Publicly financed software should be open source, more than 30 signatories of an open letter are proclaiming, calling for others to sign the letter.
According to a press release from the European Digital Rights initiative (EDRi), the 31 organisations and 469 people who signed the open letter want legislation requiring that publicly financed software developed for the public sector be made publicly available under a free and open source software licence.
“If it is public money, it should be public code as well,” it says.
“We need software that guarantees freedom of choice, access, and competition. We need software that helps public administrations regain full control of their critical digital infrastructure, allowing them to become and remain independent from a handful of companies,” the release says.
The initial signatories of the letter include EDRi and its members Chaos Computer Club (CCC) and Wikimedia Germany, the Free Software Foundation Europe, the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany, the Open Source Business Alliance, the Open Source Initiative, and the Document Foundation.
Edward Snowden, president of Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in the release: “Because the source code of proprietary software is often a business secret, it radically increases the difficulty of discovering both accidental and intentional security flaws in critical software. Reverse engineering proprietary software to improve or strengthen it is an absolute necessity in today’s environment, but this basic technical requirement is unlawful in many circumstances and jurisdictions.”
“Right now,” said Snowden, “the blueprints for much of our most critical public infrastructure are simply unavailable to the public.”