In countries such as Germany, France and the EU, open source is one of the solutions towards digital independence from big tech. In Denmark, progress is slow. It requires political courage to work away from the tech giants – not least in schools, where Google and Microsoft rule.
All IT created in the public sector using taxpayers’ money should be open and transparent, where we ourselves have control over the solution and data. This is the perfect world according to Rasmus Frey and other experts who believe that we need to move away from the closed and transparent data silos that most large tech companies operate with and that many contries have become overly dependent on.
One answer to this vision lies in ‘open source’. This is code that is open, so you know how it was developed and others can work on it. The German government has open source written into its groundwork for government, the EU is also working towards it, but in Denmark no one has dared to make such strong statements.
Rasmus Frey is employed by Aarhus Municipality and head of secretariat in the OS2 community, which works to promote open source in the public sector. OS2 currently manages 28 IT solutions. Open source not only ensures ownership of the solution and data, but more importantly it ensures – or try to ensure – independence from the supplier, which can be unfortunate if there is a monopoly-like situation. The opposite is to buy commercial closed solutions from e.g. Microsoft, which most of the public sector in the EU is using in in administration. In Denmark half of the primary schools is running on Microsoft, the other half on another tech giant in Google.
The OS2 community writes on their website:
“It is not uncommon for users of IT solutions to be squeezed because one supplier has full ownership of the specific product. This means that public authorities may be forced to pay unreasonably large sums to continue using a solution that meets their needs.”
This is precisely the problem faced by some public bodies, including municipalities. They pay high prices for their IT solutions and when they can’t threaten to switch to an alternative, it’s difficult to negotiate fair prices.
“Public money, public code. All public IT should be open and accessible. If we then used our innovation power on open source in collaboration with others, we could create much cooler solutions. Not only in Denmark but also internationally, “ says Rasmus Frey, who points to the perennial problem we have in Denmark; that we are so small and therefore have to collaborate with the Nordic countries and the rest of Europe. But the most important thing we lack is actually political courage.
“Open source and digital sovereignty must be politically prioritized and on the budget. The winds are blowing in that direction in Europe, even if it can be stopped. Open source is directly in the German government’s constitution. It is seen as a tool to secure its digital sovereign identity. And with that comes a sovereignty fund of 11 billion euros to ensure the economic sustainability of open source,” says Rasmus Frey.
Dependency Starts in Schools
The OS2 community is also trying to do something about the Danish schools’ dependence on big tech. While other European countries, such as France, are working to get rid of the tech giants in schools, Google and Microsoft share the Danish public school market more or less equally. The Danish Data Protection Agency has criticised the use of Google in schools, but there are no demands from Danish politicians to work towards digital independence.
Alexis Kaufmann from the French Ministry of Education told DataEthics.eu that the biggest obstacle to getting out of the tech giants’ tough embrace is political courage and the ability to resist lobbying. To that, Rasmus Frey says:
“I agree that the biggest obstacle is a lack of political courage. Big tech has lots of meetings with politicians. I have none.I’ve spoken briefly once with Lisbeth Bech-Nielsen from SF and also once with someone from Alternativet.”
Schools are generally super important for tech giants’ ability to maintain their dominance, because if you can get young people to use your products, you’re likely to have them as adult customers too. That’s why schools pay much less for usage than the municipalities pay in licenses to the two giants.
The OS2 community has received support from 22 municipalities so far to create a proof of concept for an alternative to Google.
“Our starting point is the Google Chromebook case, which is now over and Google can continue to be used in schools.This means that the municipalities now feel that they have peace of mind and are less interested in alternatives, so we are not only looking at alternatives to Google schools but also to Microsoft schools. We know that there are alternatives to both Office and Google. But it has to be put together, integrated and also contain the right didactic tools,” says Rasmus Frey.
He emphasizes that the OS2 community cannot do this alone. If we really want to work towards digital sovereignty in Denmark and support the trend in the EU, the national politicians must be involved and the ministries must demand it.
Translated partly with DeepL.com (free version)
Photo: Unsplash.com
