What’s on our mind: Digital Sovereignty – Why UK Public Services should choose open source first
Last updated on: 12th August 2025| 30th July 2025 | Jonathan Field | Koha
Here at Open Fifth, we implement, support and undertake development for open source library software. In this week’s ‘What’s on our mind’ post, Jonathan Field, Open Fifth Co-Founder and Managing Director, is discussing how open source software aligns with the values of the public sector and libraries, as well as government guidance for ‘open first’.
Open source software
In May, Open Fifth Directors Jonathan Field and Andrew Auld attended the Open Source Founders Summit in Paris (you can watch their WOOM recorded during the event here). During the Summit, they had the opportunity to meet a representative from OpenUK. OpenUK is a UK not-for-profit organisation dedicated to promoting open source software and open data. They do this in a number of ways including producing reports, running conferences and working with the UK government to ensure that open source policy remains at the forefront of the UK technology strategy.
There are many reasons to support open source software and the FUD (or fear, uncertainty and doubt) about open source software has long been dispelled. Do you use Firefox, Linux or WordPress? Then you’re using open source software!
Value and benefits
There are clearly cost savings and value for taxpayers and public budgets of using open source. Particularly when you look at the total cost of ownership (TCO) over a longer period of time. For example, one of our public libraries joined us back in 2011. The overall savings over that period of time (compared to what they were paying previously for proprietary software) are substantial and considerably less than if they’d migrated to another proprietary vendor. More importantly though, the fact that they have been with us, on Koha, for almost 15 years speaks volumes about their relationship with open source software and Koha itself.
When we are tendering for library projects we often discuss internally how much to focus on open source. For us, it is a big deal because we live it every day. We believe in the community benefits, the benefits to us of working with it and the benefits it brings to libraries. However, for libraries, do they really care? They just want the best system for the job. And libraries repeatedly show that Koha and Aspen Discovery ARE the best tools for the job. The incredible quality and depth of both Koha and Aspen Discovery mean that it is loved and trusted by over 18,000 libraries globally.
Choosing open source
We sometimes find that, in the final moments of decision making, libraries can’t quite take that final step to select open source. After all “nobody ever got fired for buying IBM”. And yet, we also hear about buyer’s remorse. The quote about IBM has been around for a long time and relates to what some people feel about risk aversion and ownership of decision making.
Breaking this down further, let’s look at what is at stake choosing open source:
- Firstly, 18,000 libraries around the world have chosen Koha. Shouldn’t the phrase then be “nobody ever got fired for buying Koha!”?
- If your proprietary software vendor is saying “don’t trust open source” then you could perhaps explain that 97% of codebases analysed for commercial applications contained open source software, according to the 2025 Synopsys ‘Open Source Security and Risk Analysis’ (OSSRA) report.
- In 2022, according to research by OpenUK, over a quarter (27%) of the value of the UK’s tech sector business was open source. That equates to £13.59 billion.
- OpenUK research in 2021 also found that the UK’s public sector has heavily adopted open source, with 77% of the sector looking to open source for skills development and just over half have written policies and processes for open source contributions (54%).
Government policy and guidance
The UK Government’s policies and guidance reflect the importance they place on open source software:
The National Data Strategy undertakes an Open by Default policy in terms of data. Of course, open source software aligns perfectly with the principles of open data.
The Technology Code of Practice includes a section to ‘be open and use open source’.
The Digital, Data and Technology Playbook (updated 2023) includes guidance that government software and code is expected to be open source by default and that ‘software should be open-source and designed to allow access in a platform-agnostic way’.
We’re also now seeing a big shift in the strategy of the EU. There’s a growing movement towards ‘digital sovereignty’ or ‘digital autonomy’. This is driven by a desire to reduce reliance on non-European (often US-based) tech giants for critical digital infrastructure and services. Their Open source software strategy 2020-2023 says ‘Think Open’.
For example, the French and German governments have collaborated to create a new open source alternative to Google Docs called — somewhat unimaginatively — Docs.
Open source for the public sector
Choosing open source aligns with values of transparency, democratic accountability, and public trust, which are central to public services (and of course, to libraries). Public services can unlock all of these benefits and align with the government’s own strategic direction.
Remember “nobody ever got fired for buying Koha!”. If you don’t believe it, go and speak to any one of our public sector librarians, in public libraries, UK Government agencies, colleges, the NHS… They will tell you how they backed themselves and backed open source and now benefit from being part of a wider community who are not only enjoying great software functionality and integration with third party systems but are directly influencing the direction of that software with their own ideas and requirements.
