Municipalities in Finland should now find it easier to discover reusable, open source ICT solutions. A list of available solutions is available on the Avoinkoodi (“Open Code”) portal, managed by COSS, the country’s open source resource centre. To promote sharing and reuse of open source solutions, the centre is working with Kuntaliitto, the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities.
This summer, COSS added a third section to its Avoinkoodi portal. The initial list contains ten open source solutions intended for municipalities and other local public services.
Avoinkoodi motivates municipalities to pool resources and jointly organise procurement of ICT solutions, Timo Väliharju, COSS’ managing director told the European Commission’s Open Source Observatory (OSOR). “This inspires other municipalities to join the development.”
In a joint statement published on 13 August, COSS and Kuntaliitto explain that they wish to encourage the use of open source solutions by making them easier to find. The new list saves public services time and effort when looking for IT solutions, and by reusing existing solutions public services make better use of public funds.
Cities of the future
Joint software solutions are a key topic for Kuntaliitto. The association is building a service that helps its members organise joint development of ICT solutions, without becoming a coordinator itself, Kuntaliitto explains in its ‘Project for the Digitization of the Future Municipalities 2018-2019’. “We encourage local services to reuse and refine existing open solutions, and to share their improvements with others,” Mikko Malmgren, special advisor to the association and former COSS member, is quoted as saying in the joint statement. “The open code service fits well to these goals.”
COSS and Kuntaliitto are calling on Finland’s local administrations to add their reusable open source ICT solutions to the list.
More information:
Avoinkoodi (Open Code) portal
Avoinkoodi section for local public services
Announcement by COSS and the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities (in Finnish)
‘Project for the Digitization of the Future Municipalities 2018-2019’ by the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities (in Finnish)
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This article was published in joinup.