By In this episode of State of Energy, I sat down with Alain Schoovers from the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration, Belastingdienst to discuss the involvement of the organization with the Linux Foundation and how they leverage open source to make their technologies accessible across the organization. Schoovers also talked about the adoption of open source in the public sector, emphasizing the need for transparent communication, community building, and education to expand open source adoption and create a strong and inclusive community.
Here are some highlights of the discussion:
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Tax administration’s customer interaction services and internal development processes
- Schoovers explains the role in Dutch Tax Administration, catering to citizens’ needs.
- Developers create reusable Lego-like components for other teams to use, reducing custom code and increasing efficiency.
Open source adoption in government, collaboration with citizens and other agencies, and internal culture for developers
- Schoovers shares their open source story and highlights the importance of collaboration within the public sector.
- Schoovers’ team is passionate about inspiring others to look beyond their own products and learn from each other.
Open source adoption in the Dutch government, challenges faced by the Open Source Program Office
- The Dutch Tax Administration has an Open Source Program Office (OSPO) to promote open source adoption.
- The office faces challenges such as lack of knowledge and adaptability, and must balance achieving goals with finding workarounds.
Open source collaboration and communication
- Schoovers talks about how miscommunication between open source and law leads to cyber resiliency challenges, but ongoing communication can solve them.
- Schoovers also emphasizes the importance of collaboration in open source, highlighting the need for multidisciplinary teams and contributors from all levels.
- Communication is key in open source, according to Schoovers, who stresses the importance of education and transparency to build a strong community.
- Schoovers encourages listeners to contribute to open source projects, emphasizing that it’s everyone’s software and product.
Guest: Alain Schoovers (LinkedIn)
Organization: LF Energy (Twitter)
Show: State of Energy
