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For 25 years, FSFE contributors have participated at FOSDEM. Support our work for software freedom by helping us gain 25 new FSFE supporters at this year’s FOSDEM! Donate Now Our Campaigns

Public Money? Public Code!

Why is software created using taxpayers' money not released as Free Software? We want legislation requiring that publicly financed software developed for the public sector be made publicly available under a Free and Open Source Software licence. If it is public money, it should be public code as well. The Public Money? Public Code! campaign aims to set Free Software as the standard for publicly financed software. Public administrations following this principle can benefit from collaboration with other public bodies, independence from single vendors, potential tax savings, increased innovation, and a better basis for IT security. The Free Software Foundation Europe together with over 200 civil society organisations and more than 31.000 individuals has signed the Open Letter. We will use the signatures to contact decision makers and political representatives all over Europe and convince them to make public code the standard. You are invited to add your signature to make a bigger impact! In the framework of this campaign, we are also working on empowering civil society to get active in helping us convince their public administrations. For this, we have created the activity "Contact your administrations". In this wiki page, you will find all the necessary information and arguments that you will need when getting in touch with your public administrations. You will also find some example letters in different languages that you can tailor to reach out your political representatives. Furthermore, we are offering workshops to our community to provide a more practical approach to this activity. Stay tuned for more information! Code paid by the people should be available to the people!

Our campaign video is now available in nine languages; English, Dutch, French, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, German and Swedish. You can visit our Public Money? Public Code! website to find it in your language.

Further Links

●Campaign website ●Open letter for Public Code ●Expert brochure "Modernising Public Infrastructure with Free Software" ●Press and media kit ●How to get active during electoral campaigns ●SFP#44: Policy and EU: Navigate through current relevant EU initiatives 16 January 2026 ●A strong close to 2025 at 39C3; a promising start to 2026 thanks to your support 14 January 2026 ●Wrapping Up the Year With Free Software at the 39C3 16 December 2025 ●SFP#42: Policy and EU: The answer for a digital sovereign future must be Free Software 12 December 2025 ●Germany Stack +++ DMA+++ YH4F 09 December 2025 All related news and events As a charity that empowers users to control technology we create a general understanding for Free Software, enhance users' rights, encourage people to use and develop Free Software, and provide resources for the promotion of software freedom. Learn more