Open Source Software Country Intelligence Report Czechia 2020 - Joinup
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DG DIGIT
Unit.D2 (Interoperability Unit)
Open Source Software
Country Intelligence Report
Czechia
2020
ISA2Open Source Software Country Intelligence Report – Czechia
This research was carried out for the ISA2 Programme by Wavestone’s European Services team. This report was
enriched with the kind contribution of Michael Zelený, Ministry of Interior.
Authors
Federico Chiarelli (federico.chiarelli@wavestone.com)
Vivien Devenyi (vivien.devenyi@wavestone.com)
Debora Di Giacomo (debora.digiacomo@wavestone.com)
Clare O’Donohoe (clare.odonohoe@wavestone.com)
Eleonora Zoboli (eleonora.zoboli@wavestone.com)
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https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/open-source-observatory-osor
@OSOReu
Disclaimer
The information and views set out in this study are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official
opinion of the European Commission. This study has been carried out for information and consultation purposes
only. It has not been adopted and should not be regarded as representative of the views of Commission staff.
Neither the European Commission nor any person acting on the European Commission’s behalf may be held
responsible for the use which may be made of the information contained therein.
© European Union, 2020
The reuse policy of the European Commission is implemented by the Commission Decision 2011/833/EU of 12
December 2011 on the reuse of Commission documents (OJ L 330, 14.12.2011, p. 39). Except otherwise noted,
the reuse of this document is authorised under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This means that reuse is allowed provided appropriate
credit is given and any changes are indicated. For any use or reproduction of photos or other material that is not
owned by the EU, permission must be sought directly from the copyright holders.
Updated in April 2020
iOpen Source Software Country Intelligence Report – Czechia
Table of Contents
CZECHIA ...................................................................................................................... 3
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................................. 3
ACTORS.............................................................................................................................. 3
POLICY AND LEGAL FRAMEWORK................................................................................................ 5
OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE INITIATIVES ........................................................................................ 6
iiOpen Source Software Country Intelligence Report – Czechia
Czechia
Executive summary
The Ministry of Interior is the central body responsible for the development and supervision of open
source software (OSS) in Czechia, as part of its work in the digitalisation of regional offices and
municipalities through eGovernment initiatives in order to improve the performance of the Czech public
administration. The Ministry is responsible for developing a central repository 1 for publishing open
source software and sharing source codes across the public sector. This initiative is ongoing, and it is
currently being developed with help from non-governmental organisations. The government programme
Digital Czechia also promotes the use of OSS within public administrations, particularly with regards to
preventing vendor lock-in.
At the centralised level, ICT projects emanating from public administrations throughout Czechia are
approved by the Chief architect of eGovernment at the Ministry of Interior, which sets out national
interoperability policies and governs the National Architecture Plan. As part of this approval process, the
Chief architect invites public administrations to consider the use of OSS for solutions they are
developing. Should a public administration decide to use OSS – after carefully evaluating criteria such
as acquisition, maintenance, and support costs – any additional customisations to the existing source
code should then be published for future sharing and reuse throughout the public sector.
Although the Czech government is only beginning to actively promote the use of OSS solutions in public
administrations, there is a diverse scene of strategic players working to change this through community
outreach. Furthermore, there are many initiatives at the local and municipal levels that have been put
in place in the last two decades, signalling a willingness among citizens and government staff to move
away from proprietary software towards OSS solutions in public administrations.
Actors
This section presents the policy makers who are active in digitalisation efforts and influence the status
of open source in public sector, as well as the main strategic players that work together with the
government at all levels to raise awareness on OSS.
Policy makers
• The Ministry of the Interior 2 is the central authority in Czechia responsible for home affairs and
policies pertaining to the modernisation of government administrations. A key task of the
Ministry is the digitalisation of regional offices and municipalities through eGovernment
1
https://www.code.gov.cz
2
https://www.mvcr.cz/soubor/public-administration-in-the-czech-republic.aspx
3Open Source Software Country Intelligence Report – Czechia
initiatives in order to improve the performance of the Czech public administration. The agenda
for increasing the use of open source solutions in the public sector is the responsibility of the
eGovernment Department within the Ministry of the Interior.
Strategic players
• The Open Source Alliance3 is a non-profit association and OSS competence centre in Czechia.
Its goal is to support the use of OSS solutions in public administrations4 while cooperating with
similar projects and organisations in the European Union.5 The Alliance is developing a
repository of OSS to help public administrations that are interested in making the switch from
proprietary software to OSS solutions. In addition to information, the repository will provide
links to open source consultancies and outline methodological guidelines for administrations
seeking to conduct quality assessments of various OSS solutions.6
• The Czech Open Society Foundation7 advocates for improvements to services in public
administrations by means of digitisation, innovation, and OSS solutions. They provide grants to
organisations or people working to enhance the transparency and efficacy of public
administrations, meet with proactive citizens with an interest in OSS solutions for eGovernment
services, organise events, and generally work to promote digital participation across Czechia.
