The initiatives implemented by AgID, through the Guidelines on the acquisition and reuse of software for public administrations, to facilitate the transition to Open Source of the public sector, improve the sharing of solutions and simplify investments in digital services. The objective is to network the software and applications used by public offices, so as to allow those who need them to access and use them, making sure that any investment of a PA is put in common with other administrations and the community. 

The AgID guidelines outline how Public Administrations that need to purchase new software can check whether other administrations already have the software they need. Moreover, the guidelines establish that the solutions made reusable by the Public Administration are published under an Open Source license in a repository accessible to PA and users (included in the Developers Italia catalogue) and define the reuse model articulated in the two phases of development and reuse. However, such a request needed a "showcase" where PAs could check the availability of programs to be reused.

In order to put it into practice, AgID has recently launched the initiative of an ad hoc national competence centre. The Competence Centre for Re-use and Open Source - CCROS - provides expertise and tools to support the processes of purchasing, developing and reusing IT solutions in Public Administrations. One of the main objectives of the project is also represented by the possibility of generating significant savings for the state coffers. The sharing of software can also trigger significant economies of scale, with cost savings of up to 800 million euros per year.

CCROS will function as a coordination point: it will receive from the administrations the source codes to be inserted in the developers.italia.it showcase and will assist them in the development and reuse of the software. It will then act as a megaphone of the good practices already experimented in some realities, such as Piedmont, Umbria and Veneto.

The Public Administration spends about 1,600 million euros a year on maintenance, purchase, development of software and management of related licenses. Expenses also justified by an "exclusive" use of the programs used by each administration. So far, in fact, the principle of Open Source has been little practiced within the PA. Only 270 requests for software reuse have been received by AgID, out of a total of more than 20,000 administrations.

Thanks to the move towards Open Source, economies of scale can be achieved which, according to AgID calculations, will allow savings of 30 to 50% on the 1,231 million of maintenance costs, 20 to 30% on the purchase of licenses and 50 to 70% on the cost of new software. The transition to the Open Source paradigm will also produce benefits for the private world. Businesses, in fact, will be able to freely use the code made available by public administrations to create new digital solutions and services.

The first step towards the systematic adoption of the opening of the source codes of programs was the publication by AgID, in May, of the guidelines that require public administrations to use software with an open license as a priority. This initiative is also in line with the European Union's 2016 request for a common policy to encourage open source in public offices.