On Friday, April 24th, the Dutch government soft-launched code.overheid.nl, a digital platform for developers to publish open source software.

The platform’s goal is to become a full-fledged alternative to GitHub and GitLab, as the government recognizes an increasing need for digital sovereignty.

Currently, the government’s free and open-source software is hosted on platforms such as GitHub and GitLab, which are external Git repositories that are not under government control.

The administration has classified both developer platforms as risky because they are not fully free software.

“Furthermore, hosting source code is a critical component of the Dutch government’s infrastructure. The government cannot afford the risk of code or binaries in repositories being tampered with, as people could execute them directly. The government must be certain that these binaries were created with integrity. That is why it is important to have full control over a Git forge,” the government previously explained.

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That’s why the Open Source Program Office (OSPO), a division within the Ministry of the Interior, has chosen to opt for Forgejo.

“Forgejo offers the ability to study, modify, and distribute all of its source code. This is precisely in line with the government's goals. Every investment in Forgejo enters the public domain and thereby benefits tax-paying citizens and businesses. Public money, public code. By investing in Forgejo, the government invests in the public domain,” OSPO said.

For the time being, code.overheid.nl has been soft-launched, meaning the platform is accessible only to a handful of government institutions. On top of that, the platform is currently being built together with developers.

According to the Dutch government, the new platform will enable numerous organizations to collaborate more directly in the future, allowing them, for example, to work together on tooling.

“Here’s an invitation to keep an eye on code.overheid.nl and, if possible, help build it. Only by working together can we create a fully-fledged GitHub alternative,” the blog post concludes.

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