Not shrink-wrapped. Not outsourced. Shared. Fixable.
What if the glitch in your school app… wasn’t a bug, but a clue?
That frozen login screen. The digital form that vanished. The e-health portal that times out just as your records are loading. These aren’t just annoyances. They’re artifacts of a bigger story: governments around the world now depend on proprietary, closed software to run the most basic functions of public life.
This isn’t a technical issue. It’s a democratic one.
Episode 1 of our new animated series, Not Just for Nerds, is out now. It opens with a simple question: Who built the digital systems we now rely on?
And it follows up with a harder one: Why weren’t we invited to help?
The quiet crisis of digital democracy
From public education to social care to municipal services, most government agencies today don’t build their own digital tools — they license them. Often from private tech giants. Sometimes from third countries. Rarely with full control.
This creates what digital governance experts call vendor lock-in — a dependency that makes systems harder to update, fix, or adapt to evolving public needs.
According to the European Commission’s 2021 report, The Economic Impact of Open Source Software and Hardware, over 96% of EU government digital infrastructure includes proprietary components. This means that even minor improvements — adding new language support, fixing accessibility bugs — require external vendor approval.
And the cost isn’t just bureaucratic. When public systems fail, people fall through.
- In the Netherlands, a closed-source algorithm flagged thousands of families as fraud risks in a child benefits system — many of them wrongfully.
- In the UK, proprietary software used in court systems has led to repeated trial delays and errors.
- In the US, dozens of state unemployment systems crashed during the pandemic — many built decades ago in COBOL, unable to scale or be patched fast enough.
When code becomes infrastructure, but that code is locked, democracy becomes unreadable.
What open source actually means — and why it matters
Open source software means the source code is publicly accessible. But more than that, it means:
- Transparency: Anyone can audit the system.
- Adaptability: Communities can tailor tools to local needs.
- Collaboration: Public interest groups, civic tech orgs, and citizens can participate.
- Resilience: Systems can be repaired and improved without needing corporate permission.
This is what distinguishes civic tech from consumer tech. The goal isn’t clicks — it’s trust, usability, and inclusion.
Open source isn’t “free” in the lazy sense. It’s free as in freedom to inspect, improve, and share — a foundational principle for anything that serves the public.
And increasingly, we have the data to prove its value.
A 2021 report from Fraunhofer ISI for the European Commission estimates that €1 billion invested in open source yields up to €95 billion in direct and indirect benefits for the EU economy — from job creation and startup ecosystems to digital sovereignty.
Open source also tends to be more secure. Why? Because with many eyes on the code, vulnerabilities get spotted — and fixed — faster.
Real-world examples: from policy to people
Governments and public bodies across Europe are starting to take this seriously:
- France migrated its Ministry of Finance to LibreOffice, saving millions on licensing fees and gaining autonomy in document management.
- Germany’s Sovereign Workplace project is developing a modular, open-source digital environment for public administration — including email, collaboration, and document tools.
- Portugal built an open-source school management system that now supports over 800,000 students — including full localization for different regions and accessibility standards.
- Italy’s Developers Italia initiative encourages reuse and sharing of digital public service components, hosted in a public Git repository.
- The City of Barcelona committed to open-source procurement policies, aiming to move 70% of its software to open alternatives.
Beyond Europe:
- Argentina launched an open-source COVID response platform, connecting public health data across provinces.
- Taiwan’s civic tech community has co-developed participatory budgeting and pandemic tools in the open — partnering directly with government.
These aren’t niche stories. They’re blueprints for how governments can reclaim agency — and citizens can regain trust.
So why does open source still feel like it’s just for developers?
Because we’ve been sold the myth that software is too complex to touch — a domain for tech giants and hoodie-wearing geniuses.
But public code is just like public roads, public schools, or public libraries. It doesn’t need to be built by everyone — but everyone should have the right to see how it works, suggest changes, and trust that it serves the common good.
That’s what Episode 1 — Not Just for Nerds — is all about. It’s not a technical explainer. It’s a civic invitation. With metaphor, a little wit, and a lot of clarity, it shows why digital infrastructure should be transparent, accountable, and repairable — just like the systems it supports.
If we don’t open the code, we close the future
Digital democracy isn’t just about voting online. It’s about ensuring that the systems which deliver public goods — education, healthcare, identity, justice — are built on foundations we can all see, trust, and improve.
Closed code concentrates control. Open code distributes it.
This isn’t about idealism. It’s about basic governance.
🎬 Watch Episode 1: Not Just for Nerds
See what democracy looks like on a screen — and imagine what it could become. Because we don’t just need better software. We need a better story about who gets to write it.
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