Government Open Source Policies

April 16, 2010

This is the seventh update to the CSIS Open Source Policy survey. The survey tracks governmental policies on the use of open source software as reported in the press or other media. As with the previous efforts, we included only explicit statements of policy and did not count decisions by governments to use or purchase open source software, as this may only reflect a decision based on price or product.

The data in this and the earlier tables provide a snapshot of the state of open source policy at a given moment. We divided open source policies into four categories: research, mandates (where the use of open source software is required), preferences (where the use of open source software is given preference, but not mandated), and advisory (where the use of open source software is permitted). We also looked at whether an initiative was made at the national, regional, or local level, and whether it was accepted, under consideration, or rejected.