Report: Building and Reusing Open Source Tools for Government

Software for Public Benefit should be Open Source by default

Mark Lerner, Allison Price, Hana Schank & Ben Gregori

Imagine these scenarios:

Technology is advancing at an unprecedented pace. Increasingly human centered, it is shaping new needs and ways of collaboration and helping human beings become better versions of themselves even as it addresses current challenges.

Governments have been tackling 21st century problems with old world solutions and lack a 360-degree view of citizen needs. Even if advancements are made such as digitization, the systems are multiple and disparate with no means of talking to each other.

There is a crying need for technology to play the enabler in integrating public services, the way they are delivered, and rein in efficiency on all fronts. This saves the public from approaching multiple government interfaces for the same or allied needs , duplication of effort and time, and monetary wastage.

The need for governments to build interactive platforms based on citizen needs has never been more apparent.

The emergence of platforms is changing the landscape. Governments are beginning to embrace their potential resulting in cross-government platforms that deliver multi-services to the public.

Government as a platform encompasses the ‘whole ecosystem of shared APIs and open standards and canonical datasets, as well as the services built on top of them and governance processes that hopefully keep the wider system safe and accountable.”

Against this backdrop, a “movement to leverage the power of Open Source software (OSS) solutions to help improve government services while also improving public transparency, responsiveness, and accountability” is fast gaining momentum. Governments are now seeing the value of open-source software and embracing it to better deliver public or citizen services, states the report “Building and Reusing Open Source Tools for Government,” by New America.

Besides offering value through better efficiency, lower costs, improved trust, greater transparency and mitigating the risk of vendor lock in, the use of open source software, particularly in a platform, helps customization and reuse while technology governance ensures that technology is used effectively and efficiently with no compromise to help the government achieve its goals.

According to the report, “Building and using OSS—software that is developed in an open process and is licensed for free and open use—offers a number of advantages to governments seeking efficient and sustainable solutions to modern challenges. Governments can adopt OSS developed by others, thereby reducing costs, and leveraging existing innovation to power a public digital ecosystem that benefits everyone.”

The report draws the reader to the value of open source solutions for governance. While these benefits may be implicit to technology enthusiasts, the authors clearly articulate the benefits which a lay audience can easily understand. The report goes beyond technology to touch on various considerations of Open Source use, such as licensing, building and managing Open Source Communities, and building capacity within the Governments to effectively make use of Open Source technologies while managing the details and risks. The report also provides a useful ten-point checklist for Governments who seek to leverage Open Source solutions. Government leaders, innovation officers, decision-makers in governments in the areas of legal, security and procurement and any allied professional would stand to gain from this report. Readers, especially decision-makers who are boxed in by limited options can quickly gravitate towards open source solutions to fast-track their digital identity agendas.

MOSIP, an Open Source platform for digital identity, enables Governments to establish foundational ID systems. Digital ID systems provide a common rail for service delivery across the Government and the economy if implemented well. Issues of technology lock-in, vendor lock-in, data ownership, transparency, privacy, and security are crucial when conceptualizing and implementing such systems. MOSIP provides a robust framework for implementation in Open Source.

This report contributes toward the Digital Public Goods discourse by furthering the understanding of utilizing open source tools such as MOSIP for Governments.

Resources: What are the most transformational trends in government today- Deloitte Insights | Why have governments struggled to get it right on digital identity? Arthur Mickoleit | Government as a Platform, playbook + the hard problems: part 1 — Introduction – Richard Pope| The report itself