Boris van Hoytema started August 1 as OSPO (Open Source Program Office) Quartermaster at the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (BZK). What motivates him and what barriers does he want to remove to put open source into practice?
Autonomy, collaboration, creating public values and reducing risk are the strengths of open source, according to Boris. He sees open source not as something technical, but as a means of strengthening autonomy and trust in government. Open source offers many opportunities in this regard. According to TNO, 97% of software contains open source. What governments are still struggling with is dealing with this responsibly and working with open source themselves. From his role as quartermaster OSPO, Boris wants to remove internal barriers and help the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations to apply open source in practice.
Van Hoytema: "I think it is important that the public task and its execution are at the center of the government's digital transformation. Closed software, depending on large software companies and losing your own autonomy and sovereignty is out of date. The step we need to take as a government is to move toward openness, transparency and collaboration. In doing so, it is a utopia to think that we as a government should build all our software ourselves. We can't. That is just too much work, and on top of that we do not have enough developers available within Europe to do this for all governments. The public sector can, however, develop software together with companies, which ensures that governments regain their own sovereignty and autonomy in the execution of public tasks. Together with other governments, businesses and residents, we can develop software and build a system where we are in control ourselves."
How. Van Hoytema explains: "By consciously choosing open source. Open source is a proven method of collaboration that allows you to scale up in a short time. Moreover, if you choose open source, you also create public values - such as transparency, reusability and collaboration - with public resources. In addition, I am convinced that open source also contributes to reducing risks within the government. Because you collaborate with others and show what you are doing from the start, you are sooner able to recognize, detect and resolve risks. You discover more quickly when something is not working because people outside your own organization observe different things than you do. And that almost completes the circle. In fact, transparency makes for better government services. Companies can develop software that better matches government business processes and residents can also submit improvement proposals."
Despite these opportunities, open source is not yet the standard within government. This is because open source working also has its challenges. Van Hoytema: "Open source is a different way of working for governments. This is because open source requires governments (from the role of client) to be able to give a clear order. If you have something developed in open source, it is your responsibility to fulfill the ownership of the assignment properly. This means you have to be aware of what you are going to build. You also have to think about functionalities; how is your product going to work and how will it interact with other software systems? As the client, you are responsible for getting the right resources. Often, governments lack the right knowledge to properly fulfill the role of client.
Another thing that makes open source so challenging is the method of collaboration. You develop and maintain the software with as large a group as possible. The idea of this is that you can share ownership and dependencies and come up with solutions together. Because you develop in the open from the start of the project, it also means that you have to be able to make mistakes transparently and learn from them. This is at odds with the current culture of government. Working open source requires trust, guts and giving each other space. That's where I think the biggest challenge lies."
It is with these challenges that Boris sets to work from his role as OSPO for BZK. Van Hoytema: "I started my first week with a mailbox full of questions. Some are easy to answer, others are a lot more complex. My focus is mainly on the ministry, the implementing organizations and agencies of BZK.
As OSPO, my main goal is to be the point of contact for colleagues who have questions about open source or who want to get started with open source. I am very curious about the considerations colleagues make. What do they come up against? What internal barriers do they encounter? I see it as my job to have the conversation at different levels and to remove internal barriers. That won't always be easy, but I'm happy to take on that challenge!"
