing redundant software development efforts across the public sector.
🔗 Digital Administration Code
📄 Overview:

This policy establishes a national framework for the mandatory reuse of government software, governed primarily by Articles 69 and 70 of the Digital Administration Code. Article 69 obligates public administrations to make their custom-developed software available for free to other agencies upon request, including the source code and documentation. To facilitate this, Article 70 institutes a national database, managed by the Agency for Digital Italy (AgID), which catalogs these reusable solutions. Central public administrations are required to consult this catalog and prioritize the adoption of existing software, providing a formal justification if they opt to procure a new solution instead.

🇰🇷 South Korea¶

🔗 eGovFrame (Electronic Government Standard Framework)
📄 Overview:

eGovFrame is a government-developed, open-source software framework designed to standardize and support the reuse of software across Korean public sector IT projects. Managed by the National Information Society Agency, it provides a common infrastructure and set of reusable components that enhance interoperability, reduce redundant development, and eliminate vendor lock-in. By openly distributing source code and promoting its global use, eGovFrame operationalizes a national policy of software reuse and transfer within the public administration.

🇪🇸 Spain¶

🔗 Royal Decree 4/2010 on the National Interoperability Framework
📄 Overview:

Royal Decree 4/2010 defines reuse and transfer of software as a key element of digital interoperability in Spain. Articles 16 and 17 establish that software developed by or for public administrations should be licensed under terms that facilitate reuse, including granting rights to access, modify, and redistribute source code. It also mandates that reusable applications and documentation be published in publicly accessible repositories, and that intellectual property rights in contracts ensure future transfer and adaptation of the software across agencies. These provisions aim to reduce duplication, enhance efficiency, and foster interoperability across the public sector.

🇨🇭 Switzerland¶

🔗 Federal Act on the Use of Electronic Means for the Fulfilment of Official Duties (EMBAG)
📄 Overview:

Article 11 authorizes federal authorities to provide their information and communication technology (ICT) resources to cantons, municipalities, and other public or private organizations fulfilling federal duties. This facilitates the inter-agency sharing and reuse of software and other digital tools to improve efficiency and support the execution of both federal and cantonal law.
🔗 Strategic Guidelines for Open Source Software in the Federal Administration
📄 Overview:

The "Reference to other strategies" section aligns the guidelines with the Digital Public Services Switzerland Strategy, which promotes the principle of "implemented once and used jointly." The document states that choosing open source software is a key method for facilitating the reuse of IT solutions across different government entities, thereby improving efficiency and collaboration.
🔗 OSS Community Guidelines for the Federal Administration
📄 Overview:

The guidelines actively promote inter-agency software reuse through community building. Section 3.3 describes a "Joint organisation" model where the federal government and other public bodies, such as cantons, can co-develop a single version of an application. This structure is designed to lower total costs and formalize the sharing and joint maintenance of software solutions.

🇺🇸 United States¶

🔗 Federal Source Code Policy (M-16-21)
📄 Overview:

Section 4 mandates that agencies secure sufficient rights to all custom-developed code to enable its reuse across the entire federal government. To facilitate this, agencies must maintain an enterprise code inventory and make their software discoverable to other agencies through the Code.gov portal. This is designed to reduce duplicative spending and improve efficiency.
🔗 GSA Open Source Software Implementation Guide
📄 Overview:

The policy facilitates inter-agency software reuse through a mandatory code inventory. All repositories must be cataloged in a code.json file which includes metadata specifying if a project is intended for governmentWideReuseProject. This creates a discoverable catalog that helps other federal agencies find and adapt existing GSA solutions, reducing duplicative work.

🇺🇾 Uruguay¶

🔗 Decree No. 44/015: Regulation of Law 19.179 on Digital Information and Software
📄 Overview:

To maximize efficiency and prevent redundant spending, Article 7 mandates a "check before you buy" policy. Before acquiring any new software, all government agencies are required to search the Uruguayan Public Software Portal to verify that a suitable solution does not already exist within the government.

🇬🇧 United Kingdom¶

🔗 Open Source, Open Standards and Re‑Use: Government Action Plan)
📄 Overview:

The Action Plan mandates that software developed or procured by the UK Government be reusable across the public sector, including cloud environments. As outlined in the policy section and reinforced in Action 9, government purchasers must secure full rights to custom-developed code and customisations, with the option to release them as open source when appropriate. This ensures maximum reuse and transferability of publicly funded software assets.
🔗 The Digital, Data and Technology Playbook
📄 Overview:

The playbook promotes the reuse and transfer of software among public institutions by mandating open standards and interoperable systems. The policies on "Open and interoperable data and software" and "API technical and data standards" outlined in Chapter 8 are designed to ensure that data and software components can be easily exchanged and shared across different government platforms. This strategy aims to improve efficiency, avoid redundant development efforts, and prevent vendor lock-in, thereby facilitating seamless software transfer between agencies.

🇪🇺 European Commission¶

🔗 European Commission digital strategy: Next generation digital Commission
📄 Overview:

The strategy strongly promotes the reuse of digital solutions to eliminate duplication and create synergies. As stated on page 14, increasing the use of open source software is key to simplifying the reuse of solutions, co-creation, and sharing of results across Commission departments and with other European public administrations, aligning with the "reuse, buy, build" approach.
🔗 EU eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020
📄 Overview:

This action plan promotes the reuse of solutions across public administrations to increase efficiency. Section 3.1 states that digital public services should be built on shared and reusable solutions and services. This approach aims to reduce development costs and deployment times while increasing interoperability across the EU, supporting the modernization of the public sector.
🔗 Open Source Software Strategy 2020-2023: Think Open
📄 Overview:

A central goal is to facilitate the sharing and reuse of software solutions to build better European services. The "Transform" principle in Section 5.2 promotes an "Inner Source" approach, encouraging teams within the Commission to adopt open source working methods to share code and collaborate internally before opening projects to the public, thereby improving efficiency and pooling efforts.

🤝 How to contribute¶

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