The "why" question as a guiding principle for a sustainable digital future

Open source, digital sovereignty and clear decision-making logic are becoming increasingly important for organizations – especially where the focus is on long-term scalability, interoperability and security. In a recent university interview, Laurent Rohmer, Senior Manager at BearingPoint, shared key perspectives on Free Open Source Software (FOSS), digital sustainability and the impact of EMBAG. We pick up on these impulses and classify them from BearingPoint's point of view.

Digital sustainability in an open source context: Multidimensional thinking

Digital sustainability in the open source environment cannot be reduced to a single aspect. From BearingPoint's point of view, it manifests itself in three dimensions in particular:

1. Economic sustainability
   The use of open source enables reuse instead of new development. Current figures from the Open Source Study Switzerland 2024 show that open source has long since arrived in the mainstream: Almost all organizations surveyed use OSS, many of them intensively across numerous application areas. This leads to economies of scale and lower total cost of ownership (TCO) in the long term.
    
2. Institutional sustainability
   Openness promotes transparency, capacity building and cooperation. Open standards, interoperability and exchange in communities are among the most important reasons for the use of open source. These principles are in line with modern management and organisational models – especially in the public sector.
    
3. Technical sustainability
   Open technologies increase the longevity and future viability of digital solutions. Interoperable architectures and standardized interfaces reduce dependencies and facilitate federal scaling – a central goal of many organizations.

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Why the open source study Switzerland is relevant for companies

For BearingPoint, the Open Source Study Switzerland has a concrete practical benefit. It provides reliable data to:

• justify strategic decisions on the basis of facts,
• underpin business cases for open source solutions,
• Objectify procurement and technology decisions.

Particularly noteworthy: A growing proportion of organizations are publishing open source software themselves or are actively planning to do so. At the same time, cloud-native technologies such as Kubernetes are firmly established in many environments – including the public sector. These insights help customers answer a key question: Why open source – and why now?

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EMBAG: Clear guidelines for "open by default"

The Bundesgesetz über den Einsatz elektronischer Mittel zur Erfüllung von Behördenaufgaben (EMBAG) structurally anchors openness in the federal administration. Central elements are:

• Publishing self-developed or commissioned code as open source (with clearly defined exceptions),
• Provision of administrative data as open government data,
• binding open standards as well as electronic interfaces.

For organizations, this means:

• Efficiency gains through reuse,
• Interoperability across organisational and federal boundaries,
• Improve quality through transparency and community feedback.

Open source is thus not only recommended, but systematically promoted and placed in a clear framework.

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Open source as a long-term european trend

It is also clear beyond Switzerland that open source can generate measurable economic effects. European analyses link increasing OSS contributions to innovation, additional value creation and new technology companies. This perspective is becoming increasingly important, especially in times of geopolitical uncertainty and growing dependencies.

Sovereignty means: shaping instead of being managed.

Laurent Rohmer, Senior Manager at BearingPoint

How BearingPoint supports organizations in concrete terms

In order to use open source strategically and sustainably, BearingPoint supports organizations along several fields of action:

Establish
FOSS governance Clear roles, guidelines, approval and publishing processes make open source manageable and scalable. In this way, re-use becomes routine – and not the exception.

Professionalize
compliance and security This includes SBOM management, license checks, defined security fix processes and, where appropriate, managed services for integration, operation and support.

Procurement thinking
"open-by-design" Open standards, interfaces, community maturity and licensing models are becoming fixed decision-making criteria. This creates transparency in procurement and reduces lock-in risks.

In this way, open source is moving from an individual decision to a strategic component of the digital architecture.

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The "why" question as a decision-making framework

Open and proprietary software are not contradictory. The decisive factor is the conscious weighing along clear criteria:

• Interoperability and open standards
• Security and transparency
• Costs over the entire life cycle (TCO)
• Sovereignty and avoidance of lock-in
• Governance, operations, and support

Consistently answering the "why" question creates orientation and trust – today and in the long term.