"Public Money, Public Code" Says Munich

Added: 2026-05-21

[00:00:00]Germany's open source push now has a major city level test case, namely Munich. In particular, Munich's new 2026-2032 coalition agreement says, amongst other things, that open source should become the normal default for municipal software procurement and development. It also says the city's own software development should be published under the principle of public money, public code. Additionally, the agreement pushes open standards, public testing of new digital services, privacy by design identity and proof systems, and reduced dependence on individual software vendors and consulting firms. That means the city Munich is likely to save money while simultaneously helping ordinary users all around the world by providing you software they wouldn't otherwise have access to. Incidentally, it will also help Germany to reduce its dependence on US-controlled platforms with potential geopolitical ramifications. But note that there's a subtlety here, namely that moving toward open source is not technically the same thing as reducing dependence on US and other non-EU software, and it will be interesting to see whether these trends keep reinforcing each other or whether one becomes a dominant tendency while the other falls by the wayside. Overtly, the focus of the latest coalition agreement is mainly on open source, not geopolitical independence. But whether that focus is completely sincere or whether it's partly intended as a diplomatic way of beginning to decouple from non-EU states currently remains unclear. This has been Here to Zero News. Subscribe to stay up to date with what's really happening in the free world.