OSS Expertise

The roots of open source software (OSS) trace back to the earliest days of computing in the 1950s and 1960s. During this period, software was routinely shared among researchers and institutions, particularly within academic settings and early computer laboratories. Hardware was the primary commercial product; software was regarded as a collaborative artifact, something to be improved collectively through shared expertise rather than monetized independently.

This culture began to change in the late 1970s and early 1980s as software increasingly became proprietary and closed. This transition can be seen as a “Big Bang” moment for the modern technology industry. It marked the point at which software ceased to be a complimentary component bundled with expensive hardware and instead emerged as a highly valuable product in its own right. For decades, purchasing a million-dollar mainframe meant that the accompanying software functioned largely as an instructional layer that enabled the hardware to operate.

The rise of microcomputers, most notably the Apple and IBM Personal Computers, brought computing into homes and offices, fundamentally altering this model. Software now needed to be standardized and portable across machines. The era of casually modifying source code for a specific system gave way to the purchase of finished, shrink-wrapped products. Because software could be copied endlessly at minimal cost, it quickly became the ultimate high-margin commodity. By closing the source code, companies transformed software from a collaborative tool into a tightly controlled, mass-produced product.

This “closed-door” approach deeply frustrated influential programmers and hackers such as Richard Stallman¹⁾. Stallman viewed the shift as a betrayal of the longstanding culture of knowledge sharing, replaced by profit-driven restrictions. In response, he launched the Free Software Movement in 1983 with the GNU Project, followed by the establishment of the Free Software Foundation (FSF). Its core principle was both simple and radical: users should have the freedom to study, modify, and redistribute software.

In 1998, the term “open source” was introduced to emphasize the pragmatic and business-friendly dimensions of this approach, leading to the creation of the Open Source Initiative (OSI). The decision to make source code openly available was motivated by several factors: accelerating innovation through collaboration, avoiding vendor lock-in, enabling rigorous peer review, and empowering users to adapt software to their specific needs. These principles continue to define the open source ecosystem today.

While open source software is now ubiquitous, from operating systems and databases to cloud platforms and AI frameworks, adopting it effectively is far from trivial. We can help organizations:

• Evaluate suitability: Not every open source solution is a drop-in replacement for proprietary software. Expert assessment is required to evaluate maturity, community health, governance, and long-term viability.
• Compare total cost of ownership (TCO): License fees are only one component. Consulting clarifies costs related to integration, maintenance, compliance, training, and support.
• Assess licensing and compliance: Open source licenses (e.g., GPL, MIT, Apache) carry distinct legal obligations that must align with an organization’s business model and risk profile.
• Align technology with strategy: Open source is as much a strategic decision as a technical one, influencing flexibility, independence, innovation speed, and resilience.

With our guidance, organizations can fully understand the benefits, avoid common pitfalls, and leverage open source not merely as a cost-saving option, but as a long-term strategic asset.

One of the most persistent myths is that open source software is less secure because its source code is publicly accessible. In practice, the opposite is often true.

Open source security benefits from transparency and peer review. Publicly available code can be examined by a global community of developers, security researchers, and organizations. Vulnerabilities are more likely to be identified, discussed openly, and patched rapidly. This stands in contrast to “security through obscurity”, where proprietary vendors rely on secrecy and limit independent scrutiny.

Moreover, organizations using open source are not dependent on a single vendor for security fixes. They can audit the code themselves, commission third-party reviews, or apply patches immediately when required. Many high-profile open source projects maintain formal security processes, dedicated response teams, and clearly documented vulnerability disclosure procedures.

Open source software thrives on a dual system of support that blends community involvement with the professionalism of specialized support organizations. At the community level, contributors, users, and maintainers collaborate openly to improve code, report bugs, write documentation, and share best practices. This decentralized model accelerates innovation: problems are surfaced quickly, solutions are peer-reviewed in public, and improvements are continuously integrated. Community forums, mailing lists, issue trackers, and chat platforms function as living knowledge bases, where collective experience often rivals or exceeds that of proprietary vendors.

Complementing this community-driven support, specialized organizations provide structured, enterprise-grade services around open source solutions. These organizations offer guarantees that many businesses require, such as service-level agreements (SLAs), long-term maintenance, security patching, compliance support, and professional consulting. By packaging open source software with predictable support and accountability, they reduce operational risk and make adoption viable for mission-critical environments. Importantly, many of these organizations actively contribute back to the upstream projects, ensuring that commercial interests align with the health and sustainability of the open source ecosystem.

Together, community support and specialized organizations create a resilient and scalable support model. The community ensures openness, transparency, and rapid innovation, while professional providers deliver stability, assurance, and expertise. This combination allows open source software to serve a broad spectrum of users, ranging from individual developers to global enterprises, without sacrificing either freedom or reliability.

We have been using open source software solutions for many years and regularly advise our clients on them. If you would like to know more, please get in touch using this form.

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Below text is based on responses from ChatGPT 5.2 Deep Research and Gemini 3.0 Deep Think.

As of early 2026, the shift from proprietary software to open source software (OSS) has evolved from a cost-saving measure into a core strategic pillar for global enterprises ²⁾.

Statistical data from major 2025 and 2026 industry reports—including those from the Linux Foundation, Canonical, and IDC—indicates a pronounced “flight from proprietary” across multiple layers of critical digital infrastructure ³⁾.

Open source is no longer merely a component of software development; it now forms the foundation of the modern technology stack.

• Ubiquity: 97% of all commercial applications contain open source components.
• Growth Trends: In 2025, 96% of organizations reported that they either maintained or increased their use of OSS.
• Enterprise Scaling: Among large enterprises (over 5,000 employees), 68% reported a “significant increase” in open source adoption over the past 12 months.
• AI as a Catalyst: 76% of organizations expect to increase their use of open source AI models and tools (such as Llama or Mistral) to avoid the high costs and “black box” limitations of proprietary AI vendors.