• The Czech Centre for Science and Society (CCSS)8 is an independent, non-profit association
that cooperates with organisations and individuals in Czechia and abroad. Their work focuses
on the implementation of new communication and information technologies which have the
potential to aid environmental protection efforts, risk management, agriculture, and rural
sustainable development. They raise awareness about OSS solutions that have been financed
by European Union initiatives and emphasise the importance of open data and OSS.
• Otevrena mesta9 is an association of 17 municipalities which cooperate on open source solutions
in order to save municipal resources and tackle common problems that municipalities face.
Otevrena mesta has many special priorities, including open data, online citizen participation,
disclosure of contracts and good practices, open source solutions, and cooperation in digitisation
across the public sector.10
• Česko Digital is a community of IT professionals - developers, graphic designers, producers -
who want to help the state and non-governmental organizstions on a pro-bono basis to simplify
3
https://www.osaliance.cz/en/
4
https://www.osaliance.cz/en/
5
https://ec.europa.eu/idabc/servlets/Doc6c34.pdf?id=24855
6
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/open-source-observatory-osor/news/czech-open-source-group-consi
7
https://osf.cz/en/
8
http://www.ccss.cz/en/zkusebni-stranka/profil-ccss/
9
https://www.otevrenamesta.cz/
10
https://www.otevrenamesta.cz/
4Open Source Software Country Intelligence Report – Czechia
the process of digitisation in the public sector in Czechia, both for citizens and public
administrations.11
• Bison12 is a non-government organisation focused on increasing the efficiency of public sector
bodies. The goals of the organisation are as follows:
o Sharing of know-how, best-practices, and analytical and development capacities from
the founders, clients and partners.
o Acquiring and sharing resources to finance the further development of open source and
shared software solutions in public administrations.
o Development of OSS products to support the activities and management of
organizations established or set up by public administration entities.
o Creating a clearly defined platform for efficient maintenance and distribution of OSS
products within public administrations.
o Supporting less IT-savvy actors in the implementation of OSS products within public
administrations.
o Presentation of related activities at the national and international levels.
Policy and legal framework
This section recapitulates the main open source software related policies and legal acts of the last ten
years, including the first known milestone in this domain. The list is presented in a chronological order,
starting with the most recent milestone.
• In 2019, the Right to Digital Services Act (law nr. č. 12/2020 Sb.) was passed, which emphasizes
the expansion of digitisation and eGovernment across the public sector.13 Vladimir Dzurilla, the
Chief Digital Officer in Czechia14, has acknowledged the innovation potential of OSS in public
administrations. In the context of this law, he intends to integrate an open source element into
the Czech government portal, upon which other services could be built in the future.
• Enacted in 2018, the government programme Digital Czechia15 elaborates on previous policy
developments in relation to the modernisation of public administrations using eGovernment
initiatives. The main objectives of Digital Czechia are to ensure the readiness of the public sector
for rapid implementation and changes caused by digitisation, improve digital structures, and
11
https://cesko.digital/
12
https://www.spolek-bison.cz/
13
https://www.zakonyprolidi.cz/cs/2020-12
14
As reported in April 2020.
15
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/inline-files/Digital_Government_Factsheets_Czech%20Republic_2019.pdf
5Open Source Software Country Intelligence Report – Czechia
foster connectivity and trust in the digital environment. Furthermore, there is a chapter of the
programme dedicated to open source solutions titled “Action Plan against vendor lock-in using
open source solutions”.
• Although it was implemented more than ten years ago, the Czech Open Government 2006
Initiative16 was launched to examine the future potential of OSS solutions within Czech public
administrations. The possibility of the public administration acting as a producer of OSS
solutions, rather than just a user thereof, was explored. At the time, however, there were legal
issues to be addressed regarding the validity of OSS licences in light of Czech copyright
regulations, the civic code, and contractual laws.
• Also implemented more than ten years ago, the Czech Information and Communication Policy
200417 already encouraged the use of open standards in order to facilitate interoperability
between and within Czech public administrations. At this time, the Czech Government
recognised that open standards are a prerequisite for OSS solutions and therefore, they began
working to increase the use of OSS solutions in public administrations by providing
methodological support and access to information.
Open source software initiatives
This section presents an overview of the main OSS initiatives in Czechia. The list is presented in a
chronological order, starting with the most recent initiative.
• CityVizor, 201918: CityVizor is an online visualisation platform used by 10 Czech municipalities
and some city districts in Prague. The platform enables municipalities to show citizens how their
money has been invested in their locality. The platform was developed as an OSS application
by employees of the Ministry of Finance, and it is operated by the Open Cities Association, a
Czech non-profit organisation that is financed by several municipalities committed to sharing IT
solutions.
