Four BlueHats awards for free software maintainers used by the administration

Illustration of the launch of the BlueHats community by Dinsic (Dinum since)

Since the Heartbleed vulnerabilities (discovered in 2014) and Log4Shell (spotted in 2021), we know this still current phenomenon: “A large number of software dependencies published under a free license are maintained in an artisanal way, with an aberrant disproportion between their usefulness and the means available to developers to maintain them.”This is what the free software and digital commons mission of the Dinum (Interministerial Digital Directorate) recalls, which asks: “How many public administration products will suffer from such flaws if the maintainers of a free, critical and fragile brick do not have the means to continue developing it?»

For “essential and poorly supported” free software

That is why the mission is partnering with the NLnet Foundation and announcing four BlueHats prizes of 10,000 euros. They will reward “the work of maintainers of free software heavily used in administration, software that is both essential and poorly supported”.

These maintainers must be citizens of a member country of the European Union. Only legal entities or non-profit associations will be retained. A jury will meet to choose four projects to be rewarded in March, April, May and June 2024.

Created in 2018, BlueHats is a community that “brings together all the people, in the administration and outside the administration, who contribute to free software developed and / or used by the administration”.

Dutch foundation, NLnet announced in November to support 55 free and open source software projects, with 27 million euros.

Read also

Open source in Europe: BlueHats, the French public sector initiative, winner – November 5, 2023

An action plan “free software and digital commons” for the public service – February 8, 2023

Free Software: The government wants to cultivate the community – November 12, 2021