Article 9 of the Federal Act on the Use of Electronic Means to Carry Out Official Tasks1 requires Swiss federal authorities to publish the source code of software they develop or commission for the performance of their work.2
The Federal Chancellery hosts the Swiss Federal OSS3Catalog. It comprises “the software developed by the federal authorities and published as open source since 1 January 2024” (that is, the date of the enactment of the EMOTA).
As of writing, the OSS Catalog contains links to 60 OSS repositories. Note that, per the Federal Chancellery, “[e]ach authority is responsible for publishing its own source code”, so this collection may reflect an initial effort and may (very well) not be complete.
Unfortunately, the catalog currently only allows search by the name of the organizational unit and the software, which limits the usefulness of the search.
Quite a number of repositories are part of “swiyu” (a digital identity solution) and of a collection of “jEAP” (Java Enterprise Application Platform) tools. In order to find geo-related OSS, look for “Federal Office of Topography”, the Swiss NMA4 better known as “swisstopo”. Currently, this search only yields the “STAC API” of swisstopo. Perusing the OSS catalog, I additionally found “KADAS Albireo”, a QGIS-based mapping application for the Swiss Armed Forces.
A start towards digital sovereignty. Hopefully, the list grows longer.
Footnotes
Article 9 states (auto-translated): (1) The federal authorities subject to this act shall disclose the source code of software that they develop or have developed for the performance of their tasks, unless the rights of third parties or security-related reasons would preclude or restrict this. (2) They shall allow any person to use, further develop, and distribute the software and shall not charge any license fees. (3) The rights under paragraph 2 shall be granted in the form of private law licenses, unless other enactments stipulate otherwise. Disputes between licensors and licensees shall be settled under civil law. (4) Where possible and appropriate, internationally established license texts shall be used. Liability claims by licensees shall be excluded to the extent legally possible. (5) The federal authorities subject to this act may provide supplementary services, in particular for integration, maintenance, ensuring information security, and support, provided that the services serve to fulfill official tasks and can be provided at reasonable expense. (6) They shall charge a fee that covers the costs of the supplementary services. The competent department may allow exceptions for certain services if this does not compete with the private sector.↩︎
Open-source software.↩︎
National Mapping Agency.↩︎