• Red Hat and the Czech Technical University, 201719: In 2017, the world’s leading provider of
open source software solutions, Red Hat, opened an open source laboratory at the Faculty of
Electrical Engineering at the Czech Technical University in Prague. Engineering students have
the opportunity to work in collaboration with Red Hat’s engineering teams on community-based
OSS projects and research.
16
https://ec.europa.eu/idabc/servlets/Doc6c34.pdf?id=24855
17
https://ec.europa.eu/idabc/servlets/Doc5a7c.pdf?id=24853
18
https://cityvizor.github.io/cityvizor/o-aplikaci/
19
https://www.redhat.com/en/about/press-releases/red-hat-opens-open-source-lab-czech-technical-university-prague
6Open Source Software Country Intelligence Report – Czechia
• Czech Public Broadcaster, 201520: In 2015, the Czech government-owned radio broadcaster,
Český rozhlas, switched from using a proprietary content management system to using the OSS
solution, Drupal, on its website. Both websites use Drupal, with the aim of lowering costs.
• Supervizor, 201521: Supervizor is an application used for the visualisation of expenses in
institutions and public administrations, helping to provide transparency about government
spending.22 It was developed by employees of the Ministry of Finance of Czechia and is available
on GitHub.
• SpisovaSluzbaOnline.cz, 201323: In 2013, dozens of schools, municipalities and other public
administrations implemented Spisovka, an open source electronic filing system. The software
proved to be cost-effective, prevents vendor lock-in, and encourages the reuse of both the
software itself and good practices. It was developed as a joint project of the Open Source
Alliance and the Ministry of the Interior of Czechia.24 Notable Czech public institutions using this
OSS solution include the National Gallery in Prague and the Moravian Library in Brno.
• CzechPOINT, 200725: Since 2007, the Czech government has used a central information system
that makes use of OSS solutions. CzechPOINT allows citizens and enterprises to access certified
documents and communicate directly with public administrations, while public administrations
can use it to share data among themselves. These services are provided at public administration
contact points, identifiable by the blue CzechPOINT logo. Aside from Suse Linux, CzechPoint
uses the Tomcat Java application server. Open source tools such as Mrtgm Zabbix and Nagios
are used to monitor and safeguard the system. CzechPOINT is in the process of being updated
at present. When complete, the system should be more open and be increasingly focused
against vendor lock-in. The estimated finalisation of the project is 2021/2022.
• Vysocina Tourism, 200726: In 2007, an allowance organisation of Czechia, Vysocina Tourism,
implemented a tourist web portal using OSS. Zero cost implications and the excellent
functionality of OSS were the main motivations for this selection. In this instance, Apache 2,
PHP4/5, Google API, MySQL database SQL server, Mozilla Firefox web browser, GIMP 2.6
graphical software and Open Office were used.
• Open source in schools, 200627: In 2006, an elementary school in the city of Šumperk began
using Linux, an OSS solution. The school decided to stop paying for licences for proprietary
20
https://www.root.cz/zpravicky/rozhlas-prevadi-weby-na-open-source/
21
https://github.com/otevrena-data-mfcr/Supervizor
22
https://www.europeandataportal.eu/sites/default/files/use_case_czech_republic_-_supervizor.pdf
23
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/open-source-observatory-osor/news/czech-public-administrations
24
http://www.spisovasluzbaonline.cz/spisova-sluzba
25
https://www.czechpoint.cz/public/verejnost/sluzby-pro-verejnost/
26
http://m.kr-vysocina.cz/assets/File.ashx?id_org=450008&id_dokumenty=4038665
27
https://www.linuxexpres.cz/business/linux-a-open-source-resi-potreby-zakladni-skoly-v-sumperku
7Open Source Software Country Intelligence Report – Czechia
operating systems and office applications. Instead, they used the money to increase the number
of PCs from 20 to 31. The money that was saved was used to pay for a projector, a central
server and improved networking facilities. Now there are two classrooms with a combined total
of 120 PCs running entirely on Linux and other OSS solutions. Another Czech school, the Boženy
Němcové Gymnasium, started using Linux as early as 1994.28
• Grygov, 200629: Since 2006, OSS solutions are used for most of the administration’s
applications, free public Internet access, and an SMS information system to keep the 1,400
citizens up to date on local issues. As a poorer municipality at the time, the prospect of using
OSS was promising from a financial perspective. Furthermore, the fact that the software is open
source means that it is regularly updated, meaning that users are less likely to run into IT
problems.
28
https://www.linuxexpres.cz/business/gymnazium-bozeny-nemcove-pouziva-open-source-technologie
29
https://www.linuxexpres.cz/business/grygov-diky-open-source-vycniva-nad-okolim-obcane-profituji
8Open Source Software Country Intelligence Report – Czechia
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