While I totally agree that this should be the case, I’m not sure it really works. Voluntary participation is among the first things to be cut when it comes to monetary gain maximization, and is often not even considered. And in some instances, like the publicly funded research institute I work at, there’s no funds dedicated to voluntary contribution to open source projects.

The initiative to build FOSS alternatives for the administration in Europe goes back years. In a nutshell: Corporate software is getting very expensive for the administration and poses security risks. As an alternative, FOSS Software is put together to replace the administrative systems. The reason there is so many news now is that the first Software bundles are being released and are coming online in databases.

To give that more context: The BundesMessenger is developed for secure communication in the German army (named Bundeswehr in German). So it’s most likely not only about cash but also about security. It’s e2e encrypted, can be federated to several locations, etc. Seems a smart move to me. Edit: Actually I’m mistaken. It’s for the whole public administration. Not only the army. Not sure how I got that impression. Argument holds, though. 🙈