Click footnote for sources ⁴⁾

While few organizations fully abandon proprietary software, there is a clearly measurable “Open First” movement driven by the need for greater control, resilience, and cost efficiency.

• The “Flight” from Proprietary: In Europe, research shows a growing migration away from proprietary software, largely driven by the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) and increasing concerns around data sovereignty ⁵⁾.
• eCommerce Shift: 70% of enterprise eCommerce teams now prefer open source platforms (such as Magento Open Source) over proprietary SaaS models, citing the “control that SaaS cannot deliver” ⁶⁾.
• Control vs. Lock-in: 84% of organizations identify “reduced vendor lock-in” as the primary reason for replacing specific proprietary components with open source alternatives ⁷⁾.

Cost reduction is consistently cited as the leading motivator. In the 2025 OpenLogic survey, 53% of IT leaders reported that “no license cost” or lower total cost of ownership (TCO) was the primary reason for choosing OSS, up from 37% the previous year. Similarly, multiple studies note that license savings and reduced vendor lock-in are key drivers of migration.

Improved security and software quality represent another major factor. In Europe, 75% of surveyed organizations believe open source leads to higher-quality software, while 58% say it accelerates innovation. A Red Hat study found that 79% of IT leaders value OSS for its customization and flexibility, and 75% consider it a core element of their security strategy. In practice, many decision-makers trust open source communities to identify and patch vulnerabilities more rapidly than closed vendors.

Independence and “digital sovereignty” are also frequently cited. Executives increasingly seek to avoid deep dependence on a single vendor’s cloud, platform, or application ecosystem. As one EU open source advocate summarized it, open source enables “full autonomy over updates, data governance, and customization.”

In short, lower TCO, vendor independence, and improved security and innovation consistently top the list of reasons organizations adopt open source.

Click footnote for sources ⁸⁾

The NL Wallet (Digital Identity)

One of the most significant open source initiatives in the Netherlands is the NL Wallet, a public reference wallet for digital identity that entered pilot deployment in 2024. Developed by the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (MinBZK), it forms a key component of the Dutch “Open, unless” policy ⁹⁾.

• The Switch: Rather than procuring a proprietary identity platform or relying on large technology ecosystems (such as Apple or Google Wallets), the Dutch government developed its own reference architecture using Rust, Flutter, and PostgreSQL.
• Significance: The complete source code is publicly hosted on GitHub, enabling transparency, public auditing, and community contributions. The system is designed to be interoperable across the EU, allowing citizens to verify identity attributes—such as age, diplomas, or credentials—without vendor lock-in.
• Strategic Impact: The project establishes a strong precedent for digital sovereignty, ensuring that the government retains full control over the logic, security, and evolution of highly sensitive citizen data.

Dutch Tax Office (Belastingdienst) Observability

Between 2023 and 2025, the Belastingdienst (Dutch Tax Office) executed a large-scale architectural transformation to modernize its monitoring and observability landscape ¹⁰⁾.

• The Switch: The organization migrated from a fragmented set of costly proprietary tools (including IBM and BMC) to a centralized open source observability platform known as the Grafana LGTM stack (Logs, Grafana, Traces, Metrics).
• Architecture: To meet strict data sovereignty and compliance requirements, the solution is deployed on-premise, with OpenTelemetry used for standardized data collection.
• Outcome: The transition enabled more than 250 internal teams to adopt self-service monitoring, significantly reducing licensing costs while delivering a unified operational view of a complex, high-volume IT environment.

Smals & G-Cloud (Federal Infrastructure)

In Belgium, a major driver of open source adoption is Smals, the non-profit IT organization responsible for technology services in the social security and healthcare sectors ¹¹⁾.

• The Switch: Smals spearheaded the development of the G-Cloud, a hybrid cloud platform for the Belgian federal government. A central element of this effort was a deliberate “Flight from Oracle”, migrating legacy proprietary databases to PostgreSQL (via EnterpriseDB).
• Scale: The initiative consolidated 37 regional data centers into just 4 primary environments, all built on an open source-first infrastructure model.
• Significance: The project demonstrated that mission-critical government systems—such as social security and healthcare records—can operate more reliably and at lower cost on open source platforms than on traditional proprietary “big iron” systems.

In 2016, G-Cloud received the Best Project award at the eGov Awards. As a result, Belgian government institutions are now able to focus more heavily on application development while significantly reducing long-term IT costs.

Several governments and large enterprises have publicly announced major OSS migrations over the past five years. In late 2025, Austria’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs (BMWET) completed a transition from proprietary cloud and SaaS tools to a sovereign Nextcloud-plus-LibreOffice solution. This initiative, serving approximately 1,200 users, was explicitly driven by digital sovereignty concerns—specifically, retaining control over citizen data and reducing reliance on foreign vendors.

Around the same period, Austria’s military migrated approximately 16,000 desktops from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice for similar strategic reasons. In Germany, the state of Schleswig-Holstein has begun migrating 30,000 government workstations from Windows and Microsoft Office to Linux and LibreOffice by 2026, citing both cost savings and long-term control.

Other prominent public-sector migrations include the French Gendarmerie, which transitioned 37,000 desktops to Linux, and Italy’s Ministry of Defense, which migrated 5,000 users to LibreOffice.

Together, these cases demonstrate that large organizations, particularly in the public sector, are actively replacing closed-source stacks with open source alternatives, most often citing security, sovereignty, and cost efficiency as primary motivations.

Click footnote for sources ¹²⁾