The biggest opportunity for OSS

openDesk is a powerful initiative of the German government with the goal to provide a serious alternative to the proprietary Big Tech establishment. It unites independent open source software vendors to create a sovereign work place, tailored for the public sector.

Who are we?

Wieland Lindenthal

Software engineer
Technical co-founder of OpenProject

Clément Aubin

XWiki Committer
Sales & Professional services @ XWiki

Sovereign workplaces in western EU

2015 - 2020: Growing concerns regarding US-based cloud offerings

Lack of control
Privacy risks (US Cloud Act in 2018)
Lock-in

Sovereignty & and security constraints

2020+: Inception of global strategies for sovereign clouds

France 🇫🇷 : Cloud Nubo & Cloud π
Germany 🇩🇪 : Deutsche Verwaltungscloud-Strategie (DVS)

Sovereignty & and security constraints

Creation of security standards owned by governments (ANSSI SecNumCloud / BSI C5)

Ensures software quality and prevent extraterritoriality
Long term vision: one unified standard in the EU, ESCloud

Strategies for developing sovereign collaborative suites

France and Germany have two approaches to this problem.

France 🇫🇷 : Financing of 3 private consortiums from 2023 to 2026 - 23M€ total
Germany 🇩🇪 : One project, openDesk built form open source solutions - 23M€ in 2023

openDesk

Initiative of ZenDiS, Center for digital sovereignty
Financing from the German Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community (BMI).
Project co-managed with BMI / PWC / Dataport / Bechtle
Integration of vendors for developing new features
500+ participants in 2023

A digital work place

Vendors

Hosting offered by Dataport

openDesk - Architecture

Deployment on Kubernetes based on Helm charts
Each vendor provide a different packaging method
- Generic Docker image, with a dedicated configuration
- Custom Docker image for openDesk
- Application embedded in a generic openDesk container

openDesk - Architecture

Unified user directory, managed by Univention
OpenID Connect authentication on every component
Unified navigation menu across applications
Deep integrations between applications (e.g. files, contacts, calendars, tasks,...)

openDesk - Distribution & High standards

All sources are mirrored to OpenCoDE (GitLab)
Provisioning as HELM charts
Integration of signed SBOMs + licences audit
Audit of every component to qualify the suite for BSI C5
Accessibility and UX audits
Security audits and certifications
Install documentation, mainly in German

openDesk - Offerings

ZenDiS: professional support for Germany's public sector
Dataport: Hosting dPhoenixSuite, a fork of openDesk with proprietary components
Current professional offers mainly for the German market