Switzerland has taken a bold step, mandating that all government software be open source, and that government agencies disclose the source code it develops.

European countries have become increasingly wary of reliance on Big Tech. Europe has much stricter privacy laws than the US, a point of ongoing concern for governments and organizations as they work to keep citizens’ data within the bloc. German Schleswig-Holstein recently migrated 30,000 computers from Microsoft products to Linux and LibreOffice.

Switzerland is now following suit, mandating that government agencies use open source software and disclose the source code of any applications they develop so the source code can be freely used by others.

Swiss publication datenrecht.ch outlines the two key provisions:

• The use of Open Source Software – to the extent possible, the federal government should disclose the source code of software that it develops or has developed for free reuse,
• The gradual public provision of data obtained or generated for the fulfillment of statutory tasks (Open Government Data),

If more jurisdictions continue to make the switch to open source software, it could help accelerate Linux adoption outside of the server and enterprise.