France has become the first country to endorse the UN Open Source Principles  – an initiative adopted by the UN Chief Executive Board’s Digital Technology Network (DTN) to support the development of open-source technology within the UN.

In addition to France, the UN Open Source Principles added 19 more endorsers to its list, taking the total to 36. The initiative has laid down eight principles for the development of open-source projects. This includes making open source the default approach for project development. Moreover, there’s also a focus on building interoperable projects to boost reusability and enable diverse and inclusive contributions.

The biggest benefit of going open source is transparency. The code for any program will be accessible to the public, ensuring anyone can inspect and improve it. It also establishes trust between the developers and users. 

For instance, if you’re using an open-source health tracking app, you can view the exact details it collects, including personal information. This ensures there are no back doors and users are not left in the dark. 

It’s worth noting that the European Commission has also published an Open Source Software Strategy 2020-2023 to encourage and leverage open source collaboration. Like the UN, the EC, too, focused on sharing and reusing software tech along with spreading low-cost benefits to society.

French Government Supporting Open Source

The French government has developed the La Suite numérique – an open-source digital collaboration platform offering tools that can replace the likes of Microsoft 365 in corporate settings. 

For instance, its Visio tool can be used for video conferencing. It doesn’t impose any time restrictions on meetings, irrespective of the group size – a perfect alternative to MS Teams. Alternatively, you can use the instant messaging app Tchap, which offers a single communication channel for your entire team.

Install the Docs app from La Suite numérique if you want to work with documents. This one comes with features like media imports and offline mode. Moreover, several users can work simultaneously, meaning real-time collaboration is as simple as any mainstream docs app. 

La Suite numérique also has a cloud storage app called Drive, a webmail service called Messagerie, and a secure file transfer service called France Transfert. Several other tools are also under development.

Currently, La Suite numérique is only available to the French public administration and for official government use. However, it’s important to ponder the kind of affordability benefits tools like this can bring. Businesses can end up saving the cost of licensing each individual app for hundreds of thousands of devices.

Another open-source initiative from France is Mistral AI. This AI startup is working on open-source AI models that are powerful enough to outperform DeepSeek. CEO Arthur Mensch said that the company’s core focus is on open-source technology, which can help companies ‘build on top of one another.’

This is an entirely different approach to OpenAI. Despite being named after open source technology, the Altman-driven company has kept its advanced models, such as ChatGPT, GPT-4, and DALL-E, as closed source projects.

Imagine open-source technology as the peak form of community building. So, if someone wants to build something similar to or better than Mistral AI, they can view and take inspiration from its code, which can give them a head start and help them build something better.

However, if you want to build something like ChatGPT, you’ll have no resources and will need to start from scratch. This is precisely what the United Nations wants to change, and open-source technology aligns well with its objectives of transparency and inclusion.

Open-source projects allow smaller players who do not have access to endless resources to contribute to the overall development of critical AI projects.

The French government seems to have caught the cue. With in-house open-source tech development, open-source AI startups, and endorsement of the UN Open Source Principles, France now stands at the forefront of the open-source movement.

Anything Can Be Open Source

It’s worth noting that open-source technology isn’t just limited to AI or a select few industries. Any service offered on the internet can go open source, which is evident by the kind of support the UN open source principles have received.

For example, one of the endorsees is F-Droid, which is an open-source alternative to the Google Play Store. Every app listed on F-Droid is open source and completely free. Plus, it doesn’t use any hidden analytics or ads to gather user data, making it a much safer and more transparent app marketplace than what we commonly use.

The WordPress Foundation has also supported the initiative. It aims to build a stable content management system (CMS) for web publishing.

The Apereo Foundation, a nonprofit built with the aim of helping open-source advancements in higher education, has also endorsed the UN Open Source Principles. Currently, Apereo has over 25 open-source projects focused on privacy and decentralization.

As you can see, businesses in different sectors have come up to support the open-source initiative of the United Nations.

However, open-source technology’s biggest ‘flaw’ is its anti-capitalistic nature. This simply means that for-profit organizations would not actively support the development of open-source tech. The reason is pretty apparent: why would you reveal the secret ingredient of your best-selling dish?

Open source lowers costs and entry barriers in any industry, which are the two things capitalism survives on. So, as unfortunate as it is, we might never see a fully open-source approach from tech giants like Google, Microsoft, or OpenAI.

However, with the development of open-source projects supported by various governments, the user base might gradually shift from traditional tech producers. That said, there’s still a long way to go before open-source products become mainstream.