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ZenDIS, openDesk, and openCode: How Germany is transforming their public sector with open source

Explore Germany’s open source technology stack and its impact on public services.

Open source software for German public services

When you’re working in Germany’s public administration, it’s not every day that you get an invitation to give a speech at the United Nations or in Japan, France, or Taiwan. Believe it or not, we Germans are very convinced that our digital services lag far behind other countries technology-wise, and our formerly machine-building economy of engineers is experiencing a sort of technology malaise.

Our cars don’t sell anymore, trains are not on schedule, and mobile internet seems scarce. So good news about Germans excelling at something has spread fast these days. Many people crave it. This time it was about open source, and more than just the tech media reported about it. In terms of free software for the public sector, Germany has a unique selling point.

Living the dream: Presenting Open source software at the United Nations

It was in New York City, at the “Open source program offices (OSPO’s) for good” conference in July 2024, where Andreas Reckert-Lodde, then CEO of the ZenDIS, the “Center for digital sovereignty” created by the German government’s Ministry of the Interior and Community, presented their achievements. To the great surprise of many listeners, Germany had already implemented an Open source software (OSS) strategy that others, including the UN, were yet to plan.

Andreas Reckert-Lodde (left) with Adriana Groh (right)
Andreas Reckert-Lodde, then CEO of ZenDIS speaking at the United Nations in New York (together with Adriana Groh, Founder of Germany’s Sovereign Tech Fund).
Andreas Reckert-Lodde (left) with Adriana Groh (right)
Andreas Reckert-Lodde, then CEO of ZenDIS speaking at the United Nations in New York (together with Adriana Groh, Founder of Germany’s Sovereign Tech Fund).

Best-of-breed open source enterprise tools

A few years before, the German government had given the order to develop an open source web-based desktop that could reliably replace Microsoft 365 and Teams, but also Confluence and Jira–the typical tools companies need, but completely maintained by local resources.

Today that project is called openDesk and it features an integrated suite of seven well-known enterprise tools: Groupware (openXchange), project management and ticketing with openProject, file share and sync with Nextcloud, XWiki for knowledgemanagent, Matrix, and Jitsi & Collabora for video conferences, chat, and web office. openDesk is available as source code, Helm charts (for Kubernetes container), and soon, as a SaaS offering by a German retailer’s cloud.

Read more: NextCloud’s long-term vision, data privacy, AI features, and more

Nubus interface example: Open screen
Nubus, the newly developed management interface and portal for openDesk is the starting point for the currently seven tools in openDesk.
Nubus interface example project management
In openDesk, openProject is providing project management for small, medium, and complex projects.
Nubus interface example: File manager
Nextcloud is managing files share and sync in openDesk.

openCode: A Repository with curated and tested code

More important is the back-end, which was the second task initially ordered by the government: The agency was expected to create, maintain, and oversee a repository named openCode. Today, this Gitlab is full of open source code, ZenDIS is curating and will also be testing and certifying software that has been in use in cities, states, or federal institutions–like openDesk. In its third year, there are already hundreds of applications, frameworks, and tools tested by thousands of developers, admins, and employees of the state. 

Nubus interface example: Gitlab
openCode is providing its own instance of gitlab, which already lists a long list of projects and contributors from software vendors and public services.

But openCode is technically not much more than a GitHub repository run and provided by the state with software used by the state and recommended for usage in public administration. All software there is curated by ZenDIS, whoever is interested can join, but open source licenses are required, and only institutions from public services can create an openCode project (or invite someone to do so). This is completely automatic for public entities, others will need to receive a login that’s handed out upon request.

ZenDIS is also in charge of community management and has great plans, like integrating a build service, vulnerability checks (CVE), automated code and license audits, and much more, hopefully making life easier for employees in public services’ IT departments. This also includes regular webinars, talks and presentations at conferences, and supporting open source events like FOSDEM 2025, where the ZenDIS is organizing a whole devroom – with longtime open source expert and new CEO Jutta Horstmann on stage.

Jutta Horstmann, CEO of ZenDIS
Jutta Horstmann, new CEO of the ZenDIS, as presented by the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community.

Integrated applications

Meanwhile, openDesk has been released in version 1.0. It shows decent integration between the components, the depth of which depends on the individual projects. Nextcloud and openProject have the best vice versa links. With a few mouse clicks, you can upload files through your tickets or project management and make them available instantaneously on Nextcloud, completely embedded in openProject. However, calendar, address book, and video conferences or chat do not yet reach the comfort of MS Teams with Exchange, and XWiki is only started in a new browser tab when a user clicks on its icon in the portal. 

The portal and the administration back-end are provided by enterprise Debian provider Univention, a North German company that focuses on large setups with centrally managed open source software landscapes, often integrating with Active Directory or similar stacks. Their new web-based administration GUI “Nubus” has been completely reworked in 2024, and now has a shiny new surface and concise and complete documentation.

Nubus interface example: admin tool
Univention, Linux software distributor from Bremen in northern Germany has updated and improved a lot of functions in the administration tool “Nubus.”

And, so it seems, the good news doesn’t stop. It looks like even though Germany’s government is newly elected on February 23, the funding of ZenDIS is safe, and the center is busily hiring. New projects or parts thereof like the much-used, Typo-3-based Government Site Builder GSB (already in version 11) are coming in, as is lots of new source code that’s hosted in openCode.

For ZenDIS’ first birthday on January 15, the openCode website got a new look and feel, and at the celebration, Germany’s CIO Markus Richter gave an emotional speech showing how happy everybody seems to be with the open source path Germany has finally begun. “This is here to stay, and I say thank you, dear employees, contributors, and developers.” Richter said, and he’s sure that the ZenDIS has a great future ahead of it, no matter who will win the upcoming elections. 

Open code website screen capture
New look and feel: For its 1st birthday, the ZenDIS renovated its openCode website.

At the party, ZenDIS representatives also showed the new look and feel and reported how the platform is already being used to carry out consultation processes (for example on the target image of the digitization framework architecture for Germany’s OZG (Online Zugangs Gesetz), to collaboratively develop standards (for example the UX standard KERN) or to openly discuss digitization topics (for example in the Open Data Forum of the Federal Office of Administration). If you are interested now, there’s much more and there will be a lot to discuss and look at in the FOSDEM devroom.

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About the Author

Markus Feilner is a Linux specialist from Regensburg, Germany. In his main job, he is an Open Source Ambassador at the Vienna startup grommunio, helping people replacing MS Exchange with open source groupware. His Linux roots date back to 1994, and since 2000 he has been running his own open source business as a consultant, trainer, author, presenter and host.

Read Markus Feilner's Full Bio

The opinions expressed on this website are those of each author, not of the author's employer or All Things Open/We Love Open Source.

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