Revised EVB-IT contracts make open source the standard
Open source is becoming the standard for public administration. The new EVB-IT contracts have been published. They standardise the legally compliant procurement of open-source software for public administration – and make open source the standard in development.
EVB-IT - What is it?
The public sector generally purchases hardware, software and IT services on the basis of EVB-IT - the "Supplementary Contract Terms for the Procurement of IT Services". Previously, these contractual bases did not include open source software, but thanks to the Federal Ministry for Digital and State Modernization, the IT Planning Council, Bitkom and the Open Source Business Alliance - Bundesverband für digitale Souveränität e.V. (OSBA), open source is now integrated.
What does this mean for procurement?
Eight EVB-IT contract templates have been revised. This means that procurement departments now have legally compliant templates for purchasing open source software - no more DIY, no more legal gray areas. This makes the procurement of open source software just as easy as that of closed source software.
What happens with new software?
The revised EVB-IT creation also stipulates that new public administration software projects can be developed as open source software as standard. The projects can then be published even more easily on the ZenDiS platform openCode. They are made available there for subsequent use together with a user-friendly and automatically generated SBOM (Software Bill of Material).
Where is this available?
Here you can find the new EVB-IT contract templates.
Pamela Krosta-Hartl, Managing Director of ZenDiS: "The new EVB-IT model contracts are an important contribution to greater digital sovereignty. With clear regulations for open source software, they create the necessary legal certainty in procurement. The anchoring of our openCode platform with its license lists is a central point of reference. "