Public Money, Public Code: Why Taxpayer-Funded Software Should Belong to Everyone

Every year, billions of taxpayer dollars are funneled into the digitalization of public administration. Yet, this money often ends up in proprietary solutions: software with secret source code, maintained by a single provider, and incurring new licensing fees for every minor adjustment. When the public sector funds software development, it raises the moral and economic question: Why isn’t the outcome accessible to everyone?

The initiative “Public Money, Public Code” demands exactly that: publicly funded software must be made available as Open Source. This is not an ideological luxury but a technical necessity for a sovereign state.

The Three Pillars of Digital Commons

1. Ending “Vendor Lock-in”

Proprietary specialized procedures make administrations hostages to their IT service providers. If the code is not open, no other provider can take over or expand the system. The result is monopolies and a stagnation of innovation.

• The Solution: Open Source enables real competition for the best service, not for the most exclusive licensing rights. The public sector retains control over the lifecycle of its applications.

2. Transparency Creates Security (and Trust)

“Security through Obscurity”—security by keeping the code secret—is a dangerous misconception.

• The Technique: Open Source code can be audited by independent experts, security researchers, and other authorities. Vulnerabilities are found and fixed more quickly. Especially in sensitive systems like e-voting or social data processing, code transparency is the only basis for genuine public trust.

3. Efficiency Through Radical Reusability

Why must every municipality reinvent the wheel? An Open Source approach allows the city of Kiel to develop an innovative parking management solution, which the city of Munich can then adopt, adapt, and improve.

• Technical Lever: Through modern container platforms (Kubernetes) and standardized Helm charts, “Public Code” becomes portable. An application is developed once and can be deployed in any sovereign government cloud at the push of a button.

The Role of Infrastructure: Cloud-Native as an Enabler

For “Public Code” to work, it needs a home that is also based on open standards. It is of little use if the application code is open but the underlying cloud platform remains a proprietary black box.

• Sovereign Cloud Stack (SCS): The administration needs an infrastructure that—like the code of specialized procedures—is modular and vendor-independent. Only then can the “One for All” principle (EfA) be technically scalable without creating new dependencies.

Conclusion: Digital Sovereignty Begins with Source Code

The demand for “Public Code” is a farewell to digital feudalism. It transforms the administration from a passive consumer to an active shaper of the digital space. Whoever controls the code controls the rules by which the digital state operates.

FAQ: Public Money, Public Code

Doesn’t the software become less secure if everyone can see the code? On the contrary. The history of IT shows that Open Source software (like Linux or Kubernetes) is often more secure because a global community continuously closes security gaps. Attackers often know the vulnerabilities anyway—through Open Source, so do the defenders.

Doesn’t the local economy lose contracts because of this? No, the business model just shifts. Instead of living off license sales, IT companies will in the future earn from consulting, implementation, maintenance, and individual customization. This promotes local expertise instead of global monopolies.

How is the quality of “Public Code” ensured? Through professional community management and clear standards (e.g., by the Open Source Business Alliance or the Center for Digital Sovereignty - ZenDiS). Software is not simply “dumped online” but maintained in moderated repositories.

Can a small municipality even manage Open Source? It doesn’t have to do it alone. Through the EfA principle and central IT service providers, resources are pooled. The small municipality uses the software, while the state or an association steers the development.

Are there already successful examples? Yes, projects like the “Sovereign Workplace” (dPhoenixSuite) or the Corona-Warn-App have shown that highly complex, secure, and widely accepted solutions can emerge on an Open Source basis in record time.